research paper fairy tale

• Subject List
• Take a Tour
• For Authors
• Subscriber Services
• Publications
• African American Studies
• African Studies
• American Literature
• Anthropology
• Architecture Planning and Preservation
• Art History
• Atlantic History
• Biblical Studies
• British and Irish Literature

Childhood Studies

• Chinese Studies
• Cinema and Media Studies
• Communication
• Criminology
• Environmental Science
• Evolutionary Biology
• International Law
• International Relations
• Islamic Studies
• Jewish Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Latino Studies
• Linguistics
• Literary and Critical Theory
• Medieval Studies
• Military History
• Political Science
• Public Health
• Renaissance and Reformation
• Social Work
• Urban Studies
• Victorian Literature
• Browse All Subjects

How to Subscribe

• Free Trials

In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Fairy Tales and Folktales

Introduction, general overviews.

• Reference Works
• Anthologies and Classroom Resources
• Italian Tradition
• French Tradition
• German Tradition
• Other European Traditions
• Arabian Nights
• Folkloristics and Tale Type Analysis
• Classic Tale Type Analyses
• Structuralism and Formalism
• Psychological Approaches
• Oral Tradition
• Sociohistorical Approaches
• Gender Studies and Queer Theory
• Film and Popular Culture
• Illustration, Comics, and Television
• New Directions in Fairy-Tale Studies

Related Articles Expand or collapse the "related articles" section about

About related articles close popup.

Lorem Ipsum Sit Dolor Amet

Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Aliquam ligula odio, euismod ut aliquam et, vestibulum nec risus. Nulla viverra, arcu et iaculis consequat, justo diam ornare tellus, semper ultrices tellus nunc eu tellus.

• Children's Literature
• Contemporary Legends
• Feral and "Wild" Children
• Films about Children
• Literary Representations of Childhood
• Nursery Rhymes
• Walt Disney

Other Subject Areas

Forthcoming articles expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section.

• Agency and Childhood
• Childhood Publics
• Children in Art History
• Find more forthcoming articles...
• Export Citations
• Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Fairy Tales and Folktales by Julie Koehler , Claudia Schwabe LAST REVIEWED: 25 September 2023 LAST MODIFIED: 25 September 2023 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0195

Though many assume fairy tales have always been children’s fare, prior to the nineteenth century, fairy tales were told to and written primarily for adults, and many tales feature themes and plots that would be considered inappropriate for children today. For instance, although Giambattista Basile’s 1630s Tale of Tales carries the alternate title, Entertainment for Little Ones , the stories within are depicted as being told by adults to other adults, and their contents are bawdy and violently graphic: depicting rape, decapitation, and live burial. Fairy tales written by the French conteues of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries often were written with the distinct and adult purpose of covertly critiquing the Sun King, King Louis XIV. Charles Perrault’s fairy tales from the same period were also initially written for adult audiences but later became popular in educational materials due to their short length and succinct morals. Similarly, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s collection, Children’s and Household Tales , though referencing children in the title, was initially meant for an academic audience. Over time, as children’s literature took off in Germany, and it became clear that children were reading their collection, the Grimms edited their collection with children in mind; however, many elements that we might consider too racy for children’s literature in the twenty-first century still remain—such as violent executions, cannibalism, and sexual assault. This can be confusing for 21st-century child readers, who may be given a copy of Grimms’ Children and Household Tales without much context. As beautiful illustrated editions became popular gifts in the golden age of illustration this connection to children’s literature was enhanced. Disney films connected the fairy tale to a growing commodity in the twentieth century: children’s entertainment. Still, fairy-tale films, television, and narrative for adults continue to be produced today. In this article, the main traditions of Italy, France, Germany, and the Arabian Nights will be discussed in connection with the major nodes of criticism: childhood studies, folkloristics, tale type analysis, structuralism, psychology, oral tradition, sociohistorical approaches, gender studies, and media studies, among others. Colonial folktale collections that branded unique traditions, often much older than the fairy tale, as fairy tales are not included here, though they are discussed in criticism sections. Although most of the field treats fairy tales as stories meant for an adult or mixed audience, specifics on connections to childhood studies wherever applicable are discussed throughout this broad overview of fairy-tale scholarship.

For a general overview of the field, Teverson 2013 and Tatar 2015 are good introductory works. Tatar 2015 is a representative collection of recent scholarship throughout the field, while Teverson 2013 provides a thorough theoretical overview and gives readers a good understanding of fairy tales in relationship to folklore. Teverson 2023 gives an excellent overview of different national traditions and discusses some of the complexities of the formation of the canon. In addition, the landmark works Tatar 2003 and Zipes 2006 (from the same giants in the field) together with Lüthi 1976 , each provide a solid foundation of contextual information about the field in general, together with each author’s groundbreaking scholarship. For a succinct work for students, Ashliman 2004 offers a good summary and answers many common questions about folklore and fairy tales. Mayer and Tismar 2003 and Klotz 1985 focus more specifically on literary fairy tales but include many of the important folk traditions across Europe in their discussions. Duggan 2021 provides a broad analysis of the cultural history of the fairy tale, illustrating trends and nuances of the fairy tale in Western culture from Antiquity to the present.

Ashliman, D. L. Folk and Fairy Tales: A Handbook . Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2004.

A good summary of scholarship on fairy tales and folk tales and their relationship to each other. Offers students a basic understanding of the field.

Duggan, Anne E., ed. A Cultural History of Fairy Tales . 6 vols. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.

These six volumes feature fifty experts in the field, each contributing an overview of a theme applied to a period in history. With the help of a broad range of case material, the scholars illustrate broad trends and nuances of the fairy tale in Western culture from Antiquity to the present.

Klotz, Volker. Das Europäische Kunstmärchen: Fünfundzwanzig Kapitel seiner Geschichte von der Renaissance bis zur Moderne . Stuttgart, Germany: Metzler, 1985.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-476-03204-1

One of three main investigations of the literary fairy tale or Kunstmärchen in German. Klotz provides a broad overview across European texts from the Renaissance to the modern, including many important early collections, such as Basile 2007 and Straparola 2012 (cited under Italian Tradition ) and Perrault 2016 (cited under French Tradition ). Unfortunately, Klotz fails to discuss the many literary fairy tales written by women.

Lüthi, Max. Once Upon a Time: On the Nature of Fairy Tales . Translated by Lee Chadeayne and Paul Gottwald. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976.

Originally published in German in 1962, this book has long been used as an introduction to fairy tales. Lüthi’s work is from the perspective of literary analysis but sought to identify specific narrative traits across the traditions of the folktale and folk narrative.

Mayer, Mathias, and Jens Tismar. Kunstmärchen . 2d ed. Stuttgart, Germany: Metzler, 2003.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-476-04122-7

Originally published by Tismar in 1983, Mayer expanded and updated the work in 2003. Mayer and Tismar provides a less thorough review than Klotz 1985 but reflects a more comprehensive theory. Like Klotz, however, Mayer and Tismar fail to recognize the important tradition of women writers.

Tatar, Maria. The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales . 2d ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.

A second edition of the original work from 1986, Tatar is not only an important work in the history of fairy-tale scholarship but also a well-written and easily accessible entry into the tradition. Tatar examines violence in particular and how readers and listeners are drawn to it. Providing literary, psychological, and folklore perspectives throughout, Tatar develops rich context for the Grimm collection alongside engaging analysis.

Tatar, Maria, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Fairy Tales . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

This collection provides 21st-century scholarship from many of the most important names in fairy-tale studies from a variety of approaches. Together they paint a picture of the diverse and complex scholarship in the field.

Teverson, Andrew. Fairy Tale . London: Routledge, 2013.

DOI: 10.4324/978020336103

This volume provides clear definitions, a good overview of the history in Europe, and a broad view of the major theoretical traditions. It is particularly useful to students new to theory and critical analysis.

Teverson, Andrew. The Fairy Tale World . Abingdon, UK, and New York: Routledge, 2023.

Originally published in 2019, this volume brings together a selection of the most respected voices in the field of fairy-tale studies, offering analysis of the fairy tale in relation to ethnicity, colonialism, feminism, disability, sexuality, the environment, and class. This volume also contains an overview of the formation of the canon and different national traditions.

Zipes, Jack. Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion: The Classical Genre for Children and the Process of Civilization . 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2006.

The second of Zipes’s most important early works, together with Zipes 2002 (cited under Sociohistorical Approaches ), Zipes provides a thorough contextual overview of the field and breaks down much of the important German scholarship previously unavailable to English speakers. Zipes’s sociohistorical perspective and Marxist discussion of fairy-tale appropriation is solidified in this work, making it an excellent starting point into for scholars of fairy tales.

back to top

Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login .

Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here .

• About Childhood Studies »
• Meet the Editorial Board »
• Abduction of Children
• Aboriginal Childhoods
• Addams, Jane
• ADHD, Sociological Perspectives on
• Adolescence and Youth
• Adolescent Consent to Medical Treatment
• Adoption and Fostering
• Adoption and Fostering, History of Cross-Country
• Adoption and Fostering in Canada, History of
• Advertising and Marketing, Psychological Approaches to
• Advertising and Marketing, Sociocultural Approaches to
• Africa, Children and Young People in
• African American Children and Childhood
• After-school Hours and Activities
• Aggression across the Lifespan
• Ancient Near and Middle East, Child Sacrifice in the
• Animals, Children and
• Animations, Comic Books, and Manga
• Anthropology of Childhood
• Archaeology of Childhood
• Ariès, Philippe
• Attachment in Children and Adolescents
• Australia, History of Adoption and Fostering in
• Australian Indigenous Contexts and Childhood Experiences
• Autism, Females and
• Autism, Medical Model Perspectives on
• Autobiography and Childhood
• Benjamin, Walter
• Bereavement
• Best Interest of the Child
• Bioarchaeology of Childhood
• Body, Children and the
• Bourdieu, Pierre
• Boy Scouts/Girl Guides
• Boys and Fatherhood
• Breastfeeding
• Bronfenbrenner, Urie
• Bruner, Jerome
• Buddhist Views of Childhood
• Byzantine Childhoods
• Child and Adolescent Anger
• Child Beauty Pageants
• Child Homelessness
• Child Mortality, Historical Perspectives on Infant and
• Child Protection
• Child Protection, Children, Neoliberalism, and
• Child Public Health
• Child Trafficking and Slavery
• Childcare Manuals
• Childhood and Borders
• Childhood and Empire
• Childhood as Discourse
• Childhood, Confucian Views of Children and
• Childhood, Memory and
• Childhood Studies and Leisure Studies
• Childhood Studies in France
• Childhood Studies, Interdisciplinarity in
• Childhood Studies, Posthumanism and
• Childhoods in the United States, Sports and
• Children and Dance
• Children and Film-Making
• Children and Money
• Children and Social Media
• Children and Sport
• Children and Sustainable Cities
• Children as Language Brokers
• Children as Perpetrators of Crime
• Children, Code-switching and
• Children in the Industrial Revolution
• Children with Autism in a Brazilian Context
• Children, Young People, and Architecture
• Children's Humor
• Children’s Museums
• Children’s Parliaments
• Children’s Reading Development and Instruction
• Children's Views of Childhood
• China, Japan, and Korea
• China's One Child Policy
• Citizenship
• Civil Rights Movement and Desegregation
• Classical World, Children in the
• Clothes and Costume, Children’s
• Colonial America, Child Witches in
• Colonialism and Human Rights
• Colonization and Nationalism
• Color Symbolism and Child Development
• Common World Childhoods
• Competitiveness, Children and
• Conceptual Development in Early Childhood
• Congenital Disabilities
• Constructivist Approaches to Childhood
• Consumer Culture, Children and
• Consumption, Child and Teen
• Conversation Analysis and Research with Children
• Critical Approaches to Children’s Work and the Concept of ...
• Cultural psychology and human development
• Debt and Financialization of Childhood
• Discipline and Punishment
• Discrimination
• Disney, Walt
• Divorce And Custody
• Domestic Violence
• Drawings, Children’s
• Early Childhood
• Early Childhood Care and Education, Selected History of
• Eating disorders and obesity
• Education: Learning and Schooling Worldwide
• Environment, Children and the
• Environmental Education and Children
• Ethics in Research with Children
• Europe (including Greece and Rome), Child Sacrifice in
• Evolutionary Studies of Childhood
• Family Meals
• Fandom (Fan Studies)
• Female Genital Cutting
• Feminist New Materialist Approaches to Childhood Studies
• Fetuses and Embryos
• Films for Children
• Folk Tales, Fairy Tales and
• Foundlings and Abandoned Children
• Freud, Anna
• Freud, Sigmund
• Friends and Peers: Psychological Perspectives
• Froebel, Friedrich
• Gay and Lesbian Parents
• Gender and Childhood
• Generations, The Concept of
• Geographies, Children's
• Gifted and Talented Children
• Globalization
• Growing Up in the Digital Era
• Hall, G. Stanley
• Happiness in Children
• Hindu Views of Childhood and Child Rearing
• Hispanic Childhoods (U.S.)
• Historical Approaches to Child Witches
• History of Childhood in America
• History of Childhood in Canada
• HIV/AIDS, Growing Up with
• Homeschooling
• Humor and Laughter
• Images of Childhood, Adulthood, and Old Age in Children’s ...
• Infancy and Ethnography
• Infant Mortality in a Global Context
• Innocence and Childhood
• Institutional Care
• Intercultural Learning and Teaching with Children
• Islamic Views of Childhood
• Japan, Childhood in
• Juvenile Detention in the US
• Klein, Melanie
• Labor, Child
• Latin America
• Learning, Language
• Learning to Write
• Legends, Contemporary
• Literature, Children's
• Love and Care in the Early Years
• Magazines for Teenagers
• Maltreatment, Child
• Maria Montessori
• Marxism and Childhood
• Masculinities/Boyhood
• Material Cultures of Western Childhoods
• Mead, Margaret
• Media, Children in the
• Media Culture, Children's
• Medieval and Anglo-Saxon Childhoods
• Menstruation
• Middle Childhood
• Middle East
• Miscarriage
• Missionaries/Evangelism
• Moral Development
• Moral Panics
• Multi-culturalism and Education
• Music and Babies
• Nation and Childhood
• Native American and Aboriginal Canadian Childhood
• New Reproductive Technologies and Assisted Conception
• Organizations, Nongovernmental
• Parental Gender Preferences, The Social Construction of
• Pediatrics, History of
• Peer Culture
• Perspectives on Boys' Circumcision
• Philosophy and Childhood
• Piaget, Jean
• Politics, Children and
• Postcolonial Childhoods
• Post-Modernism
• Poverty, Rights, and Well-being, Child
• Pre-Colombian Mesoamerica Childhoods
• Premodern China, Conceptions of Childhood in
• Prostitution and Pornography, Child
• Psychoanalysis
• Queer Theory and Childhood
• Race and Ethnicity
• Racism, Children and
• Radio, Children, and Young People
• Readers, Children as
• Refugee and Displaced Children
• Reimagining Early Childhood Education, Reconceptualizing a...
• Relational Ontologies
• Relational Pedagogies
• Rights, Children’s
• Risk and Resilience
• School Shootings
• Sex Education in the United States
• Social and Cultural Capital of Childhood
• Social Habitus in Childhood
• Social Movements, Children's
• Social Policy, Children and
• Socialization and Child Rearing
• Socio-cultural Perspectives on Children's Spirituality
• Sociology of Childhood
• South African Birth to Twenty Project
• South Asia, History of Childhood in
• Special Education
• Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence
• Spock, Benjamin
• Sports and Organized Games
• Street Children
• Street Children And Brazil
• Subcultures
• Teenage Fathers
• Teenage Pregnancy
• The Bible and Children
• The Harms and Prevention of Drugs and Alcohol on Children
• The Spaces of Childhood
• Theater for Children and Young People
• Theories, Pedagogic
• Transgender Children
• Twins and Multiple Births
• Unaccompanied Migrant Children
• United Kingdom, History of Adoption and Fostering in the
• United States, Schooling in the
• Value of Children
• Views of Childhood, Jewish and Christian
• Violence, Children and
• Visual Representations of Childhood
• Voice, Participation, and Agency
• Vygotsky, Lev and His Cultural-historical Approach to Deve...
• Welfare Law in the United States, Child
• Well-Being, Child
• Western Europe and Scandinavia
• Witchcraft in the Contemporary World, Children and
• Work and Apprenticeship, Children's
• Young Carers
• Young Children and Inclusion
• Young Children’s Imagination
• Young Lives
• Young People, Alcohol, and Urban Life
• Young People and Climate Activism
• Young People and Disadvantaged Environments in Affluent Co...
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Legal Notice
• Accessibility

Powered by:

• [81.177.182.136]
• 81.177.182.136

Information

• Author Services

Initiatives

You are accessing a machine-readable page. In order to be human-readable, please install an RSS reader.

