Abstract
Many are the fairy tales and myths that have been spread about the Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. For a long time it was believed that they had wandered about Germany and gathered their tales from the lips of doughty peasants and that all their tales were genuinely German. Although much of what had been believed has been disproved by recent scholarship,1 new rumors and debates about the Grimms keep arising. For instance, one literary scholar has charged them with manufacturing the folk spirit of the tales in order to dupe the general public in the name of nationalism.2 Other critics have found racist and sexist components in the tales that they allege need expurgation,3 while psychologists and educators battle over the possible harmful or therapeutic effects4 of the tales. Of course, mention must be made of the feminist critiques of the Grimms, who allegedly skewed the tales to fit patriarchal expectations and offered very few alternatives to stereotypes of passive women.5 Curiously, most of the critics and most of the introductions to the English translations of the Grimms’ tales say very little about the brothers themselves or their methods for collecting the tales—as though the Grimms were incidental to their tales.6
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Notes
In particular, see the work of Heinz Rölleke, “Wo das Wünschen noch geholfen hat”: Gesammelte Aufsätze zu den “Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm (Bonn: Bouvier, 1985) and Die Märchen der Brüder Grimm (Munich Artemis, 1985). Rölleke summarizes most of the important research in Germany. See also chapter 7 of the present volume, “Recent Psychological Approaches with Some Questions about the Abuse of Children,” which provides a summary of contemporary scholarship.
See John Ellis, One Fairy Story too Many: The Brothers Grimm and Their Tales (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983). Cf. My review, “Mountains out of Mole Hills, a Fairy Tale,” Children’s Literature 13 (1985): 215–219.
There are numerous works on these topics. Among the most provocative are: Andrea Dworkin, Woman Hating (New York: Dutton, 1974);
Robert Moore, “From Rags to Witches: Stereotypes, Distortions and Anti-humanism in Fairy Tales,” Interracial Books for Children 6 (1975): 1–3;
Lilyane Mourey, Introduction aux contes de Grimm et de Perrault (Paris: Minard, 1978);
Jennifer Waelti-Walters, “On Princesses: Fairy Tales, Sex Roles and Loss of Self,” International Journal of Women’s Studies 2 (March/April 1979): 180–188.
Cf. Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (New York: Knopf, 1976).
Cf. Ruth Bottigheimer, Grimms’’ Bad Girls and Bold Boys: The Moral and Social Vision of the Tales (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987);
Maria Tatar, The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987);
and Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers (London: Chatto & Windus, 1995).
The major exceptions in English are Christa Kamenetsky, The Brothers Grimm and Their Critics: Folktales and the Quest for Meaning (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992)
and James M. McGlathery, Grimms Fairy Tales: A History of Criticism on a Popular Classic (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1993). In Germany, the work of Heinz Rölleke, Lothar Bluhm, and contributors to the publications of the Brüder Grimm-Gesellschaft tend to base their philological studies on careful historical research related to the lives of the Grimms.
Ruth Michaelis-Jena, The Brothers Grimm (New York: Praeger, 1970), 10.
Jacob Grimm, “Selbstbiographie” in Auswahl aus den Kleinen Schriften (Hamburg: Gutenberg, 1904), 19–20.
In Irma Hildebrandt, Es waren ihrer Fünf: Die Brüder Grimm und ihre Familie (Cologne: Diederichs, 1984), 34–35.
See Wilhelm Schoof, “Aus der Jugendzeit der Brüder Grimm,” Hanausches Magazin 13 (1934): 81–96, and 14 (1935): 1–15.
Heinz Rölleke, ed., Briefwechsel zwischen Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm (Stuttgart: Hirzel, 2001), 30.
See Hermann Grimm, Gustav Hinrichs, and Wilhelm Schoof, eds., Briefwechsel zwischen Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm aus der Jugendzeit, 2d rev. ed. (Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus, 1963)
and Rölleke, ed., Briefwechsel zwischen Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm (2001).
In Gabriele Seitz, Die Brüder Grimm: Leben—Werk—Zeit (Munich: Winkler, 1984), 48.
In Gunhild Ginschel, Der junge Jacob Grimm (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1967), 40.
G. Ronald Murphy, The Owl, the Raven, the Dove: The Religious Meaning of the Grimms’ Magic Fairy Tales (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3–4.
See also Wilhelm Solms, Die Moral von Grimms Märchen (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1999).
Jürgen Habermas, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit (Berlin: Luchterhand, 1962).
Manfred Kluge, ed., Die Brüder Grimm in ihren Selbstbiographien (Munich: Heyne, 1985), 64.
Cf. Hans Bernd Harder and Ekkehard Kaufmann, eds., Die Brüder Grimm in ihrer amtlichen und politischen Tätigkeit (Kassel: Weber & Wiedemeyer, 1985), 70–71.
Cf. Ludwig Denecke, “Die Göttinger Jahre der Brüder Jacob und Wilhlem Grimm,” Göttinger Jahrbuch 25 (1977): 139–155.
See Hartwig Schulz, ed. Der Briefwechsel Bettina von Arnim mit den Brüdern Grimm 1838–1841 (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1985).
See Holger Ehrhardt, Briefwechsel der Brüder Grimm mit Hermann Grimm (Kassel: Verlag der Brüder Grimm-Gesellschaft, 1998).
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© 2002 Jack Zipes
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Zipes, J. (2002). Once There Were Two Brothers Named Grimm. In: The Brothers Grimm. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-09873-3_1
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