Zipes Grimm Fairy Tales

[Siri]

Twohundred years ago, two young German librarians by the names of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published a collection of tales that would become one of the most influential works of folklore in Germany, Europe, and eventually the world.

Between 1812 and 1857, seven editions of their tales appeared, each one different from the last, until the final, best-known version barely resembled the first. Given that the first edition has recently been honored in bicentenary celebrations throughout the world, it is perhaps a good time to reexamine what we think we know about the original tales of the Brothers Grimm.

This first edition is wholly unlike the so-called definitive edition of 1857. In the process of publishing seven different editions over forty years, the Grimms made vast changes in the contents and style. The stories in the first edition are closer to the oral tradition than the tales of the final, which can be regarded more as a literary collection, because Wilhelm, the younger brother, continually honed the tales so that they would resonate with a growing literary public. Their books would become second in popularity only to the Bible in German-speaking lands. By the twentieth century, they would become the most famous collection of folk and fairy tales in the western world.

Despite difficult personal problems and meager financial support from 1805 to 1812, the brothers proved themselves to be innovative scholars in the new field of German philology by publishing articles and books on medieval literature. In fact, they would be surprised to learn that they are more famous today for their tales than for their superb philological studies, which include pioneering work on German sound shifts, and the founding of the voluminous German Dictionary in 1854. But it was their training in philology and the demands that they placed on themselves as researchers that assisted their collecting and editing the tales.

Although the young Grimms had not entirely formalized their concept of folklore while they worked on the publication of the first edition, they held to their original principle: to salvage relics from the past. They intended to trace and grasp the essence of cultural evolution and to demonstrate how natural language, stemming from the needs, customs, and rituals of the common people, created authentic bonds and helped forge civilized communities. This is one of the reasons why they called their collection of tales an educational manual (Erziehungsbuch), for the tales recalled the basic values of the Germanic people through storytelling. The Grimms wanted to bequeath the oral tales to the German people, not realizing that these tales would assume relevance in all cultures. Though the tales can be considered part of a German nationalist movement in the nineteenth century, they were also related to tales from many other nations, and this relationship accounts for their international appeal today.

Seventh Edition

Once upon a time there was a husband and wife who for quite some time had been wishing in vain for a child. Finally, the dear Lord gave the wife a sign of hope that their wish would be fulfilled. Now, in the back of their house the couple had a small window that overlooked a splendid garden filled with the most beautiful flowers and herbs. The garden, however, was surrounded by a high wall, and nobody dared enter it because it belonged to a sorceress, who was very powerful and feared by all.

All of the tales in the first edition bear the marks of their diverse storytellers who believed in the magic, superstitions, and miraculous transformations of the tales. It may be difficult for us to understand why this is the case, but for the storytellers and writers of these tales, the stories contained truths about the living conditions of their times. The tales in the first edition were collected not from peasants, as is commonly believed, but mainly from literate people whom the Grimms came to know quite well. Evidence shows that these people often obtained their tales from illiterate or anonymous informants. Even if they did not know their informants, the Grimms came to trust almost everyone who contributed to their collection. It is this mutual trust that marks the tales as something special and endows them with a certain humanity, what Germans call Menschlichkeit, and it is this mutual trust among folklorists in the nineteenth century that marks it as the golden age of folk and fairy tales. The tales in the first edition set a certain standard that collectors began to follow and still follow even today.

Jack Zipes is a professor emeritus of German, comparative literature, and cultural studies, who has published and lectured on German literature, critical theory, German Jewish culture, children's literature, and folklore. In the latter part of his career he translated two major editions of the tales of the Brothers Grimm and focused on fairy tales, their evolution, and their social and political role in civilizing processes. According to Zipes, fairy tales "serve a meaningful social function, not just for compensation but for revelation: the worlds projected by the best of our fairy tales reveal the gaps between truth and falsehood in our immediate society." His arguments are avowedly based on the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and more recently theories of cultural evolution.

What is important to bear in mind is that not all folk and fairy tales are memetic. Only particular tales that are involved in evolutionary civilizing processes are significant and stick. Therefore, much of my work, even before I was familiar with memetics, has dealt with grounding the history of tales, that is, studying their origins, development, and causes in all the strains of a particular tale type. I have continued to do this in all of my theoretical books up to this day, and though there are faults in the analyses of many social scientists with regard to memetics, there are now a few hundred or more books and essays that take memetics seriously and may one day offer proof that memes do exist in various forms.

The women who frequented the salons were constantly seeking innovative ways to express their needs and to embellish the forms and style of speech and communication that they shared. Given the fact they all had been exposed to folk tales as children that served as models for the occasional lyric and the serial novel, it is not by chance that they turned to the folk tale as a source of amusement. The subject matter of the conversations consisted of literature, mores, taste, love, and etiquette, whereby the speakers all endeavored to portray ideal situations in the most effective oratory style, which would gradually be transmuted into literary forms and set the standards for the conte de feor what we now call the literary fairy tale.

3:16: I have just reviewed a book that might interest you:Women Writing Wonder: An Anthology of Subversive Nineteenth-Century British, French, and German Fairy Tales edited and Translated by Julie L. J. Koehler, Shandi Lynne Wagner, Anne E. Duggan, and Adrion Dula. (Wayne State U Press). Here is my endorsement:

Finally, a wondrous anthology of fairy tales, based on impeccable research,that honors women writing in the nineteenth century. This collection of German,French, and British fairy tales fills a huge historical gap and reveals how exceptionaland how neglected female writers were and are. In fact, the nineteenth century was a periodin which the fairy tales created by women writers flowered, and these stories can now berediscovered and can be given their due appreciation. It would be very difficult to trace all the neglected women writers from the seventeenth century to the present, but you can rest assured that they contributed to the field of folk and fairy tales. And if you look around you, women are publishing some of the most unusual and subversive tales today. One example is Kate Forsyth in Australia. Already a prolific and fascinating writer, she has also contributed to the feminist movement by publishing anthologies such as Snow White rose Red and Other Tales of Kind Young Women.'

JZ: Sorry, but you are deluded. The culture industry is adept at transforming feminism, anti-racism, justice, utopianism, etc. into commodities. This industry sucks the radical day dreams from which we all benefit into false hopes of a better future.

3:16: Did the Grimms themselves take part in the hyping of the stories for a global market, and how do Americans and Germans differ in what they take from the tales? Is it fair to say that Americans tend to only find the kitsch in them, or lionize them?

JZ: Yes, I love this tale and have written an essay about it. Here is a part of the essay that will answer your question: Another confession: "How Six Made their Way in the World" is my favorite Grimms' fairy tale, and yet, to my dismay, it is barely known today, or it is known through hundreds of variants such as "The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship," which has been published as a children's book, included in anthologies, and adapted as a film in the twentieth century.[i] However, the Grimms' "How Six Made their Way in the World" has rarely been published separately as a picture book for young or older readers in any language.[ii] Nor has it been made into a film. The Brothers Grimm obtained their version orally from the gifted storyteller, Dorothea Viehmann, and published it first in the second edition of Children's and Household Tales of 1819; and it was not altered very much by Wilhelm in the following years so that it remained essentially the same text in the final publication of the Grimms' tales in 1857. It begins this way:

'Once upon a time there was a man who had mastered all kinds of skills. He had fought in the war and had conducted himself correctly and courageously, but when the war was over, he was discharged and received three pennies for traveling expenses.

3a8082e126