The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World, Second Edition

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Palgrave Macmillan, 2002 M12 6 - 331 pages
Most of the fairy tales that we grew up with we know thanks to the Brothers Grimm. Jack Zipes, one of the more astute critics of fairy tales, explores the romantic myth of the brothers as wandering scholars, who gathered "authentic" tales from the peasantry. Bringing to bear his own critical expertise as well and new biographical information, Zipes examines the interaction between the Grimms' lives and their work. He reveals the Grimms' personal struggle to overcome social prejudice and poverty, as well as their political efforts--as scholars and civil servants--toward unifying the German states. By deftly interweaving the social, political, and personal elements of the lives of the Brothers Grimm, Zipes rescues them from sentimental obscurity. No longer figures in a fairy tale, the Brothers Grimm emerge as powerful creators, real men who established the fairy tale as one of our great literary institutions. Part biography, part critical assessment, and part social history, The Brothers Grimm provides a complex and very real story about fairy tales and the modern world.
 

Contents

The Origins and Reception of the Tales
25
Exploring Historical Paths
65
From Odysseus to Tom Thumb
91
The German Obsession with Fairy Tales
107
Henri Pourrat and the Tradition
135
Recent Psychological Approaches with
153
Notes
271
Bibliography
297
Index
323
Copyright

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About the author (2002)

Jack Zipes is Professor of German at the University of Minnesota. His many books on fairy tales and folklore include Breaking the Magic Spell, Fairy Tales and the Art of Subervsion, and The Great Fairy Tale Tradition.

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