Bottigheimer's "Book Culture from Below"

[Huntley]

In “Book Culture from Below”, Ruth Bottigheimer effectively claims
that the origins of fairy tales lie not in the oral traditions of the
peasantry, but rather originate from the written word. Bottigheimer
challenges the notion that the early tale collectors brought together
stories that existed “always and everywhere” and merely edited them
from their original versions (Bottigheimer 105). Instead, Bottigheimer
cites authorship, readership, and the coming together of folk and
fairy tale in both fact and theory.
Specifically, Bottigheimer’s citation regarding the readership of
fairy tales speaks the most regarding the origins of fairy tales.
First, Straparola introduced the ideas of the rise and restoration
fairy tales, with the main characters rising from the middle class
into aristocracy or being restored back into aristocracy from a
temporary lowered state, respectively. Furthermore, the “overwhelming
emphasis on upper-class heroes and heroines in fairy tales composed in
the century between the 1690s and the 1790s is strong evidence for
middle- and upper-economic class origins for these kinds of fairy
tales, and for a middle and upper-economic class
readership.” (Bottigheimer 111) If this is the case, than it is
doubtful that many if any of these fairy tales had folk origins, which
further supports Bottigheimer’s case. Additionally, Bottigheimer sites
the fingerprints of early fairy tale collections as evidence of poor
sales success, with the exception of dual language French/English
versions of Perrault’s tales that only provided mild reliability of
sales. If the stories told in the collections were already popular,
the books would most likely have had more success, mostly because
people would have enjoyed the entire collection instead of having to
wait to hear all of them told at different times. This supports the
idea to gravitate toward upper-class audiences because they had the
means and motive to indulge in this higher, non-folk culture,
subsequently leading toward economic and artistic compensation to the
writers. It was not until the Grimm’s fairy tales, which were more or
less politically influenced, did the middle-lower class of Germany
start actively becoming involved in the tales, much to the design of
the brothers Grimm. It wasn’t until then that the written fairy tales
and the folk culture began to orally permeate through the lower class.

Huntley

[Robert Snook]

In her keynote lecture, "Book Culture from Below," Ruth Bottigheimer challenges the traditional scholarly assumptions of the origin of fairy tales. Past models of fairy tale history believed in the conventional "upward and outward" distribution of tales. In this model, fairy tales rose upwards to the literate class from the folk via peasant nursemaids. Having breached the upper classes, fairy tales spread outwards to scholars, society at large, and modern children. However, Bottigheimer challenges several of the assumptions this model is based on. 

Bottigheimer examines the readership of fairy tales in order to glean information on the intended audience. Specifically, Bottigheimer focuses on Giovan Francesco Straparola. Straparola introduces the rise fairy tale and the restoration fairy tale. The rise fairy tale features a poor boy or girl who goes through a series of trials and then, through magic, marries royalty and becomes wealthy. The restoration fairy tale features a royal protagonist who is expelled from home, suffers trials and then, through magic, marries another royal and ascends a throne. Bottigheimer proceeds to examine the fingerprints of early fairy tale publications as evidence that the rise fairy tales did not sell very well. Instead, readers preferred the restoration fairy tales for almost 250 years after Straparola's initial publication in the mid 1550s. Fairy tale collections appealed to their audiences and were dominated by stories about princes and princesses. This provides additional evidence for the middle and upper class origins for these fairy tales. Bottigheimer summarily dismisses the traditional fairy tale history as being based on false assumptions. "Herder had proposed fold poesie (Volkpoesie) based on a Scottish fraud, Musaus took up the concept with German irony, and Naubert swallowed it hook, line and sinker. The theory of fairy tales among the folk was solidly in place."

While the traditional history of fairy tales' origins seemed to make sense to me, I believe that Bottigheimer provides overwhelming evidence and a very convincing argument for an alternative history. Although I have not seen evidence for a counter-argument, it seems as though Bottigheimer is able to provide evidence for her argument while effectively dismissing the traditional assumption that fairy tales originated from the oral traditions of the peasantry. Based on her argument, I am inclined to believe her claims. 

-Robbie

[Zoe Ullman Nagel]

Though very interesting and obviously well-researched, I still found
myself somewhat skeptical of Ruth Bottigheimer's and others' new
outlook on the "trickle down" method of how fairy tales spread.
Although Robbie and Huntley have already given a summary of
Bottigheimer's main argument, I will do the same in as close to my own
words as possible.

Bottigheimer insinuates that the middle ages were the period where
fairy tales really hold their true origin. This time frame somewhat
makes sense to me because it would follow that fairy tales would
emerge during the Renaissance period, a period known for its artistic
and creative developments. Boccaccio and Sercambi in the early 1400s
were some of the earliest written fairy tale collectors, but
Straparola in the mid 1500s really revived the fairy tale obsession.
He kept with the authorship tradition, but broke the rule of
verisimilitude, which is why his rise and restoration stories
featuring "folk" people rather than princes and princesses were not as
popular with the upper class as were other writers of his time.
However, the few scholars or upper class people who did read his
restoration pieces seemed to like the basic plot line and wrote their
own versions, replacing the common folk with the upper class
equivalents, thus keeping with the authorship tradition. As
Bottigheimer often states, people were attracted to stories which they
could identify with, and the bourgeoisie could not easily identify
with stories featuring the proletariat. These restoration pieces with
princes and princesses as protagonists hit a peak during the 18th
century. It wasn't until after this uprising of fairy tales that the
fairy tales finally started to trickle down to the folk through
"school readers" and newspapers featuring the stories. Common folk
would memorize these fairy tales alongside their other studies as a
form of "education in being German."

