Studie over de morele inhoud van de sprookjes van Grimm, gezien tegen de sociale en historische achtergronden van hun tijd.

In this mischievous and utterly original debut, Hansel and Gretel walk out of their own story and into eight other classic Grimm-inspired tales. As readers follow the siblings through a forest brimming with menacing foes, they learn the true story behind (and beyond) the bread crumbs, edible houses, and outwitted witches. Fairy tales have never been more irreverent or subversive as Hansel and Gretel learn to take charge of their destinies and become the clever architects of their own happily ever after.

This collection of exemplary essays by internationally recognized scholars examines the fairy tale from historical, folkloristic, literary, and psychoanalytical points of view. For generations of children and adults, fairy tales have encapsulated social values, often through the use of fixed characters and situations, to a far greater extent than any other oral or literary form. In many societies, fairy tales function as a paradigm both for understanding society and for developing individual behavior and personality. A few of the topics covered in this volume: oral narration in contemporary society; madness and cure in the 1001 Nights; the female voice in folklore and fairy tale; change in narrative form; tests, tasks, and trials in the Grimms' fairy tales; and folklorists as agents of nationalism. The subject of methodology is discussed by Torborg Lundell, Stven Swann Jones, Hans-Jorg Uther, and Anna Tavis.

In this book -- the first in more than fifty years to treat the entire body of Grimms' Tales -- Ruth B. Bottigheimer provides a thorough analysis of the stories' content, focusing in particular on the matter of gender. By combining a sociohistorical examination of the stories with close scrutiny of the language in which they are told, Bottigheimer reveals coherent patterns of motif, plot, and image and brings new insight into the moral and social vision of the collection.

In the classic rags-to-riches fairy tale a penniless heroine (or hero), with some magic help, marries a royal prince (or princess) and rises to wealth. Received opinion has long been that stories like these originated among peasants, who passed them along by word of mouth from one place to another over the course of centuries. In a bold departure from conventional fairy tale scholarship, Ruth B. Bottigheimer asserts that city life and a single individual played a central role in the creation and transmission of many of these familiar tales. According to her, a provincial boy, Zoan Francesco Straparola, went to Venice to seek his fortune and found it by inventing the modern fairy tale, including the long beloved Puss in Boots, and by selling its many versions to the hopeful inhabitants of that colorful and commercially bustling city. With innovative literary sleuthing, Bottigheimer has reconstructed the actual composition of Straparola's collection of tales. Grounding her work in social history of the Renaissance Venice, Bottigheimer has created a possible biography for Straparola, a man about whom hardly anything is known. This is the first book-length study of Straparola in any language.

Enter a world of fractured fairy tales and magical mysteries in this first installment of the beloved New York Times bestselling Sisters Grimm series Orphaned sisters Sabrina and Daphne are sent to live with their newly discovered grandmother, Relda Grimm, in the strange town of Ferryport Landing. The girls soon learn a family secret: that they are descendants of the famous Brothers Grimm, whose book of fairy tales is actually a history book. When a terrorizing giant goes on a rampage through the town, it’s up to the Sisters Grimm to stop him and to solve the mystery of who set the giant loose in the first place. Was it Mayor Charming, formerly Prince Charming, who desperately wants his kingdom back? The Three Not-So-Little Pigs, the shifty town cops? Or one of the many other fairy-tale characters who seem to have it out for the Grimms? Repackaged in paperback with new cover art, these anniversary editions of the beloved Sisters Grimm series are the perfect opportunity for existing fans to revisit the adventures of the Grimm family and for new readers to discover the magic of the series for the first time.

"Some of the best folklore and Grimm scholars from Europe and the U.S. combined to give an excellent overview of the scholarly research and current critical thought regarding Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm and their hugely popular Grimm's Fairy Tales. . . . The book is directed to the general educated public and is very readable." -- Choice