17. Fairy Tales from a Folkloristic Perspective

Alan Dundes

Requires Authentication Published by University of Pennsylvania Press 1987

17. Fairy Tales from a Folkloristic Perspective

From the book Fairy Tales and Society

Alan Dundes
Alan Dundes

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https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812201505.259

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17. Fairy Tak1 from a FoLklorMtic Perdpecti~e ALAN DUNDES The first thing to say about fairy tales is that they are an oral form. Fairy tales, however one may choose ultimately to define them, are a subgenre of the more inclusive category of "folktale," which exists primarily as a spoken traditional narrative. Once a fairy tale or any other type of folktale, for that matter, is reduced to written language, one does not have a true fairy tale but instead only a pale and inade-quate reflection of what was originally an oral performance complete with raconteur and audience. From this folkloristic perspective, one cannot possibly read fairy tales; one can only properly hear them told. When one enters into the realm of written-down or transcribed fairy tales, one is involved with a separate order of reality. A vast chasm separates an oral tale with its subtle nuances entailing signifi-cant body movements, eye expression, pregnant pauses, and the like from the inevitably flat and fixed written record of what was once a live and often compelling storytelling event. To be sure, there are de-grees of authenticity and accuracy with respect to the transcription of fairy tales. In modern times, armed with tape recorders or videotape equipment, a folklorist may be able to capture a live performance in the act, thereby preserving it for enjoyment and study by future audi-ences. But in the nineteenth century when the formal study of folk-lore began in Europe, collectors had to do the best they could to take

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From the book

Fairy Tales and Society

Chapters in this book (25)

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Introduction

PART ONE: Fairy Tales as oral Phenomena

1. Oral Narration in Contemporary North America

PART TWO: Fairy Tales in Society

2. Madness and Cure in the Thousand and One Nights

5. To Spin a Yarn: The Female Vice in Folklore and Fairy Tale

4. Telling Tales -Spreading Tales: Change in the Communicative Forms of a Popular Genre

5. Born Yesterday: Heroes in the Grimms' Fairy Tales

6. Silenced Women in the Grimms' Tale.J: The "Fit" Between Fairy Tales and Society in Their Historical Context

7. Folklorists as Agents of Nationalism: Asturian Legends and the Problem of Identity

Part Three FAIRY TALE RESEARCH TODAY

9. The Structure of "Snow White"

10. The Encyclopedia of the Folktale

11. Fairy Tales from a Semiotic Perspective

12. Fairy Tales and Psychotherapy

13. The Criminological Significance of the Grimms' Fairy Tales

14. Feminist Approached to the Interpretation of Fairy Tales

15. Marxists and the Illumination of Folk and Fairy Tales

16. Past and Predent Folkloristic Narrator Research

17. Fairy Tales from a Folkloristic Perspective

18. The Grimms and the German Obsession with Fairy Tales

19. The "Utterly Hessian" Fairy Tales by "Old Marie": The End of a Myth

Contributors

Index