All articles published by MDPI are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. No special permission is required to reuse all or part of the article published by MDPI, including figures and tables. For articles published under an open access Creative Common CC BY license, any part of the article may be reused without permission provided that the original article is clearly cited. For more information, please refer to https://www.mdpi.com/openaccess .

Feature papers represent the most advanced research with significant potential for high impact in the field. A Feature Paper should be a substantial original Article that involves several techniques or approaches, provides an outlook for future research directions and describes possible research applications.

Feature papers are submitted upon individual invitation or recommendation by the scientific editors and must receive positive feedback from the reviewers.

Editor’s Choice articles are based on recommendations by the scientific editors of MDPI journals from around the world. Editors select a small number of articles recently published in the journal that they believe will be particularly interesting to readers, or important in the respective research area. The aim is to provide a snapshot of some of the most exciting work published in the various research areas of the journal.

Original Submission Date Received: .

• Active Journals
• Find a Journal
• Proceedings Series
• For Authors
• For Reviewers
• For Editors
• For Librarians
• For Publishers
• For Societies
• For Conference Organizers
• Open Access Policy
• Institutional Open Access Program
• Special Issues Guidelines
• Editorial Process
• Research and Publication Ethics
• Article Processing Charges
• Testimonials
• Preprints.org
• SciProfiles
• Encyclopedia

Article Menu

• Subscribe SciFeed
• Google Scholar
• on Google Scholar
• Table of Contents

Find support for a specific problem in the support section of our website.

Please let us know what you think of our products and services.

Visit our dedicated information section to learn more about MDPI.

JSmol Viewer

The fairy tale and its uses in contemporary new media and popular culture introduction.

Conflicts of Interest

• Grimm , Created by Stephen Carpenter, David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf; National Broadcasting Company (NBC), 2011–present.
• Donald Haase. “Television.” In Folktales and Fairy Tales: Traditions and Texts from around the World , 2nd ed. 4 vols. Edited by Donald Haase and Anne Duggan. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2016, pp. 1007–11. [ Google Scholar ]
• The Huntsman: Winter’s War , Directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan. Perfect World Pictures/Roth Films, 2016.
• Snow White and the Huntsman , Directed by Rupert Sanders. Roth Films, 2012.
• Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters , Directed and written by Tommy Wirkola; MTV Films/Gary Sanchez Productions/Studio Babelsberg, 2013.
• Shrek , Directed by Andrew Adamson, and Vicky Jenson. Pacific Data Images, 2001.
• Shrek 2 , Directed by Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury, and Conrad Vernon. Dream Works Animation/Pacific Data Images, 2004.
• Shrek Forever After , Directed by Mike Mitchell. Dream Works Animation/Pacific Data Images, 2010.
• Shrek the Third , Directed by Chris Miller, and Raman Hui. Dream Works Animation/Pacific Data Images, 2007.
• Into the Woods , Directed by Rob Marshall. Walt Disney Pictures/Lucamar Productions, 2014.
• Maleficent , Directed by Robert Stromberg. Walt Disney Pictures/Roth Films, 2014.
• Frozen , Directed by Chris Buck, and Jennifer Lee. Walt Disney Pictures, 2013.
• Cristina Bacchilega. Fairy-Tales Transformed? Twenty-First-Century Adaptations and the Politics of Wonder . Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013. [ Google Scholar ]
• Pan’s Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno) , Directed and written by Guillermo del Toro; Tequila Gang/Estudios Picasso/Telecinco Cinema/Sententia Entertainment/Esperanto Filmoj, 2006.
• Over the Garden Wall , Directed by Patrick McHale. Cartoon Network, 2014.
• Max Lüthi. The Fairytale as Art Form and Portrait of Man . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. [ Google Scholar ]
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica , Directed by Akiyuki Shinbo. Shaft and Aniplex, 2011.
• Once Upon a Time , Created by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz; American Broadcastin Company (ABC), 2011–present.
• Mad Men , Created by Matthew Weiner; American Movie Classics (AMC), 2007–2015.
• Game of Thrones , Directed by David Benioff, Alan Taylor, and Daniel Brett Weiss. Written by David Benioff, George R.R. Martin and Daniel Brett Weiss. Home Box Office (HBO), 2011–present.

© 2016 by the author; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Share and Cite

Schwabe, C. The Fairy Tale and Its Uses in Contemporary New Media and Popular Culture Introduction. Humanities 2016 , 5 , 81. https://doi.org/10.3390/h5040081

Schwabe C. The Fairy Tale and Its Uses in Contemporary New Media and Popular Culture Introduction. Humanities . 2016; 5(4):81. https://doi.org/10.3390/h5040081

Schwabe, Claudia. 2016. "The Fairy Tale and Its Uses in Contemporary New Media and Popular Culture Introduction" Humanities 5, no. 4: 81. https://doi.org/10.3390/h5040081

Article Metrics

Article access statistics, further information, mdpi initiatives, follow mdpi.

Subscribe to receive issue release notifications and newsletters from MDPI journals

The Genre ‘Fairy Tale’ and its Research

• First Online: 16 September 2022

Cite this chapter

• Lothar Bluhm 2  

215 Accesses

The central markers in the attribution history of the Grimm’s fairy tales are shown, to which ‘orality’ or ‘folklore’ belong. The research history of the fairy tale, the genre and the problem of delimitation from other narrative forms is outlined.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save.

• Get 10 units per month
• Download Article/Chapter or eBook
• 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
• Cancel anytime
• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Compact, lightweight edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

A conversion table is offered by the Scientific Service of the German Bundestag, Kaufkraftvergleich historischer Geldbeträge—2016: WD4-3000-096/16.

Taschenbuch der Sagen und Legenden. Ed. by Amalie v. Helwig und Fr. Baron de la Motte Fouqué. 2 volumes, Berlin 1812 and 1817; Kinder-Mährchen. Von C.W. Contessa, Friedrich Baron de la Motte Fouqué und E.T.A. Hoffmann. Berlin 1816; Ernst Moritz Arndt: Mährchen und Jugenderinnerungen. Erster Theil. Berlin 1818. Sales of Arndt’s collection were so slow that the publisher rejected a second volume projected in 1820. The second volume did not appear until 1843, when it was published by Reimer Verlag.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Des Epimenides Erwachen. Ein Festspiel. Berlin 1815.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe durch einen Verein von Freunden des Verewigten. Berlin 1832–1845.

So Leopold Rankes three volumes Die römischen Päpste in den letzten vier Jahrhunderten (1834–1836) and the six volumes Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation (1839–1847).

The corresponding paradigm shift is probably nowhere better tangible than in a call by the young Kaiser Wilhelm II. at the Berlin School Conference in 1890. The programme of a national politicisation of the (higher) school advocated by him leads to the order to make the German the central point of reference and “to educate national young Germans and not young Greeks and Romans”. (Cf. Verhandlungen über Fragen des höheren Unterrichts 1891, p. 71–72).

Of undeniably fundamental importance for the recent research history of the Kinder- und Hausmärchen is Rölleke 1975. For an attempt at a new “remythification” see Bluhm 1989b.

Kotzebue was—like Vulpius—a pupil of Musäus at the Wilhelminum-Ernestinum Gymnasium in Weimar. Johann Gottfried Herder was director of this educational institution from 1776 to 1791.

Cf. Bluhm 1997, p. 251–275, especially p. 272.—The Grimms tried in 1812/3 without success to get a variant of their ‘Hansel and Gretel’ fairy tale from Gräter, which Achim von Arnim had read in his collections.

See also Clausen-Stolzenburg in retrospect on her analysis of Grimm’s conception of fairy tales in terms of oral tradition, age and origin of the stories: “It is not the functioning of oral tradition in general that should be doubted […] But it should have become clear that in none of the cases mentioned […] an existing written culture would have remained without influence on oral tradition.” (Clausen-Stolzenburg 1995, p. 92).

As an example, the notes of the executioner Franz Schmidt could be mentioned, who between 1573 and 1615 kept a book about the numerous executions and corporal punishments he carried out in Bamberg and Nuremberg, and occasionally noted down particularly interesting lies and deception stories told by the malefactors; see Das Tagebuch des Meister Franz (1980, pp. 71 and 143; Nos. 182 [1598] and 119 [1587]). The sketched stories can be easily traced back to contemporary entertainment literature.

For example, Assmann 1992, especially pp. 50–52.

So Murayama 2005, insb. S. 342–349.