Of all the evidence Bottigheimer presents, I find the argument during
the "Readership" section the most compelling and the most convincing.
Paper and books were products made for the upper class to enjoy, not
the common folk who could not afford, in either time or money, such
expensive leisure items. But what I feel is lacking from
Bottigheimer's argument is what was really going on before the middle
ages. Though I know someone must have come up with the first fairy
tale at some point in time, am I to believe it took as long as the
1400s for someone to devise the first fairy tale? That just seems
highly improbable to me. In the "Concluding Remarks," Bottigheimer
quotes Ulf Palmenfelt saying "the ideal folk tale [might have] never
existed in an oral tradition, but solely in printed and edited form,"
which I find even more difficult to believe. Though this may be a
current day perception, I feel that the idea of a fairy tale as we
know it would be most appealing to the "folk" who have more to strive
for in life and less to the rich upper class who are thought to have
everything. Why would the upper class want to read a restoration or
rise piece on how someone fought their way through adversity,
misfortune, and obstacles to get to the top and find a happy ending
when they already have reached their happy ending, and if they were
born rich, they probably never had to do any "fighting" to begin
with.

Basically, I'm arguing that scholars such as Bottigheimer are basing
their research on the only thing they have in front of them: hard
evidence, which in the case of fairy tales, means written fairy tales.
I believe, however, that fairy tales must have existed before the
1400s and probably did in fact originate with the folk, who had more
of a reason for creating such stories to help instill hope in their
children. The fact that devices to record such oral storytellings were
not around at that time, or at least not in the possession of the
folk, is why Bottigheimer and the rest of us can not ever know the
true origins of the fairy tale. I find it much more believable that as
a form of escapism, inspiration, or entertainment, the folk started
coming up with these fantastical stories that they would tell to each
other and their children. These stories in one way or another got
retold to upper class people, who thought they could perhaps profit
from these stories and told them to others who committed them in
writing and sold them. Maybe I'm just more prone to believe a theory
where credit for the creation of fairy tales lies with the folk rather
than the upper class, I don't know, but I just know that I was not
fully convinced of Bottigheimer's views and feel that Bottigheimer
severely underestimated the importance of the oral tradition in
history.

What I would agree with more is that fairy tales really did not become
considered "art" until they hit the editing process. In one example,
we discussed how when Rapunzel was first told in 1812, a king comes
and gets Rapunzel pregnant, but since this version did not exactly
match with middle class values at the time, it was changed in the
1850s to a version where a prince asks for Rapunzel's hand in
marriage, sexual references are taken out (unless you count "laying
his hand in hers" as a sexual reference). Thus, the editing process
made it so the story of Rapunzel became popular with the mass audience
and became cherished today as one of our favorite fairy tales.

Also though an insignificant side note, I found it interesting that in
the whole "Donkeyskin" to "Catskin" to "Princess Catskin" transition
part, that in Goldsmith's version, the storyteller, Mr. Burchell, was
a man, and not an old grandmother, like we talked about in class.

-Zoe

[Jenna Anne Lindley]

I think the group has done a great job of summarizing the article so
to not bleater the point I’m going to bounce of some of their points
and bring up ideas I had of my own.

I really like and agree with Zoe’s point of hard evidence. She’s
exactly right. When reading the concluding remarks, I found it
difficult to agree with point that “ ‘the ideal of folk tale [might
have] never existed in an oral tradition, but solely in a printed and
edited form’”. Scholars can only base their research on physical
evidence that they have in front of them. They cannot travel back in
time and cannot trace back what exactly was said 100 or 200 years
ago. It would be a terrible game of telephone, a game in which there
is no winner. Just like everything written, there has to be some
source of inspiration to create it. And fairytales, with there unique
qualities and fact that they exist in various forms all over the form,
seem very likely to have started out as an oral tradition. I did
however agree with Bottigheimer’s point about authorship. While there
is usually a source of inspiration that does not mean that author will
not take liberty into his own hands. There are plenty of historical
fiction novels or movies were the author takes liberties to create
whatever he or she deems worthy—sometimes this means exaggerating or
making up details to events that did not happen. The same could
easily be said with authors or collectors of fairytales.

Another thing I found interesting from Bottigheimer’s paper is the
class distinctions and their effect on fairytales. That is it
believed the tales started from lower classes, were edited by higher
classes, and with the Grimm’s were able to be accessible to the middle
class. It makes sense that lower class people would generate
fairytales, seeing as they do not have the best life. Hoping and
dreaming for a better outcome, they would escape into another fantasy
world, if only for a moment, to stories that often have happy endings
or or about people overcoming obstacles. It is interesting to me that
a higher class of people would take fairy tales, change and edit them,
and make them into their own. When thinking about this it reminded me
about rap music. Created by people living in not the best socio/
economic conditions and used as a creative outlet to describe their
woes and problems, over the past decade, the biggest listeners of the
genre are white-middle class males. It’s a little ironic. Why did the
upper class take control over fairytales? Was it solely to take
control of a lower class activity or was it because fairytales spoke
to them too?

I enjoyed Bottigheimer’s paper. I felt she made some interesting
points and was effective in her argument. While I might not agree
with everything she thought, I did like hearing what she had to say.