Notes on Fairy Tales*
“Fairy Tales” as a name for this genre of story came from Madame d’ Aulnoy’s 1697 book Contes des fees, which was translated into English as Tales of the Fairys. However, the label of “Fairy Tales” didn’t truly enter into the English Language until much later – it didn’t appear in the Oxford English Dictionary until 1749.
The Evolution of
the Fairy Tale
The Oral Tale
Oral folk tale tradition, storytelling – stretches back to pre-literate history. Oral tales were accociated with lower-class, peasantry. Deal with themes of oppression, and hope in the face of oppression.
Middle Ages to Renaissance, folk storytelling was the center of the household, usually at hearth, but also in the fields, at taverns, even in churches, to appeal to peasantry. These tales were often interactive, and chosen according to need, probably improvisational.
Shared tales provided a sense of:
1) Community (present)
2) Tradition (past)
These folk tales were NOT children’s tales, but were stories for ALL ages. The line between childhood and adulthood wasn’t as strickly drawn.
The Literary Folk Tale
Two types of literary fairy tales:
1. Re-crafting and publishing of oral folk tales
(Grimm Brothers, Charles Perrault, De Beaumont, etc.)
2. Invention of new tales using fairy tale conventions
(Hans Christian Anderson)
- Charles Perrault (1628-1703) – 1697 book Histoires ou Contes du temps passé. Eight tales in the volume, all but one of which are now world-renowned:
- ‘La Belle au bois dormant’ (Sleeping Beauty)
- ‘Le petit chaperon rouge’ (Little Red Riding Hood)
- ‘La Barbe bleüe” (Bluebeard)
- ‘Le Maistre Chat, ou le Chat Botté” (Puss in Boots)
- ‘Les Fées’ (Diamonds and Toads)
- ‘Cendrillon, ou la petite pantoufle de verre’ (Cinderella)
- ‘Riquet à la Houppe’ (Ricky of the Tuft)
- ‘Le Petit Poucet’ (Hop o’ my Thumb)
Stories retold as art, altered from their traditionally oral state
Aimed at an Adult audience:
- Marie Catherine d’Aulnoy (1650-1705) and Marie Catherine Le Jumel de Barnville (1650-1705), “foremost teller of fairy tales in her day” (Opie 30).
Literary games popular among aristocratic Parisian women (and some men); groups would discuss such topics as love, marriage, freedom, etc. – Importance laid on wit and invention, make the unrefined (gross) refined, transforming the banal thing into something brilliant and unique. 1650’s: fairytales, being the basest form of literature, were perfect for these parlor games.
They were elitist, but their games spurned women to fight for more rights and combat the rational constraints placed upon their lives. They created subversive literatures questioning male domination, full of irony and critique. The form of these stories set the standards for the conte de fée, the fairy tale. All of these tales were written (modified) by adults for adults – very violent and sexual.
1690’s people began publishing these fairy tales, particularly Madame d’Aulnoy and Perrault. These stories resisted somewhat the male-dominated classical (Roman and Greek) ideology supported by Louis XIV, as the fairytales were pagan in origin and featured majestic and powerful femail fairies who had the final say.
The fairytales were often used as a subtle critique of Louis’s wasteful war and domestic policies, of the bourgeoisie, and false civility of the aristocracy. Compare life in Louis XIV’s kingdom to that in fairytales: where is the love, tenderness, genuine feeling?
Madame Leprince de Beaumont (1711-1780) – wrote out of a deep involvement with the young, “genuinely seeking to engage the minds of her pupils, and doing so intelligently and not too earnestly. Young minds of 10-12 years. “Beauty and the Beast” perhaps her most famous story.
As the 18th century grew older, fairytales were looked upon in increasing disfavor. They were seen as an affront to the rational adult mind. Relegated to nursemaids and children.
- Grimm Brothers – Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859) collected German culture. “The Grimms were the first substantial collectors to like folktales for their own sake; the first to write the tales down in the way ordinary people told them, and not attempt to improve them; and they were the first to realize that everything about the tales was of interest, even including the identity of the person who told the tale” (Opie 32) – “work that laid the foundation of a new discipline, the scientific study of folklore and folk literature” (Opie 33).
Published in three volumes, their Kinder – und Haus-Marchen appeared in 1812, 1815, and 1822. Their stories were told in the vernacular of the common storyteller, not refined like Perrault. The stories are often violent and harsh. They include Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, and The Twelve Dancing Princesses among others
- Hans Christian Anderson (1805-1875). Danish, wrote original stories, not collections. 1835 Tales told for Children (Eventyr, fortalte for Born), a small sixty-four-page booklet contained four stories, among which was ‘The Tinder Box’ and ‘The Princess and the Pea.’ “He wrote them, as he said, not in a literary style but in the way he would tell them to children” (Opie 34). Eventually there would be more than 150 tales. “The Ugly Duckling” and “The Little Mermaid” are among his most famous.
- Andrew Lang (1844-1912) translated many tales in a series of books, of which the Blue Fairy Book is the most often referenced.
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* All information on this page is from a combination of
notes compiled by Jennifer Miskec, Joseph Thomas, and
Chris McGee. Many of the ideas come from