In a recent study, for example, Heinz Rölleke emphasizes the status of a “genuine oral tradition” for KHM 44 Death (Rölleke 2013, p. 395), just as Holger Ehrhardt, with a view to KHM 36, understands the fairy tale contributor Eleonore Storch as a “guarantor” who “stands in the oral tradition of a very well-known fairy tale at the forefront.” (Ehrhardt 2017a, p. 227).—See also Ehrhardt (2017b, pp. 149–152, especially p. 152), where the contributions of the fairy tale editor Philipp Hoffmeister are traced back to “the early collecting ethos of the Brothers Grimm, according to which the fairy tales were ‘collected orally’”.

So Ehrhardt 2016, p. 60.

See Kirchhof 1563, p. 194–195; Quote: p. 194.

In this context, the “thesis” can also be seen that “it is only the separation of written and popular culture, which is associated with the enforcement of humanistic epistemes and becomes apparent in the 16th century, which created the prerequisite not for the emergence , but for the prominence of the genre ‘folktale’ in Europe, since only now the paradoxical concept of a ‘littérature populaire’ was filled with content.” (Wolfzettel 2005, p. 18)

Diana Kühndel and Ursula Offermann: Hörendes Lesen und Sehen von Märchen. Zur Einführung. In: Kühndel / Offermann (eds.) 2017, pp. 7–14, here p. 8. The problem with the “expansion” of the term introduced here is that the process of re- or retelling of what has been read in recent fairy tale reception is not distinguished from the process of literary historical fixation of the “fairy tale production”.

Giesecke can already refer to a number of studies by J. Erben, W. Besch or Hugo Kuhn at this point.

See in particular Chap. 2 of her study, where she examines the reception history of the Bible, Eilhart’s Tristrant , Barlaam and Josaphat and the “Trojan War” accordingly (Clausen-Stolzenburg 1995, pp. 94–308).

For context, see Bluhm 1997. Dehrmann 2014 concisely develops the important aspect of the philologically-historical reflection of orality after 1800 and in particular with regard to the Kinder- und Hausmärchen .

Still fundamental Schmidt 1989.

In his “Freundlichen Gruß zuvor”, which serves as a preface to the first volume, Löhr speaks of a “little fairy tale book” (1818, p. [III]), which is supposed to “really lovely and funny” to the “sweet [n] gold hearts” ([V]) young readers, the fairy tales “like to hear and read” ([V]), but also “[…] instructive.” ([III]) Löhr draws on a variety of well-known fairy tale collections of his time—also on the Kinder- und Hausmärchen published shortly before: “I did not make most of the fairy tales myself, […] but I tinkered with them a little and prepared them in my own way […]. ”([IV])

Cf. more detailed Bluhm 2006b, especially p. 373.

Of course, the processes of ‘collecting’, ‘screening’ and ‘ordering’ belong to the editorial work quite self-evidently.

Pabst (2014, p. 138) emphasizes that the known or presumed pretexts “would indeed entitle them to authorship” in the case of the anonymous ‘Kinder- und Hausmärchen’ and that “not always the same anonymity in terms of quality” would apply to the stories.

See also the clarification that Pabst (2014, p. 137) formulates in relation to Grimm’s idea of ‘people’: “The material represented by the fairy tales does not seem to originate from a particular people, but from an anthropological deep structure or divine inspiration […]. People means […] rather something like a transcendental originator.” Nevertheless, the concrete orientation with the Grimms remains throughout primarily national-cultural.

See in particular Uther 2013/2021.

Cf. KHM 1856, p. 283–418.

See also Schäfer/Denecke 2003.

Studies that specifically address Grimm’s ‘fairy tale work’ in relation to the library holdings are far too rare and are among the desiderata of philological Grimm research. An exemplary model of this type of insight into the ‘fairy tale workshop’ can be found in Friemel 2012.

See Denecke/Teitge 1989.

KHM 1856, p. 328. The incorrect attribution of the Ammenmärchen to Vulpius (KHM 1822, p. 28; KHM 1856, p. 27) can also be found in the comments to KHM 17 Die weiße Schlange .—It can be assumed with certainty that Wilhelm Schumann and not Vulpius is the author of the Ammenmärchen : “The most reliable source is the catalogue of the HAAB [Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek in Weimar], which lists a ‘D,d’ sign for the Ammenmärchen , i.e. the entry is probably from the Goethe period and lists Schumann as the author. The Hofmann Bookshop in Weimar delivered compulsory copies to the Herzogliche Bibliothek in 1791/2. Here they knew of Schumann’s authorship, either through the publisher or through Schumann himself. Vulpius was registrar at the library from 1797 onwards, i.e. he was responsible for the catalogue. If he had found a work by himself with a different attribution, it would not have remained like this.” (Notes from Professor Andreas Meier, Wuppertal, of 4.3.2021)—Grimm’s false attribution leaves its mark even in recent research literature; for example, Waltraud Maierhofer (2013, p. 270) complains in her review of a collected volume on the work of Vulpius about the “gaps” in the text recording, which she finds “incomprehensible”: “So werden etwa die Ammenmärchen in einem […] Eintrag erwähnt, haben aber keinen eigenen.” Even in the Wikisource collection of digital copies, the first volume is listed as a Vulpius work ( https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Christian_August_Vulpius —accessed on 11.04.2021).

A good overview of the development is provided by Reiling 2019, who shows how the poetological model of folk and art poetry was theoretically interpreted and practically handled from the Sturm und Drang period via Romanticism to the late 19th century. The focus of the study is on the reception history of the figure of thought in literary 19th century; for Herder’s importance for the concept and the tradition of ‘folk poetry’ see Reiling 2019, pp. 17–42, for Herder’s ambivalent judgments on the ‘fairy tale’ in particular pp. 35–36.—From 1796 Herder turned to the fairy tales more intensively; plans for a fairy tale anthology for Christmas 1802 were not realized, however; see Arnold 1984.

See comprehensive Herder 1801, p. 132–176.—For his time, Herder saw in tradition material for an art that forms people: “It is now up to us to choose from this wealth, to give new meaning to old fairy tales, and to use the best ones with the right understanding.” (Herder 1801, p. 157)

Jacob Grimm nevertheless wrote a critical review of it in the Leipziger Literatur-Zeitung , no. 229 of 15.9.1819, p. 1830; see also Friemel 2012, pp. 50–52.

Cf. Pöge-Alder 2007, pp. 85–98.

The model character is already evident in the reception. For example, Georg van Gaal complains in the “Preface” to his Mährchen der Magyaren of the vain efforts of his own long search for storytellers or storytellers, “but nowhere did a woman Viehmännin tell a story willingly” (Gaal 1822, p. IV).

See Bluhm 2014, especially pp. 223–227.

For example, in Murayama 2019, who accentuates the “meeting with the fairy tale teller Dorothea Viehmann” in the first sentence of his research contribution to the intermedial stylization of the “Viehmännin” as the ideal fairy tale teller: “The meeting with the fairy tale teller Dorothea Viehmann must have deeply touched the Brothers Grimm, because they probably had the experience of a real existing carrier of the cultural memory for the first time and could observe their narrative performance personally […] with their own eyes and ears.”(Murayama 2019, p. 218)

An interesting aspect is mentioned by Dehrmann (2014, p. 163), who points out that the copper engraving portrait of the “Viehmännin” takes up the “traditional scholarly practice” of “a collection of writings with the image of the author. But of course she modifies this practice, because the Viehmännin is the medium of the fairy tales and not the author.”

For example, Friedrich H. von der Hagen in the preface of his ‘renewal’ of the Nibelungenlied of 1807: “Kein anderes Lied mag ein vaterländisches Herz so rühren und ergreifen, so ergötzen und stärken, als dieses, worin die wunderbaren Mährchen der Kindheit wiederkommen und ihre dunkelen Erinnerungen und Ahnungen nachklingen […].” Hagen, Der Nibelungen Lied 1807, p. [II].

A history of ideology of German fairy tale research is a desideratum of the self-assurance of this branch of science. Within such a history of ideology, the national political convictions of the Brothers Grimm would have to be included, as well as, for example, Herman Grimm’s positioning in the “Berlin Anti-Semitism Dispute” from 1879 to 1881, the racial mixings of fairy tale researchers of the 1910s and 1920s, and later the NS membership of Hans Naumann, who appeared as one of the main protagonists and speakers at the National Socialist book burning on May 10, 1933, of André Jolles, who joined the Security Service of the Reichsführer SS, of Ludwig Denecke, who was active as an ideological trainer of the SS, of Lutz Mackensen, Karl Schulte Kemminghausen, as well as other well-known fairy tale researchers of the middle and late 20th century.

