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Grimm's
Fairy Tales is the
staple food of those in the three to eight age group. As the children grow
up, they still remain in the fantasy world of Rapunzel or Hansel and
Gretel, going through the same fairy tales, but enjoying it at a different
reading level.
Story
tellers
The
creators of Rapunzel, Cinderella, Snow White, Red Riding Hood and all
those unforgettable characters are Jakob Ludwig Grimm and Wilhelm Karl
Grimm, better known as the Grimm brothers. The stories woven by the
brothers is known as Grimm's Fairy
Tales.
Multi-faceted
professionals
The brothers were born in
Hanau. They studied law at the University of Marburg. They were greatly
influenced by German Romantic Movement. They worked as librarians and
professors. In the year 1840, they became members of the Academy of
Sciences and were honoured with professorships at the University of
Berlin. The
brothers lived together in Berlin for a long time, working together. They
both died in Berlin.
Jakob
(1785-1863)
Jakob studied the
historical development of literature and language. Jakob is also well
known for another great work, German Grammar. In this book, he compared
different Germanic and European languages and stages of language
development. He
established Grimm's Law, a set of sound correspondences.
Jakob
served in diplomatic postings, including being a member of the Parliament
of Frankfurt.
Wilhelm
(1786-1859)
Wilhelm was most
directly responsible for editing the Fairy
Tales, which were brought out in two volumes in 1812 and 1815. The
second volume was largely the responsibility of Wilhelm. He also wrote at
length on medieval literature.
Lexicographers
What is perhaps lesser
known about the Grimm brothers is that they were the ones who began a
pioneering effort at compiling a German dictionary. They began the mammoth
work in the year 1938 but could not complete it before their deaths. It
was completed years later by German lexicographers.
The
Fairy Tales
Grimm's Fairy Tales is a
collection of German folk tales in two volumes. The first volume contained
eighty-six tales, while the second one contained seventy.
Together, the collection of tales crossed two hundred in due
course.
The
tales were collected by the brothers between the years 1807 and 1814.
They gathered the tales from friends and relatives living in and
around Kassel in Germany. They even collected tales from a woman who came to them to sell
some garden produce. They went to great lengths to collect their stories.
For
the brothers, the tales meant more than entertainment. They represented
the spirit of the German people. Their main motivation in preserving the
tales in writing was their worry over the fact that the number of people
who could tell the stories accurately was dwindling.
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The
Grimm brothers did their best to preserve the original flavour of the
tales, although it has been said that they incorporated some minor changes
to suit public taste.
As
mentioned earlier, the brothers were influenced by the Romantic Movement
in German literature. It primarily dealt with German history, mythology,
the nature, fantasy and the supernatural. These elements are abundantly
found in the Grimm's Fairy Tales.
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