Fairy Tales and Fables from Weimar Days (original) (raw)
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“Keep the Home Fires Burning“: Fairy Tale Heroes and Heroines in an East German Heimat
German Politics and Society, 2012
The article argues that the films Das kalte Herz (The Cold Heart, 1950) and Der Teufel von Mühlenberg (The Devil of Mill Mountain, 1955) functioned in two ways-as fairy tales and also as new Heimat or “homeland“ tale. Besides Wolfgang Staudte's The Story of Little Mook, these two films were the only two live action fairy tale films that appeared before East Germany's DEFA made its first Grimm feature adaptation in 1956, The Brave Little Tailor. Yet, unlike the Grimm-based films that take place in a generic “forest,“ these first two films take place explicitly in the Black Forest and the Harz Mountains, two locations synonymous with the beauty and timeless nature of past notions of German Heimat. The two films also engaged with the growing monetary and symbolic success of the West's postwar Heimatfilme or homeland films. The article focuses on how The Cold Heart and Mill Mountain contributed to the rearticulation of the emerging Heimat discourse in the early German Democr...
Marvels & Tales, 2014
The first question to ask when discussing the legacy of the Brothers Grimm and their tales in Germany 200 years after they published the two volumes of Kinder-und Hausmärchen (Children' s and Household Tales) in 1812 and 1815 is, Are the Grimms sleeping comfortably in their graves because of the great success of their tales, now considered almost as famous as Luther' s translation of the Bible, or are they twisting, turning, and complaining that they have been betrayed by the manner in which their tales have been turned into kitsch entertainment? The second important question is, What is their legacy exactly and what are their tales? Here I must note that the stories in their collection are not strictly speaking all fairy tales, for there is hardly a fairy in any of their tales, which range from fables, legends, and animal tales to folk anecdotes, trickster stories, tall tales, and religious narratives. On the other hand, there is, of course, a great deal of magical or miraculous transformation and moral counterworlds that constitute prime characteristics of the great tradition of fairy tales. Bearing that in mind, the third question, for there must always be three, is, What has happened to the Grimms' tales in Germany since the 1990 reunification of East and West Germany, and why are they still so relevant? Why is there a contemporary fairy-tale boom in Germany, not to mention in the United States and other parts of the world? Because there have been excellent studies about the influence and heritage of the Grimms' tales up to 1990-I am thinking here of Donald Haase' s book The Reception of Grimms' Fairy Tales, an informative collection of essays, among others-I want to set the discussion of the legacy of the
Names and Tales: On Folklore and Place Names
Folklore, 2019
Names, like stories, are linguistic performances; so the twin disciplines of folkloristics and place-name studies can learn from each other's methods. Some names offer straightforward evidence for traditional culture, but others are rhetorical, not literal. Allusions to goblins, giants, and the Devil derive from playful storytelling rather than supernatural belief, while names of landmarks are used as pegs on which to hang local legends. The rules for coining names have varied through time and often use special linguistic markers to highlight moral or imaginative content. As we move into a more semiotically aware onomastics, we find ourselves interpreting names from a realm of popular idiom and allusion which is already familiar from folklore.