See, for example, Röhrich 1962/1967; Moser-Rath 1964; Brückner (ed.) 1974.

See Rölleke 1998 as well as 2 2004.

These included, for example, Lauer 1993; Bluhm 1989a, 1995a, 2001, 2011, among others; Friemel 2012; Ehrhardt 2020 or Messerli 2020.

Cf. Neuhaus 2005, pp. 1–9; also Neuhaus 2017.

Last Rölleke 2015a, p. 17–28.

For example, Clausen-Stolzenburg 1995, p. 405: “In the end, only this conclusion can be drawn: The fairy tale contributors of the first hour have, in all innocence, unearthed a repertoire dominated by French sources from their memories. ”

Last Ehrhardt (ed.) 2012.

So Bluhm 2014.

An overview is provided by Brinker-von der Heyde et al. (eds.) (2015): Part 1.

An overview is provided by Brinker-von der Heyde et al. (eds.) (2015): Part 2.

See, for example, Bluhm 2006a, especially pp. 478–483.

Cf. Bluhm 2011, esp. pp. 6–10.

Accordingly, the known “Klopfan” sayings are also not evidence of an oral tradition, not “sayings from the people”, but art products.

So Bluhm 2015b, S. 123–132.

“[…] because nothing is represented as sparsely in our literature as—the expression is allowed—the art -fairy tale, which of course lies in the nature of the thing.” Storm-Fontane 2011, p. 136 (letter of October 17, 1868).

See Benz 1907; Todsen 1906.

A trace polemically to Wührl 1984, p. 15: “Benz introduced the nonsense of repeatedly measuring the fairy tales of German poets against the allegedly folkloric ‘natural poetry’ (J. Grimm) of the folktale. But Wührl (1984, p. 16) also assumes the facticity of the “traditionally transmitted fairy tale” as the “‘simple form’”.

See Lüthi 2004, p. 5: “The term Kunstmärchen is not a value concept, it does not only refer to high-ranking artistic achievements, but also to simple inventions of an imagination that takes pleasure in making flowers, animals or furniture talk, fly, or act.”

See Apel 1978; Wührl 1984; Klotz 1985.

Cf. Ewers 1987, pp. 645–678.

Contrary to a common assessment, Galland did not provide a translation, but a transfer, an adaptation; concisely summarized by Heinz Grotzfeld (2005, p. 10): “He had no qualms about incorporating stories into his translation that did not appear in his source. In short: he treated the text of 1001 Nights just as he would have treated a text written by himself: he improved it and changed it if he saw fit.” Similarly, Grotzfeld’s conclusion (2005, p. 14): “We must recognize that Les Mille et une Nuit by Galland, even though the sources of the stories come from the Orient, are a French production.”

How much the “Arabian stories” were seen in the horizon of the genre of fairy tales is already revealed by the preface that J.H. Voß placed before the first volume of his Galland translation: “The Arabs undoubtedly possess a large number of small love stories, gallant narratives in the style of our novellas, and small wonderful stories in the style of our fairy tales […]. (1001 Nights / Voß 1781 I, p. III)

Cf. Oerke 2006, esp. pp. 28-29.—Naubert’s Alme oder Egyptische Mährchen did not receive the same appreciation from the reading public as her Neuen Volksmährchen der Deutschen had before, but nevertheless achieved a second edition after one year.

Clausen-Stolzenburg 1995 offers an equally extensive and thorough development history of the concept, pp. 3–93.

For example, in Becker’s Noth- und Hülfsbüchlein from 1788, meteorological explanations are brought together with reference to the “fact” that “simple people still believe the fairy tale of the witches and think that the devil or the witches make the weather.” (Becker 1980, p. 257) Comparable Eberhard 1783 in his speech from the “fairy tale of the so-called white woman” (Eberhard 1783, p. 3), which he wants to expose as ‘superstition’. In his ‘postscript’ to Eberhard’s study Gedike (1783, p. 42): “It is always only pardonable for the mob to believe in fairy tales of the kind, as in the one of the white woman.”

For example, Herder in section 5 “Fable” in his Adrastea : “Luxurious times degrade everything; so gradually from the great nature teacher and human educator, the fable became a coquettish gossip, or a fairy tale.” (Herder 1801, p. 87–96, here p. 92)

As one example of many, the reference to the mytho-poetics of the swan in Friedrich Justin Bertuch’s Bilderbuch für Kinder (1801, p. 113): “That the swan, which otherwise has a rough unpleasant voice, should begin to sing sweetly when he wants to die, is false, and a fairy tale of the ancients.”

Bausinger 1999, pp. 250–274; Moser-Rath 1977, pp. 463–464; Bausinger 1979, pp. 974–977; Scherf 1993, pp. 1329–1336; Grätz 1996, pp. 612–622.

Tomkowiak 1993, pp. 1297–1329; Bausinger 2002, pp. 972–983.

Rölleke 2000b, S. 513–517, 2000c, S. 366–368.

Bluhm 2007a, S. 472–474, 2007b, S. 413–414.

Kümmerling-Meibauer 2000, S. 254–258; Kliewer and Kliewer 2007, S. 379–382.

Wünsch 2003, S. 70–74; Antonsen 2007, S. 581–582.

See in particular Fehling 1977, p. 99, who describes the “stable tradition of folk epic” as nothing more than a “pure myth”.

Wesselski (1925, p. XI) emphasizes, in contrast to the “triumph of so-called fairy tales”, the importance of the “so-called literary fairy tales”.

See Kreuzer 2007, p. 282–302, in particular p. 287.

To what extent the “wonderfulness of the fairy-tale world” can also claim validity as a “productive means of the Enlightenment discourse” (Hühn and Matuschek 2014, p. 5), as can rightly be claimed with regard to the ‘Enlightenment century’, must be ascertained by corresponding cultural-historical research.

Cf. generally Hecken 2007.

Cf. Kümmerling-Meibauer 2012, p. 14.

Cf. Bluhm 2000 in general.

An overview is provided by Bluhm 2010.

For this, see Rölleke 1985a, especially pp. 52–60. See also Älteste Märchensammlung/Rölleke 1975, p. 341; Rölleke points to Brentano’s Badische Wochenschrift and Arnim’s Zeitung für Einsiedler , where “numerous legends and fairy tales” were published: “Brentano’s contribution after Moscherosch inaugurated [this] … and Rung’s fairy tale Von dem Machandelboom was particularly influential in determining the direction of the Brothers Grimm’s collecting activity. However, the personal encounter with Brentano and Arnim was decisive [for the Brothers Grimm] … At that time, works such as Fischart’s Geschichtklitterung , Moscherosch’s Philander , Grimmelshausen’s Simplizissimus , Nehrlich’s Schilly , Schütze’s Idiotikon , which were used for the Wunderhorn , left clear traces in the [Brothers Grimm’s] collecting activity.”

A separate interpretation is offered by Schmiele 2020, S. 13: „Die Grimms haben vielleicht alles Zotige oder grob Obszöne entfernt, aber gerade diese leichte Sublimierung verleiht ihren Texten eine allgegenwärtige Sinnlichkeit, wenn nicht geradezu Erotik.”

Uther concisely in KHM 1857 / Uther 1996 III, p. 242–249; see also Uther 2013, pp. 488–492, 2021, pp. 491–496.

Cf. Ginschel 1989, especially pp. 216–217 and 440–441.

Cf. Offermann 2017.

Cf. Propp in particular.

See Lüthi 2005 in detail.

It is an element of description based on Gudmund Schütte, which, since Axel Olrik, has been considered one of the relevant “epic laws” of “folk poetry”; cf. Olrik 1909.

Comprehensive Bluhm/Rölleke 2020, where all proverbs and idioms in the KHM are ascertained and analyzed with regard to the procedure of the “folk poetic shaping”.

Naubert 1792 IV, p. 3: “Once upon a time in the Holy Roman Empire there was a knight […].”—See Naubert 2001 IV, p. 7.

Schumann 1791 I, p. 9: “Once upon a time there was a king and a queen.” (Prinz Löwenzagel oder: Was seyn soll, schickt sich wohl.)

Schumann 1791 I, p. 145: “Once upon a time there was a prince in Persia […].

Gehres 1792, p. 19: “Once upon a time in the city called Pforzheim there was an old woman.”

