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The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales
Expanded Edition
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Maria Tatar
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With contributions by:
Maria Tatar
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Preface by:
Maria Tatar
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2019
About this book
Murder, mutilation, cannibalism, infanticide, and incest: the darker side of classic fairy tales is the subject of this groundbreaking and intriguing study of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s Nursery and Household Tales. This expanded edition includes a new preface and an appendix featuring translations of six tales with commentary by Maria Tatar. Throughout the book, Tatar draws on the disciplinary tools of psychoanalysis and folklore while also providing historical context to explore the harsher aspects of these stories, presenting new interpretations of tales that engage in a kind of cultural repetition compulsion. No other book so thoroughly challenges us to rethink the happily-ever-after of these classic stories.
Author / Editor information
Maria Tatar is the John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. Her many books include Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood and Lustmord: Sexual Murder in Weimar Germany (both Princeton).
Reviews
“The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales—related in language that is sharp, lively, and free of jargon—is delightful evidence that Grimm scholarship can give pleasure to the general reader.”—Janet Adam Smith, New York Review of Books
“Tatar takes detours into literary history here and into comparative anthropology there. What results is at once intelligently eclectic and refreshingly commonsensical, a thoughtful ramble through the dark childhood woods that haunt our adult dreams.”—Carl Maves, San Francisco Chronicle
“A clear, imaginative and fascinating illumination of the stories we thought we knew.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“For scholars, students, and general readers, Tatar’s book is a balanced, sensitive, and informative guide to the content and context of Grimms’ fairy tales.”—Merle Rubin, Christian Science Monitor
“Tatar takes detours into literary history here and into comparative anthropology there. What results is at once intelligently eclectic and refreshingly commonsensical, a thoughtful ramble through the dark childhood woods that haunt our adult dreams.”—Carl Maves, San Francisco Chronicle
“A clear, imaginative and fascinating illumination of the stories we thought we knew.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review
“For scholars, students, and general readers, Tatar’s book is a balanced, sensitive, and informative guide to the content and context of Grimms’ fairy tales.”—Merle Rubin, Christian Science Monitor
Topics
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Frontmatter
i -
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CONTENTS
vii -
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ix -
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PREFACE TO THE PRINCE TON CLASSICS EDITION
xiii -
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PREFACE (2003)
xxi -
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PREFACE
xxxiii - I. CHILDREN'S LITERATURE?
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1. SEX AND VIOLENCE. The Hard Core of Fairy Tales
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2. FACT AND FANTASY. The Art of Reading Fairy Tales
39 -
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3. VICTIMS AND SEEKERS. The Family Romance of Fairy Tales
58 - II. HEROES
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4. BORN YESTERDAY. The Spear Side
85 -
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5. SPINNING TALES. The Distaff Side
106 - III. VILLAINS
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6. FROM NAGS TO WITCHES. Stepmothers and Other Ogres
137 -
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7. TAMING THE BEAST Bluebeard and Other Monsters
156 -
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EPILOGUE. Getting Even
179 - APPENDIXES
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A. Six Fairy Tales from the NURSERY & HOUSEHOLD TALES, with Commentary
195 -
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B. Selected Tales from the First Edition of the Nursery & Household Tales
243 -
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C. Prefaces to the First and Second Editions of the Nursery & household tales
251 -
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D. English Titles, Tale Numbers, and German Titles of Stories Cited
271 -
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E. Bibliographical Note
275 -
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NOTES
279 -
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GENERAL INDEX
315 -
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INDEX OF TALES
323
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
January 14, 2019
eBook ISBN:
9780691184289
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9780691184289
Keywords for this book
Fairy tale; Little Red Riding Hood; Stepmother; Narrative; Rumpelstiltskin; Bruno Bettelheim; Literature; Grimms' Fairy Tales; Poetry; Briar Rose (novel); The Various; Jack Zipes; Trickster; Cruelty; King Thrushbeard; Cautionary tale; Vladimir Propp; In the Woods; Charles Perrault; Hansel and Gretel; The Uses of Enchantment; Wilhelm Grimm; Household; Charles Dickens; Protagonist; Illustration; Sibling; Decapitation; Incest; Folk and Fairy Tales; Fiction; Brothers Grimm; Mary's Child; Hans My Hedgehog; The Juniper Tree (fairy tale); Random House; Anecdote; Humiliation; Cinderella; Storytelling; The Goose Girl; Jacob Grimm; Oral tradition; Fledgling (novel); Tall tale; The Telling; Mother; Suckling pig; Stith Thompson; Stepfamily; Nuclear family; Literary criticism; Dorothea Viehmann; The Three Spinners; Golden Hair (fairy tale); Coffin; Cannibalism; Pity; Child abandonment; Folklore; Allusion; The True Bride; Prose; Infanticide; Mutilation; The Old Witch; Russian fairy tale; Seven Dwarfs; Simpleton (stock character); Bleak House
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
