 | "The Centenary of Grimm's Fairy Tales" |  |
THE CENTENARY OF GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES
IN the apt phrase of Ellen Key this is "the century of the child," and in nothing is that more manifest than in the literature of the day written for children and about children.
Gone are the tales of "Meddlesome Mattie" and "Greedy Dick" which edified our forebears, and in their place we have the charming whimsicalities of "Peter Pan," of "Snowwhite," and "The Seven Dwarfs," of "Hansel and Gretel," of the "Konigskinder," and "Racketty-Packetty House," not to mention "Uncle Remus," the "Jungle Tales," and a score of others.
In short, the children of the race are being entertained and instructed by variants of those folk-tales which entertained and instructed the childhood of the race.
This is scientifically correct according to the modern biological notions which declare that the child passes through, in the course of its development, all those stages through which the race has climbed upward during the long eons of evolution.
It is fitting, then, that we should remember to honor the devoted labors of those patient German scholars, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, who issued just one hundred years ago that collection of folk-tales which, under the modest title of Kinder-und Hausmarchen (Tales for Children and Household), was to achieve a worldwide fame and stimulate a thousand others to gather from living lips the precious lore of an immemorial past.
In a recent number of the Deutsche Rundschau, Erich Schmidt gives an account of this monumental undertaking of the learned brothers — an account whose contents are weighty to the student of folk-lore, and whose style is correspondingly heavy for the general reader.
We analyze it briefly and quote a few excerpts. The interest
taken at this time in folk-tales both by men of letters and men of
science Mr. Schmidt finds to be an outgrowth of the larger movement
of romanticism which was the dominant feature of that era. He
discusses learnedly the works of Herder, Uhland, Tieck, Hoffmann,
Goethe, Brentano, Arnim, and others, some of whom warmly encouraged
the brothers in their enormous undertaking.
WILHELM GRIMM
(From a photograph)
JACOB GRIMM IN 1855
(From a drawing by Herman Grimm, his nephew)
The vast stores of learning possessed by the Grimms well fitted them for an enterprise which involved not only the patience and enthusiasm of the collector but wide knowledge of philology, history, and literature. Wilhelm may be said to have possessed the former qualities in the higher degree, and to him is chiefly due the charming colloquial style of the stories, while Jacob was pre-eminent in scholarship.
The tales were gathered largely by word of mouth, chiefly from women, among whom may be mentioned with special honor the sturdy and long-memoried "cattlewife of Schwelm," Maria the sewing-maid, and the little maiden, Dorothea Wild, whom Wilhelm later married. Other sources were sixteenth century jest-books and anecdotes, simplified translations of medieval Latin poems, and modified versions of the rollicking stories of the cobbler of Nurnberg, Hans Sachs. Others were picked up here and there by learned confreres.
To express in homogeneous style matter of such heterogeneous origin was naturally a difficult affair. Apropos of this Mr. Schmidt remarks:
On the whole, however, a harmonious style was achieved — popular, not vulgar; strong, even
Other features are the use of simple connectives, such as and and but, and the avoidance of the involved dependent and relative clauses which render so cumbrous much German literature. There is much conversation and it is seldom indirect.
Simplicity is gained, too, by the use of monologue — "I said to myself," etc.
The narrator introduces the dramatic element of suspense by pauses, with such phrases as "Just think!" "What do you suppose he found?" etc.
Emphasis is gained especially by the chief expedient of all ancient poetry, mere repetition: "A long, long time"; "She sang and sang"; "He fished and fished."
Besides the frequently recurring rhymes there are devices of accentuation by means of sound, such as alliteration and imitative or onomatopoetic syllables: ritze, ratze, and plitsch, platsch, for example.
As in proverbs and folk-songs the mode of expression is picturesque and imaginative, though without detailed imagery and metaphor. The endings are frequently jocular, as the sentence, "Anybody that don't believe this story must pay a dollar," a threat that brought one skeptical but honest little girl to the good brothers' door one day with her thaler in hand.
Though without expressed "moral" there is evinced a naive poetic justice. The wicked are punished, often with shocking penalties, while the good are rewarded, generally by fortunate marriage and "living happy ever after." Marriage is usually based on true love, rank and wealth proving no obstacles.
The scientific power of the collection is also great. Translated first into English, it has stimulated throughout Europe and gradually throughout the world the zeal of the collector.
| "The Centenary of Grimm's Fairy Tales" | |