Fairy Tales: The Brothers Grimm and Beyond

What do fairy tales do? Seminar explores this question through the famous Brothers Grimm and their Children’s and Household Tales (1812/1815). Focus is on the first edition and the baffling and fabulous narratives that were censored, refined, and polished by the Grimms in later editions. Students examine fairy tales’ function: how they instruct, amuse, warn, initiate, and enlighten; how they humanize and conquer the bestial and barbaric forces that terrorize us; and how they have disguised social anxieties about gender and sex. Continued reception of the genre in Romantic, Weimar, and Post-War periods also examined.