scholarly journals Fairy-Tale Symbolism: An Overview

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Vaz da Silva
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Carl Jung ◽  
Semantic Field ◽  
Cognitive Research ◽  
Max Müller ◽  
Human Psyche ◽  
Wilhelm Grimm

Because the marvelous elements in fairy tales call for an explanation, a cohort of bright minds have pored over the problem of fairy-tale symbolism. Models sharing the nineteenth-century penchant for genetic inquiries have assumed that symbols are the survivals of archaic metaphors. Thus, Max Müller proposed that myths and fairy tales stem from obscured metaphors about solar phenomena; Sigmund Freud speculated that fairy-tale symbolism is the fossilized residue of primordial sexual metaphors; and Carl Jung submitted that symbols express immanent archetypes of the human psyche. Such early approaches assume that symbols convey fixed meanings, and they disregard the effects of folklore variation on meanings. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm did take variation into account. They conceived Märchen in terms of immanent blueprints incessantly recreated in myriad retellings, but they never tried to make sense of the themes by means of the variants. This path was taken by folklorists influenced by Freud. Alan Dundes proposed to harness tale variants to grasp symbolic equivalences, and he pioneered the study of folk metaphors. But Dundes focused on preset Freudian symbols, a trend that Bengt Holbek followed. To this day, the prospect of addressing fairy-tale symbolism beyond Freud’s assumption of fixed translations remains elusive. Nevertheless, the basic tools are available. Maria Tatar remarked that fairy tales are metaphoric devices, and Claude Lévi-Strauss pointed out that metaphors—in switching terms that belong to different codes—lay bare the broader semantic field underlying each transposition. Müller, Freud, Dundes, Tatar, and Lévi-Strauss variously glimpsed metaphoric patterns in tale variations. The time is ripe to synthesize these intuitions in the light of contemporary cognitive research on conceptual metaphor, so as to address the creative dynamics of symbolism in fairy tales.

6. On the couch

2018 ◽  
pp. 86-91
Author(s):  
Marina Warner
Keyword(s):  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Carl Jung ◽  
Human Psyche

‘On the couch: house training the Id’ explains how the intertwining of psychoanalysis and fairy tale is tight, and the stories are still trusted to offer a key to understanding the human psyche—regardless of history or social circumstances. It considers Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment, one of the most influential studies of fairy tales ever written, and the work of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. The stories have universal meaning, but most decodings remain subjective. The belief that the stories have the power to lead by example and shape character, especially gender, to engineer social citizens, and inculcate values and ideology has been widely held and is still accepted.

Grimm Legacies

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Zipes
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Folk Tales ◽  
Brothers Grimm ◽  
Folk Tale ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
High Standards ◽  
Wilhelm Grimm

This book explores the legacy of the Brothers Grimm in Europe and North America, from the nineteenth century to the present. The book reveals how the Grimms came to play a pivotal and unusual role in the evolution of Western folklore and in the history of the most significant cultural genre in the world—the fairy tale. Folklorists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm sought to discover and preserve a rich abundance of stories emanating from an oral tradition, and encouraged friends, colleagues, and strangers to gather and share these tales. As a result, hundreds of thousands of wonderful folk and fairy tales poured into books throughout Europe and have kept coming. The book looks at the transformation of the Grimms' tales into children's literature, the Americanization of the tales, the “Grimm” aspects of contemporary tales, and the tales' utopian impulses. It shows that the Grimms were not the first scholars to turn their attention to folk tales, but were vital in expanding readership and setting the high standards for folk-tale collecting that continue through the current era. The book concludes with a look at contemporary adaptations of the tales and raises questions about authenticity, target audience, and consumerism. The book examines the lasting universal influence of two brothers and their collected tales on today's storytelling world.