4th international multidisciplinary scientific conference on social sciences and arts, 2017
Frequent economical, political and cultural exchanges between German and Scandinavian people during the Middle Ages led to the large scale changes that affected many parts of people’s lives and resulted in the appearance of German-Scandinavian frontier culture with its specific features. This article, using the example of Middle German heroic epic “Das Nibelungenlied” and the corpus of adjoining texts that comprise “the legend of Nibelungs ” aims at describing how literature transgresses boundaries, how frontier literature and folklore function in their new space, how canon texts are restructured following the effects of migration and how the ancient and the new plots can be blended in new works of art. We begin with a short review of the existing manuscripts of the medieval German heroic epos ""Das Nibelungenlied” with special attention paid to Darmstadt manuscripts (XIV-XV A.D) that contain a specific mixture of oral and written traditions of the legend. The article proceeds with description of how Nibelungen legend was transformed in the folklore of Faeroe Islands. Further the article discusses the contents of medieval Danish ballads of the Hven island "Grimhild’s Vengeance” (“Grimhildis Hæven”). Our brief analysis shows the intricate process of re-archaization of a literary plot when it is introduced in an isolated, relatively archaic societies. The legend of Nibelungs was transmitted both in oral and written tradition beginning from the Dark Ages through High Middle Ages and on into the late Medieval period. During this time-span the once simple barbaric story of greed, fate and revenge gets more and more elaborate, rich in psychological insights and undertones, until it reaches its artistic climax in “Das Nibelungenlied”. But when brought to the North Europe, especially into its more encapsulated communities, it undergoes the backwards change and gives rise to a series of archaic retellings. The personages’ motifs become simple and one-faceted, the plots start following a limited number of formulae typical for the folklore pieces. In the likewise manner, Scandinavian ballads show two paradoxical features of archaic consciousness and archaic historical memory. Here the general dominates over the particulars; a literary formula – over the subject and psychological depths of fiction, an archetype – over a historical event. But at the same time we can observe how carefully national poetics treats names and details, especially those that amazed and impressed the listeners and the storytellers. Finally we make conclusion about creative and mental attitudes of the medieval folklore authors essentially different from those of modern writers. Composing new songs on the basis of old classical works, they didn't consider themselves innovators - on the contrary, they believed that they translate real facts about real people and their deeds. That is the reason of their aspiration to keep the names and details that have already lost their meaning or plot values in a new context. In other words, the anonymous folk poets of German-Scandinavian frontier created new works and new plots unbeknownst to themselves; involuntarily they submitted to the imperceptible pressure of culture and transformed initial plots according to the ancient, archetypical models.
The Polish History of the Grimm's Fairy Tales
This article discusses difficulties with translating the Grimm fairy tales into Polish. The first part describes the specific features of the original text and presents Bruno Bettelheim's conclusions about "the meaning and importance of fairy tales." The second part reviews the existing Polish translations. The third part discusses the main goals of a new Polish translation. The conclusion stresses that the new Polish translation should be addressed to a double audience (both children and adults), as is the case with the original Kinder-und Hausmärchen.
Marburg: In the Footsteps of Grimm Brothers
JOURNAL OF CURRENT DEBATES IN SOCIAL SCIENCES (CUDES), 2024
Folktales, with their rich and captivating content, have been capturing the interest of diverse age groups since the dawn of humanity. Passed down orally from generation to generation, these tales have become a collective product of the people, with the original authors often forgotten. In the transmission of cultural heritage to future generations, folktales play a significant role. In recent times, numerous countries have undertaken serious efforts to preserve and utilize folktales as a tourist attraction. Particularly in Germany, following in the footsteps of the Grimm Brothers, known as collectors of German folktales, fairy tale parks, festivals, towns, villages, and hotels have been established, attracting tourists from around the world. In this study, the connection between fairy tales and tourism is revealed and fairy tale tourism activities in Marburg, a small city on the German Fairy Tale Road route, are examined. Using document analysis, one of the qualitative research methods, all kinds of written documents were carefully examined and the historical development of the fairy tale literary genre in Europe and what a fairy tale is were analysed.
Forgotten Tales from the Austrian Hinterland
2023
Review of Diario La Casa di Bice, 1915.18 by Matilde Antonia Venturini edited by Vittorio Alberto Spanghero Private vision of exiled life when the local village of Turriaco became part of the Carso front line. It shows a gradual change from an enthusiastic Austrophile to someone more neutral and felt herself Italian, and antipathy from German and Slovene speakers in Styria. The family returned home soon after the Italian defeat at Caporetto, with the exception of the eldest daughter Bice. Her death symbolised the death of the past, and of the Empire.