The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World 2e

by J. Zipes

Overview

Most of the fairy tales that we grew up with we know thanks to the Brothers Grimm. Jack Zipes, one of our surest guides through the world of fairy tales and their criticism, takes behind the romantics mythology of the wandering brothers. Bringing to bear his own critical expertise, as well as 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 servant - 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 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, part social history, the Brothers Grimm provides a complex and very real story about fairy tales and the modern world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312293802
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	03/28/2003
Edition description:	2nd ed. 2002
Pages:	331
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

Jack Zipes is Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, USA. He is the author, translator, and editor of dozens of studies and collections of folk and fairy tales. His recent books include "Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre, "Relentless Progress: The Reconfiguration of Children's Literature, Fairy Tales, and Storytelling," and "The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films."

Table of Contents

Preface to the 2002 Edition Preface to the 1988 Edition Once There Were Two Brothers Named Grimm: A Reintroduction Biographical Sketch Origins and Reception of the Tales Dreams of a Better Bourgeois Life: The Psycho-Social Origins of the Tales Exploring Historical Paths From Odysseus to Tom Thumb and Other Cunning Heroes: Speculations about the Entrepreneurial Spirit The German Obsession with Fairy Tales Henri Pourrat and the Tradition of Perrault and the Brothers Grimm Recent Psychological Approaches with Some Questions about the Abuse of Children Semantic Shifts of Power in Folk and Fairy Tales: Cinderella and the Consequences Fairy Tale as Myth/Myth as Fairy Tale: The Immortality of Sleeping Beauty and Storytelling The Struggle for the Grimms' Throne: The Legacy of the Grimms' Tales in East and West Germany since 1945

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Jack Zipes knows the world of the Grimms better than anyone, and his provocative and illuminating book has already made waves in the folklore and children's literature worlds in its earlier incarnation." — Jane Yolen, author of Touch Magic

"Jack Zipes does a marvelous job of digging out the way the stories were set up." — The Boston Globe

"Zipes' eloquent and persuasive scholarship is enough to recommend The Brothers Grimm, but it is his witty and trenchant readings of the tales that will delight even the most hardened anti-Grimm reader." — The Globe and Mail

"...this new edition of his classic study of the Brothers Grimm (1988) [is] especially welcome." — Library Journal

Editorial Reviews

'Jack Zipes does a marvelous job of digging out the way the stories were set up. They often reflect the early traumas of loss and desolation suffered by the Grimm brothers and their redemption by hard work and luck.' - The Boston Globe

'Zipes' eloquent and persuasive scholarship is enough to recommend The Brothers Grimm, but it is his witty and trenchant readings of the tales that will delight even the most hardened anti-Grimm reader.' - The Globe and Mail

From the Publisher

Zipes consolidates the evidence that the Grimms gathered their tales from middle-class women rather than peasants. The tales had many European analogues, and the brothers synthesized numerous versions into their highly literary productions. They often used the tales to explore problems of family tension and social injustice as well as to reinforce bourgeois values. Both here and in his Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion (Methuen, 1985), Zipes discusses a crucial valuethat of male self-mastery. With its penetrating comments on fairy tales and psychoanalysis, the French fairy tale tradition, and fairy tale illustration, as well as its rich historical treatment of the Grimms themselves, this book belongs in all literature collections. Barbara J. Dunlap, City Coll., CUNY

Library Journal