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Of course, the Grimms wanted to listen to how the people told the tales, too. Tom Send a noteboard - 09/02/2011 05:39:39 AM
They were interested in regional dialects and pronunciation as much as the stories themselves. If the same story were told in three different places, they could compare the choice of words used, the way the same word was pronounced in the different areas, and draw linguistic conclusions. Grimm's law on sound shifts in German was a watershed moment for linguistics.

they had as their target audience adult German readers, particularly the educated burgher class, who would (so they hoped) treasure these tales as written survivors of Germany's rich oral historic past. Instead, what happened was within a generation, these tales had passed into the province of children, where stories such as "The Frog Prince" (quoted above), "Rumpelstiltskin," and "Tom Thumb," among others became viewed as being mere childish fantasies, doomed to fade just as juvenile attitudes wilt in the strong heat of maturity.


Where are you getting this idea from? The name of the book is Kinder- und Hausmärchen and they were intended to be for children all along, just like Perrault's stories were very clearly for children. A bit more grisly and graphic than we are used to reading to children, yes - Perrault's wolf eats Little Red Riding Hood. The End. Full stop. Even by the Nineteenth Century they were considered a bit unsuitable for children, but the Grimms collected stories told to and for children.

Consider the darker implications behind a tale such as "Little Red Riding Hood." While several other cultural historians have argued that this tale serves as a metaphor for the (de)flowering of a maiden, I believe the key lies in element of the cakes and wine. In the older, French-derived versions of the tale, the wolf kills the grandmother and serves Little Red Riding Hood her blood as wine and her flesh as cakes, a sacrilegious reference to the Eucharistic Host. It is telling that by the time that the Grimm brothers have recorded this story, the Eucharistic element has been diminished into nothing; the Wolf has eaten whole both grandmother and granddaughter before each is rescued by the huntsman. Yet the imagery still persists nearly two centuries after the Grimm Brothers' version: vulnerable girls are still stalked each and every day and the guileless may be powerless against the guileful.


I have Perrault in French and Grimm in German. The Perrault French version does not serve blood as wine or flesh as cakes. Little Red Riding Hood is carrying a galette, or flatcake, and a pot of butter, to her grandmother. While the first may contain an allusion to the Eucharist, the second certainly does not. She is merely told to put the food on a chest near the bed and to get in. The sexual element is clear - she takes off her clothes when she gets into bed with the wolf. The Grimm version does have wine in place of butter, but the wolf doesn't make Little Red Riding Hood eat and drink the grandmother's blood and flesh. While the sexual element is obvious, the religious is arguably not even there.

I think your deep reading may be reading into the stories things that are not meant to be there. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Political correctness is the pettiest form of casuistry.

ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius

Ummaka qinnassa nīk!

*MySmiley*
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Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, Grimm's Fairy Tales - 09/02/2011 01:15:09 AM 1437 Views
Of course, the Grimms wanted to listen to how the people told the tales, too. - 09/02/2011 05:39:39 AM 625 Views
That and they were after specific German examples - 09/02/2011 10:33:27 PM 598 Views
I think you need to modify your review. - 10/02/2011 06:03:26 AM 637 Views
Not really - 10/02/2011 07:02:15 AM 734 Views
Well, in that case your review sucks. - 10/02/2011 04:08:21 PM 484 Views
So you're skirting the edges of the ad hominem attack now? - 10/02/2011 04:45:28 PM 728 Views
Only to the extent you're inviting it. - 10/02/2011 06:10:49 PM 576 Views

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