Victorian Fairy Tales

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Shortest Path ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Rudyard Kipling ◽  
Ford Madox Ford ◽  
George Macdonald ◽  
Original Illustrations ◽  
Selection Of

The Queen and the bat had been talking a good deal that afternoon...' The Victorian fascination with fairyland vivified the literature of the period, and led to some of the most imaginative fairy tales ever written. They offer the shortest path to the age's dreams, desires, and wishes. Authors central to the nineteenth-century canon such as W. M. Thackeray, Oscar Wilde, Ford Madox Ford, and Rudyard Kipling wrote fairy tales, and authors primarily famous for their work in the genre include George MacDonald, Juliana Ewing, Mary De Morgan, and Andrew Lang. This anthology brings together fourteen of the best stories, by these and other outstanding practitioners, to show the vibrancy and variety of the form and its abilities to reflect our deepest concerns. In tales of whimsy and romance, witty satire and uncanny mystery, love, suffering, family and the travails of identity are imaginatively explored. Michael Newton's introduction and notes provide illuminating contextual and biographical information about the authors and the development of the literary fairy tale. A selection of original illustrations is also included.

The Irresistible Fairy Tale

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Zipes
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World

If there is one genre that has captured the imagination of people in all walks of life throughout the world, it is the fairy tale. Yet we still have great difficulty understanding how it originated, evolved, and spread—or why so many people cannot resist its appeal, no matter how it changes or what form it takes. This book presents a provocative new theory about why fairy tales were created and retold—and why they became such an indelible and infinitely adaptable part of cultures around the world. Drawing on cognitive science, evolutionary theory, anthropology, psychology, literary theory, and other fields, the book presents a nuanced argument about how fairy tales originated in ancient oral cultures, how they evolved through the rise of literary culture and print, and how, in our own time, they continue to change through their adaptation in an ever-growing variety of media. In making its case, the book considers a wide range of fascinating examples, including fairy tales told, collected, and written by women in the nineteenth century; Catherine Breillat's film adaptation of Perrault's “Bluebeard”; and contemporary fairy-tale drawings, paintings, sculptures, and photographs that critique canonical print versions. While we may never be able to fully explain fairy tales, this book provides a powerful theory of how and why they evolved—and why we still use them to make meaning of our lives.

scholarly journals Sleeping Beauty

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-161
Author(s):  
Margreet Boomkamp
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
High Standard ◽  
Sleeping Beauty ◽  
Brothers Grimm ◽  
Considerable Success ◽  
Precise Moment ◽  
Very High

The interest in fairy tales grew strongly over the course of the nineteenth century, particularly in Germany, the birthplace of Frans Stracké (1820-1898). Renowned artists made illustrations for popular publications of fairy tales and in the middleof the century characters from fairy tales also appeared in paintings and sculptures. The sculptor Frans Stracké was inspired by this development and in the eighteen-sixties created a Sleeping Beauty and a Snow White. He may have chosen these designs because the sleeping figure offers greater sculptural possibilities, for example in funeral art. He showed Sleeping Beauty at the precise moment she falls asleep, after she had pricked her finger on a spindle. Stracké followed the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm from 1812, in which the ill-fated event was predicted during the celebration of Sleeping Beauty’s birth. Sleeping Beauty (also known as Briar Rose) was precisely the sort of subject Stracké preferred: he excelled in making genre-like sculpture of a very high standard. This was little appreciated in the Netherlands, whereas in France and Italy practitioners of this type of sculpture enjoyed considerable success. Stracké is credited with introducing contemporary developments in European sculpture into the Netherlands; Sleeping Beauty is a relatively early and typical example.

5. Childish things

2018 ◽  
pp. 75-85
Author(s):  
Marina Warner
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Printing Technology ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Young Readers

Fairy tale hovered as a form of literature between children and adults, but in the Victorian era, the fairy way of writing became a mode of communicating moral values, political dreams, and even scientific knowledge to children. Printing technology made books with pictures one of the most exciting and successful ventures of the nineteenth century, and fairy tales began to be produced deliberately to appeal to an audience of young readers. ‘Childish things: pictures and conversations’ explains that, on the whole, the role of artists who helped create fairy tales has been neglected. It describes the re-writing of fairy tales for this younger audience. Modern fairy tales display a darkening tone.