Apuleius 1628, p. 133 [= Metamorphoses, Book IV, Chapter 28.1 (translation: There was once in a city a king and a queen)]. The edition is documented in the Brothers Grimm Library. Also documented is the later edition: Apuleii Psyche et Cupido. Recensit et emendavit Otto Jahn. Lipsiae: Breitkopf & Haetel, 1856 (Denecke and Teitge 1989, p. 109; nos. 890–891).

A beautiful example, which at the same time makes the literary tradition transparent, can be found in Albrecht von Eyb’s Ehebüchlein of 1472, which was published several times. In the final chapter “Das kein sunder verzweyfelen solle” (“That no one should despair or doubt his sins”), a wide-ranging “History” begins as follows: “It should be understood from this that no one should despair or doubt his sins in his sins […] and I will give this first of all through a pretty story that I also brought from Latin into German, and thus it goes: There was once a mighty, noble emperor or king […].” (Albrecht von Eyb 1890, p. 91 ss)

As an arbitrary example, the well-known fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm Magyaren Mährchen may be mentioned, where a large part of the fairy tale narration— Die Speckfestung, Fischer-Mährchen, Die dankbaren Thiere, Der Vogel Goldschweif, Die geitzige Bäuerinn and Kutschermährchen (Gaal 1822, S. 77, 127, 175, 195, 276, 429)—begins with this fiction signal.—In the literature review of the KHM (1856, S. 335), Löhr’s fairy tale book for children is also mentioned with the derogatory remark ”many from our collection”, the first story of which begins in the first volume with “Es war einmal, vor vielen, vielen Jahren” (Löhr 1818, S. [3]). In Löhr’s work, fairy tales often begin with this opening formula.

A very catchy example can be found in Ernst Koch’s (published under the pseudonym Eduard Helmer) humorous story Prinz Rosa-Stramin from 1834: “Es war einmal ein Mädchen, die hieß Marie, und ein junger Bursche, der hieß mit dem ersten Buchstaben Gabelstich.” The subsequent—satirical—narrative sketch ends with the character’s speech: “Das ist keine Geschichte, das klingt wie ein Mährchen.” ([Koch] 1834, S. 198)—See also Wilhelm Grimm’s letter to Hirzel from 28.1.1859 (Briefwechsel der Brüder Grimm 2007, S. 554).

Less common is the later beginning of the Grimm fairy tale: “In olden times, when wishing still helped, there lived a king […]” (KHM 1837 I, p. 1), with which, starting with the second edition of the “Small Edition” from 1833 and then with the third edition of the “Large Edition” from 1837, KHM 1 The Frog King or the Iron Heinrich and thus the entire fairy tale collection begins. The opening formula already occurs in the second volume of the first edition; No. 41 The Iron Oven begins with a similar phrase: “At the time when wishing still helped […]” (KHM 1815, p. 211). Possibly the famous later opening of the story was then reformulated by the Grimms based on Gaal’s The Glass Hoe : “In those adventurous times when the fairies still ruled over the destinies of men, somewhere a count lived […]. (Gaal 1822, p. 53) Georg van Gaal was already familiar with the fairy tale editions of Musäus and the Grimms and oriented himself towards them.

Gunkel’s “formula of the ‘Sitz im Leben’” is used here and in the following only in the general conceptual sense, according to which, when considering literature, the historical-political and socio-cultural conditions of its time of origin and the discourse context valid at that time are to be taken into account.—Gunkel’s religious-historical approach can be grasped in nuce in the much-cited dictum: “Whoever wants to understand an ancient genre therefore has to ask first where it has its seat in popular life” (Gunkel 2004 [1906], p. 3). It is the demand to take into account the time of origin of biblical texts, the spiritual and mental constitution of society, the known form of language and the situational functionality when interpreting them. Text analysis therefore has to take into account content, form and social function at the same time.

Cf. Bluhm 1995a, in particular pp. 6–7.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Campus Landau, Universität Koblenz, Landau in der Pfalz, Germany

Lothar Bluhm

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lothar Bluhm .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of Springer Nature

About this chapter

Bluhm, L. (2022). The Genre ‘Fairy Tale’ and its Research. In: Fairy Tales as Literature of Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66000-3_2

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-66000-3_2

Published : 16 September 2022

Publisher Name : Palgrave Macmillan, Berlin, Heidelberg

Print ISBN : 978-3-662-65999-1

Online ISBN : 978-3-662-66000-3

eBook Packages : Literature, Cultural and Media Studies Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

• Architecture and Design
• Asian and Pacific Studies
• Business and Economics
• Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Computer Sciences
• Cultural Studies
• Engineering
• General Interest
• Geosciences
• Industrial Chemistry
• Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
• Jewish Studies
• Library and Information Science, Book Studies
• Life Sciences
• Linguistics and Semiotics
• Literary Studies
• Materials Sciences
• Mathematics
• Social Sciences
• Sports and Recreation
• Theology and Religion
• Publish your article
• The role of authors
• Promoting your article
• Abstracting & indexing
• Publishing Ethics
• Why publish with De Gruyter
• How to publish with De Gruyter
• Our book series
• Our subject areas
• Your digital product at De Gruyter
• Contribute to our reference works
• Product information
• Tools & resources
• Product Information
• Promotional Materials
• Orders and Inquiries
• FAQ for Library Suppliers and Book Sellers
• Repository Policy
• Free access policy
• Open Access agreements
• Database portals
• For Authors
• Customer service
• People + Culture
• Journal Management
• How to join us
• Working at De Gruyter
• Mission & Vision
• De Gruyter Foundation
• De Gruyter Ebound
• Our Responsibility
• Partner publishers

Your purchase has been completed. Your documents are now available to view.

Indexing in fairy tales: Evidence for the role fairy tales play in children’s concept formation

Argyro Kantara has worked as an EFL/ESP teacher in Athens and Thessaloniki, as an ESP/EAP and linguistics lecturer in private colleges in Greece, as a freelance translator and examiner for the University of Michigan ESOL Examinations. Now she is a research student at Cardiff University in the Center for Language and Communication Research. Her research interests are in the areas of discourse analysis, conversation analysis, intercultural communication, (im)politeness theory and the political news interview.

Starting from the basic premises of Schank's (1998) notion of indexing in story telling and the representational approach of language (Saeed 1996, 2003), this paper investigates whether fairy tales create initial indexes for children, that may (not) be re-indexed later in adult life, by reshaping their pre-existing experiences. More specifically, it focuses on the way fairy tales present several concepts already familiar to children, and whether this representation matches children’s pre-existing experiences. The data collected comes from several of Grimm Brothers' fairy tales and consists of a corpus of 62839 word tokens. The fairy tales included were thematically related to general areas of everyday experience: femininity, blackness, whiteness, day, night, being young, ageing . The following semantically contradictory lexical pairs (listed with their text frequency) were examined in the expanded concordance, in relation to their collocations and semantic associations: ( 143) old - (58) young, (134) woman - (71) maiden, (116) day - (40) night, (63) white - (83) black. These were then compared with an adults’ and a children’s dictionary to check whether the collocations, semantic associations of the selected words as portrayed in the data, matched the societally accepted meanings found in dictionaries. The comparison indicated that, although the connotative meanings were included in the majority of denotative meanings that make up words' definitions in the adult dictionary examined, only five of them matched the connotative meanings of the words examined in the data. On the other hand, the way the above concepts/words were presented in the children’s dictionary, was very simple, probably reflecting children’s experiences. It seems, thus, that the concepts - at least some of them - presented in the fairy tales examined, do not “officially” relate to children's but to adults' experiences, functioning as an index that re-shapes children’s pre-existing concepts.

About the author

©[2013] by De Gruyter Mouton Berlin

• X / Twitter

Supplementary Materials

Please login or register with De Gruyter to order this product.

Journal and Issue

Articles in the same issue.

Myths, Fairy Tales and Folklore

• Encyclopedias and Indexes
• Finding Books
• Finding Articles
• Digital Collections
• Biographies
• Literary Criticism

Mythology, Folklore, and Fairy Tale related journals

• Citing Sources

One of the best methods of staying current with your field is by browsing the journal literature.  Journals related to Mythology, Fairy Tales and Folklore will keep you abreast of the latest scholarship and help stimulate your own research.  The numerous online databases available to you through the library will allow you to search through the contents of these journals (and many others), but browsing through an individual journal will allow you the opportunity for more specific topic research.  Here is a small sampling of the journals:

• Western Folklore Articles, notes, comments and film reviews in all fields insofar as they deal with folklore, interpreted broadly.
• Notes and Queries Founded under the editorship of the antiquary W J Thoms, the primary intention of Notes and Queries was, and still remains, the asking and answering of readers' questions. It is devoted principally to English language and literature, lexicography, history, and scholarly antiquarianism. Each issue focuses on the works of a particular period, with an emphasis on the factual rather than the speculative. The journal comprises notes, book reviews, readers' queries and replies.
• Marvels & Tales Marvels & Tales is a peer-reviewed journal that is international and multidisciplinary in orientation. The journal publishes scholarly work dealing with the fairy tale in any of its diverse manifestations and contexts.
• Journal of the Folklore Institute The Journal of Folklore Research has provided an international forum for current theory and research among scholars of traditional culture since 1964. Each issue includes articles of theoretical interest to folklore and ethnomusicology as international disciplines, as well as essays that address the fieldwork experience and the intellectual history of folklore. Contributors include scholars and professionals in such additional fields as anthropology, area studies, communication, cultural studies, history, linguistics, literature, performance studies, religion, and semiotics.
• Journal of Popular Culture The Journal of Popular Culture continues to break down the barriers between so-called “low” and “high” culture and focuses on filling in the gaps that a neglect of popular culture has left in our understanding of the workings of society.
• Journal of Folklore Research The Journal of Folklore Research has provided an international forum for current theory and research among scholars of traditional culture since 1964.
• Journal of American folklore Published by the American Folklore Society. Scholarly articles of significant research findings and theoretical analysis from folklore and related fields, essays, notes, commentaries, reviews of books, exhibitions, sound recordings and films.
• Indian Folklore Research journal.
• Folklore Forum Folklore Forum is a space for the free exchange of ideas on the cutting edge of folklore, folklife and ethnomusicology, a space where up-and-coming scholars can interrogate existing paradigms and cultivate a rich intellectual landscape with a multi-disciplinary perspective.
• Amaltea : revista de mitocrítica Amaltea is an open-access peer-reviewed online journal dedicated to the reception of myths in literature and arts. It looks at how ancient, medieval and modern myths were accepted in literature and the arts from 1900 to the present day. It publishes articles in Spanish, English and French.
• Folklore Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore publishes original academic studies in folklore studies, comparative mythological research, cultural anthropology and related fields.
• Fairy Tale Review Fairy Tale Review Press is dedicated to helping raise public awareness of the literary and cultural influence of fairy tales, and to appreciating their power and depth as an art form. It celebrates fairy tales as one of our oldest and most underestimated pleasures.
• Fabula Acts as a medium of discussion for issues of all kinds which are of interest to international folk narrative research.
• Culture Studies Cultural Studies is an international journal which explores the relation between cultural practices, everyday life, material, economic, political, geographical and historical contexts. It fosters more open analytic, critical and political conversations by encouraging people to push the dialogue into fresh, uncharted territory. It also aims to intervene in the processes by which the existing techniques, institutions and structures of power are reproduced, resisted and transformed.
• Comparative Mythology
• Asian Folklore Studies Contains research and news items on the folklore of Asian cultures, including literary and oral traditions, religion, art, customs, etc.
• << Previous: Literary Criticism
• Next: Citing Sources >>
• Last Updated: Aug 27, 2024 1:31 PM
• URL: https://guides.nyu.edu/fairytales

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

•  We're Hiring!
•  Help Center
• Most Cited Papers
• Most Downloaded Papers
• Newest Papers
• Fairy-tale studies Follow Following
• Legend Follow Following
• Folk & Fairy Tale Studies Follow Following
• English Fairytale Follow Following
• Folk and Fairy Tales Follow Following
• Revisionist Fairy Tales Follow Following
• Use of Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women's Writing Follow Following
• Rewriting Fairytales Follow Following
• Fairy Tales, Children's Literature Follow Following
• English Folklore Follow Following

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• Academia.edu Journals
•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Our folktales and the stories of others: Interpreting folk narratives from different cultures as a pedagogical tool

• October 2017
• Thesis for: Ph.d in Humanities

• Universidad Francisco de Vitoria

Discover the world's research

• 25+ million members
• 160+ million publication pages
• 2.3+ billion citations
• Biriukova Diana
• Diana BIRIUKOVA
• D. V. Biriukova
• I. O. Kashyrina

• Jacob Grimm
• Wilhelm Grimm
• Andrea Dezsö
• Ralph D. Ellis
• Fernando Broncano
• Freud Sigmund
• E. Meletinsky
• S. Nekludov

• Daniel Nettle
• Dan Sperber
• Recruit researchers
• Join for free
• Login Email Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google Welcome back! Please log in. Email · Hint Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google No account? Sign up

Suggestions or feedback?

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Machine learning
• Sustainability
• Black holes
• Classes and programs

Departments

• Aeronautics and Astronautics
• Brain and Cognitive Sciences
• Architecture
• Political Science
• Mechanical Engineering

Centers, Labs, & Programs

• Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
• Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
• Lincoln Laboratory
• School of Architecture + Planning
• School of Engineering
• School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
• Sloan School of Management
• School of Science
• MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

Study reveals the benefits and downside of fasting

Press contact :, media download.

*Terms of Use:

Images for download on the MIT News office website are made available to non-commercial entities, press and the general public under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives license . You may not alter the images provided, other than to crop them to size. A credit line must be used when reproducing images; if one is not provided below, credit the images to "MIT."

Previous image Next image

Low-calorie diets and intermittent fasting have been shown to have numerous health benefits: They can delay the onset of some age-related diseases and lengthen lifespan, not only in humans but many other organisms.

Many complex mechanisms underlie this phenomenon. Previous work from MIT has shown that one way fasting exerts its beneficial effects is by boosting the regenerative abilities of intestinal stem cells, which helps the intestine recover from injuries or inflammation.

In a study of mice, MIT researchers have now identified the pathway that enables this enhanced regeneration, which is activated once the mice begin “refeeding” after the fast. They also found a downside to this regeneration: When cancerous mutations occurred during the regenerative period, the mice were more likely to develop early-stage intestinal tumors.

“Having more stem cell activity is good for regeneration, but too much of a good thing over time can have less favorable consequences,” says Omer Yilmaz, an MIT associate professor of biology, a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and the senior author of the new study.

Yilmaz adds that further studies are needed before forming any conclusion as to whether fasting has a similar effect in humans.

“We still have a lot to learn, but it is interesting that being in either the state of fasting or refeeding when exposure to mutagen occurs can have a profound impact on the likelihood of developing a cancer in these well-defined mouse models,” he says.

MIT postdocs Shinya Imada and Saleh Khawaled are the lead authors of the paper, which appears today in Nature .

Driving regeneration

For several years, Yilmaz’s lab has been investigating how fasting and low-calorie diets affect intestinal health. In a 2018 study , his team reported that during a fast, intestinal stem cells begin to use lipids as an energy source, instead of carbohydrates. They also showed that fasting led to a significant boost in stem cells’ regenerative ability.

However, unanswered questions remained: How does fasting trigger this boost in regenerative ability, and when does the regeneration begin?

“Since that paper, we’ve really been focused on understanding what is it about fasting that drives regeneration,” Yilmaz says. “Is it fasting itself that’s driving regeneration, or eating after the fast?”

In their new study, the researchers found that stem cell regeneration is suppressed during fasting but then surges during the refeeding period. The researchers followed three groups of mice — one that fasted for 24 hours, another one that fasted for 24 hours and then was allowed to eat whatever they wanted during a 24-hour refeeding period, and a control group that ate whatever they wanted throughout the experiment.

The researchers analyzed intestinal stem cells’ ability to proliferate at different time points and found that the stem cells showed the highest levels of proliferation at the end of the 24-hour refeeding period. These cells were also more proliferative than intestinal stem cells from mice that had not fasted at all.

“We think that fasting and refeeding represent two distinct states,” Imada says. “In the fasted state, the ability of cells to use lipids and fatty acids as an energy source enables them to survive when nutrients are low. And then it’s the postfast refeeding state that really drives the regeneration. When nutrients become available, these stem cells and progenitor cells activate programs that enable them to build cellular mass and repopulate the intestinal lining.”

Further studies revealed that these cells activate a cellular signaling pathway known as mTOR, which is involved in cell growth and metabolism. One of mTOR’s roles is to regulate the translation of messenger RNA into protein, so when it’s activated, cells produce more protein. This protein synthesis is essential for stem cells to proliferate.

The researchers showed that mTOR activation in these stem cells also led to production of large quantities of polyamines — small molecules that help cells to grow and divide.