scholarly journals ACONCEPTUALIZATION OF SPACE IN ENGLISH FAIRY TALE DISCOURSE (IN COMPARISON WITH RUSSIAN FAIRY TALE DISCOURSE)

2021 ◽  
pp. 55-59
Author(s):  
Zulaykhat Magomedovna MALLAEVA ◽  
Zulfia Gazimagomedovna MAMMAEVA
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Semantic Field

The article examines the features of the conceptualization of space in the English and Russian fairy-tale discourses. Based on the material of English fairy tales: “The Jungle Boo”,"Alice's adventures under ground” and “Winnie-the-Pooh and All, All, All”, the structure of the lexical and semantic field “ Space ” in fairy-tale discourse is analyzed.

scholarly journals Intertextual Elements Highlighting the Postmodernist Features of Tangled (2010)

2019 ◽  
Vol IV (II) ◽  
pp. 50-58
Author(s):  
Mehwish Ali Khan ◽  
Fouzia Rehman Khan
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Contemporary Fiction ◽  
Wilhelm Grimm

The present study focuses on one of the contemporary American fairy tale movies to analyze the postmodernist aspects present in these movies. The researcher has selected the movie Tangled released in 2010 for this purpose, it is a remake of the famous fairy tale Rapunzel recorded by famous fairy tale writers, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. One of the most prominent patterns of analyzing the movies through the lens of postmodernism is the framework by Kevin Paul Smith, in his book The Postmodern Fairytale, Folkloric Intertexts in Contemporary Fiction. He has presented eight elements of intertextuality to examine the intertextual elements of the older fairy tales present in contemporary literature (2007). Analysis reveals these eight elements in Tangled (2010) that are evident in traces of postmodernity in the movie.

scholarly journals Ah!Nana’s Fairytale Punk-Comics: From the Comtesse de Ségur’s “Histoire de Blondine, Bonne-Biche et Beau-Minon” to Nicole Claveloux’s “Histoire de Blondasse, de Belle-Biche et Gros Chachat”

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 235-247
Author(s):  
Valentina Denzel
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Female Role ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
Binary Gender

Abstract During its brief existence from 1976 to 1978 the French underground feminist magazine Ah!Nana represented a powerful medium to discuss various topics related to women, sexuality, and discrimination. One of its main goals was to challenge traditional (literary) female role models, including housewives, submissive mothers, and “damsels in distress.” Through the adaptation of fairy tales, a genre particularly suited through its imaginative worlds to challenge preconceptions and norms, Ah!Nana deconstructed and questioned binary gender roles and heteronormativity. This article analyzes cartoon artist Nicole Claveloux’s queer adaptation of the nineteenth-century fairy tale “Histoire de Blondine, Bonne-Biche et Beau-Minon” (Blondine, the Good Doe, and the Gallant Cat) by the Comtesse de Ségur. Claveloux addresses her queer parody to an adult audience, and conveys a new perspective on gender, sexuality, and humanness that is in line with Ah!Nana’s promotion of second-wave feminist standpoints and punk culture. She advocates the exploration of new sexual pleasures, and the disruption of bourgeoisie values, including binary gender roles.

The Cultural Evolution of Storytelling and Fairy Tales: Human Communication and Memetics

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Zipes
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Fairy Tales ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Cultural Artifacts ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
New Research

This chapter expands on the author's most recent books, Why Fairy Tales Stick and Relentless Progress, and includes new research by scholars interested in interdisciplinary approaches to cultural evolution. It clarifies why and how tales were created and told, and formed the basis of culture. It suggests that oral tales were imitated and replicated as memes in antiquity to form the fiber of culture and tradition. Taxonomies in the nineteenth century were established in response to recognizable features of tales as well as to organize and order types of stories. “Modern” genres originated during the Enlightenment and are basically social institutions that have defined cultural artifacts and patterns, divided them rationally into disciplines, and established rules and regulations for their study. In many ways, the fairy tale defies such definition and categorization.

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