“In the refed state, you’ve got more proliferation, and you need to build cellular mass. That requires more protein, to build new cells, and those stem cells go on to build more differentiated cells or specialized intestinal cell types that line the intestine,” Khawaled says.

Too much of a good thing

The researchers also found that when stem cells are in this highly regenerative state, they are more prone to become cancerous. Intestinal stem cells are among the most actively dividing cells in the body, as they help the lining of the intestine completely turn over every five to 10 days. Because they divide so frequently, these stem cells are the most common source of precancerous cells in the intestine.

In this study, the researchers discovered that if they turned on a cancer-causing gene in the mice during the refeeding stage, they were much more likely to develop precancerous polyps than if the gene was turned on during the fasting state. Cancer-linked mutations that occurred during the refeeding state were also much more likely to produce polyps than mutations that occurred in mice that did not undergo the cycle of fasting and refeeding.

“I want to emphasize that this was all done in mice, using very well-defined cancer mutations. In humans it’s going to be a much more complex state,” Yilmaz says. “But it does lead us to the following notion: Fasting is very healthy, but if you’re unlucky and you’re refeeding after a fasting, and you get exposed to a mutagen, like a charred steak or something, you might actually be increasing your chances of developing a lesion that can go on to give rise to cancer.”

Yilmaz also noted that the regenerative benefits of fasting could be significant for people who undergo radiation treatment, which can damage the intestinal lining, or other types of intestinal injury. His lab is now studying whether polyamine supplements could help to stimulate this kind of regeneration, without the need to fast.

“This fascinating study provides insights into the complex interplay between food consumption, stem cell biology, and cancer risk,” says Ophir Klein, a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, who was not involved in the study. “Their work lays a foundation for testing polyamines as compounds that may augment intestinal repair after injuries, and it suggests that careful consideration is needed when planning diet-based strategies for regeneration to avoid increasing cancer risk.”

The research was funded, in part, by Pew-Stewart Scholars Program for Cancer Research award, the MIT Stem Cell Initiative, the Koch Institute Frontier Research Program via the Kathy and Curt Marble Cancer Research Fund, and the Bridge Project, a partnership between the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT and the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center.

Share this news article on:

Press mentions, medical news today.

A new study led by researchers at MIT suggests that fasting and then refeeding stimulates cell regeneration in the intestines, reports Katharine Lang for Medical News Today . However, notes Lang, researchers also found that fasting “carries the risk of stimulating the formation of intestinal tumors.” 

Prof. Ömer Yilmaz and his colleagues have discovered the potential health benefits and consequences of fasting, reports Max Kozlov for Nature . “There is so much emphasis on fasting and how long to be fasting that we’ve kind of overlooked this whole other side of the equation: what is going on in the refed state,” says Yilmaz.

MIT researchers have discovered how fasting impacts the regenerative abilities of intestinal stem cells, reports Ed Cara for Gizmodo . “The major finding of our current study is that refeeding after fasting is a distinct state from fasting itself,” explain Prof. Ömer Yilmaz and postdocs Shinya Imada and Saleh Khawaled. “Post-fasting refeeding augments the ability of intestinal stem cells to, for example, repair the intestine after injury.” 

Previous item Next item

Related Links

• Omer Yilmaz
• Koch Institute
• Department of Biology

Related Topics

Related articles.

How early-stage cancer cells hide from the immune system

Study links certain metabolites to stem cell function in the intestine

Fasting boosts stem cells’ regenerative capacity

How diet influences colon cancer

More mit news.

How MIT’s online resources provide a “highly motivating, even transformative experience”

Read full story →

Students learn theater design through the power of play

A framework for solving parabolic partial differential equations

Designing better delivery for medical therapies

Making a measurable economic impact

Faces of MIT: Jessica Tam

• More news on MIT News homepage →

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, USA

• Map (opens in new window)
• Events (opens in new window)
• People (opens in new window)
• Careers (opens in new window)
• Accessibility
• Social Media Hub
• MIT on Facebook
• MIT on YouTube
• MIT on Instagram

• Skip to main content
• Skip to search
• Skip to footer

Products and Services

Cisco Secure Firewall

Do you have a firewall fit for today's challenges.

Does it harmonize your network, workload, and application security? Does it protect apps and employees in your hybrid or multicloud environment? Make sure you're covered.

Anticipate, act, and simplify with Secure Firewall

Cisco AI Assistant for Security demo

With workers, data, and offices located across the country and around the world, your firewall must be ready for anything. Secure Firewall helps you plan, prioritize, close gaps, and recover from disaster—stronger.

Lean on AI that simplifies policy management

Streamlining workflows. Finding misconfigurations. Auto-generating rules. With thousands of policies to manage and threats pouring in, Cisco AI Assistant saves time by simplifying how you manage firewall policy.

Achieve superior visibility

Regain visibility and control of your encrypted traffic and application environments. See more and detect more with Cisco Talos, while leveraging billions of signals across your infrastructure with security resilience.

Drive efficiency at scale

Secure Firewall supports advanced clustering, high availability, and multi-instance capabilities, enabling you to bring scalability, reliability, and productivity across your teams and hybrid network environments.

Make zero trust practical

Secure Firewall makes a zero-trust posture achievable and cost-effective with network, microsegmentation, and app security integrations. Automate access and anticipate what comes next.

Find the ideal firewall for your business

1000 Series

Best for smaller businesses and branch offices.

1200 Series

Advanced security for distributed enterprise branches in a compact, high-performing form factor.

3100 Series

Enhanced for medium-sized enterprises, with the flexibility to grow in the future.

4200 Series

Experience faster threat detection with greater visibility and the agility to safeguard large enterprise data center and campus networks.

9300 Series

Optimized for service providers and high-performance data centers.

Secure Firewall Threat Defense Virtual

Virtual firewalls for consistent policies across physical, cloud, and hyperconverged environments.

Secure Firewall ISA3000

Rugged design for manufacturing, industrial, and operational technology environments.

Secure WAF and bot protection

Enhance application security and resilience for today’s digital enterprise with Secure WAF and bot protection.

DDoS protection

Defend against attacks that flood your network with traffic, impacting access to apps and business-critical services.

Why migrate?

Level up your security posture with the latest capabilities for unified network and workload micro-segmentation protection.

Experience Firewall Management Center in action

See how you can centralize and simplify your firewall admin and intrusion prevention. With visibility across ever-changing and global networks, you can manage modern applications and malware outbreaks in real time.

Get 3 vital protections in a single step

You don't have to trade security for productivity. The Cisco Security Step-Up promotion deploys three powerful lines of defense that are simple, secure, and resilient for your business. Defend every critical attack vector–email, web traffic, and user credentials—in one easy step.

Explore the evolution of network security

We asked hundreds of IT and security professionals how they’re managing threats and using firewall in the face of AI, cloud complexity, and more. Here’s how they’re meeting those challenges.

Cisco Community: Connect with peers and experts

Cisco Community is your destination for product advice, a place to foster connections and share your knowledge.

Find the latest content and resources to help you learn more about Cisco Secure Firewall.

Add value to security solutions

Cisco Security Enterprise Agreement

Instant savings

Experience security software buying flexibility with one easy-to-manage agreement.

Services for security

Let the experts secure your business

Get more from your investments and enable constant vigilance to protect your organization.

Customer stories and insights

Powering fuel providers.

Ampol's global business includes refineries, fueling stations, and corporate offices. The company's infrastructure and retail operations are protected and connected with Cisco technology.

Ampol Limited

Reducing cybersecurity risk

A zero-trust approach to security protects the privacy of patients' personal data at this Ohio children's hospital.

Dayton Children’s

Better wireless access and security

A Texas school district turned to Cisco technology to bring ubiquitous, reliable wireless access to students while assuring proactive network monitoring capabilities.

Protecting networks and assets

A Michigan-based credit union protects the digital security of its hybrid workforce, customers, and assets with help from Cisco.

Lake Trust Credit Union

Boosting visibility and security

This Indiana university provides reliable and safe network access with Cisco's unified security ecosystem as its foundation for zero trust.

Marian University

The NFL relies on Cisco

From the draft to Super Bowl Sunday, the NFL relies on Cisco to protect billions of devices, endpoints, and users from cyber threats. What does that look like on game day? Watch the video on the story page to find out.

National Football League

Share your experience. Create a safer digital world.

Join us in shaping the future of cybersecurity and creating a safer digital world, one story at a time.

Simple, visible, and unified

Unify security across your high-performing data centers, providing superior visibility and efficiency. Then watch it work with ease.