A wolf and a little girl dressed in red....................

Collaborations[edit]

Children's and Household Tales[edit]

Main article: Grimms' Fairy Tales

Background[edit]

The rise of romanticism, Romantic nationalism and trends in valuing popular culture in the early 19th century revived interest in fairy tales, which had declined since their late-17th century peak.^[12] Johann Karl August Musäus published a popular collection of tales between 1782 and 1787;^[13] the Grimms aided the revival with their folklore collection, built on the conviction that a national identity could be found in popular culture and with the common folk (Volk). Although they collected and published tales as a reflection of German cultural identity, in the first collection they included Charles Perrault's tales, published in Paris in 1697, written for the literary salons of an aristocratic French audience. Scholar Lydia Jean explains a myth was created that Perrault's tales, many of which were original, came from the common people reflecting existing folklore to justify their inclusion.^[12]

The Grimms defined "Little Red Riding Hood", shown here in an illustration by Arthur Rackham, as representative of a uniquely German tale although it existed in various versions and regions.^[14]

Directly influenced by Brentano and von Arnim who edited and adapted the folk songs of Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy's Magic Horn or cornucopia),^[13] the brothers began the collection with the purpose of creating a scholarly treatise of traditional stories and of preserving the stories as they had been handed from generation to generation—a practice that was threatened by increased industrialization.^[15] Maria Tatar, professor of German studies at Harvard University, explains that it is precisely in the handing from generation to generation and the genesis in the oral tradition that gives folk tales an important mutability. Versions of tales differ from region to region, "picking up bits and pieces of local culture and lore, drawing a turn of phrase from a song or another story and fleshing out characters with features taken from the audience witnessing their performance."^[16]

However, as Tatar explains, the Grimms appropriated as uniquely German stories such as "Little Red Riding Hood", which had existed in many versions and regions throughout Europe, because they believed that such stories were reflections of Germanic culture.^[14] Furthermore, the brothers saw fragments of old religions and faiths reflected in the stories which they thought continued to exist and survive through the telling of stories.^[17]

Methodology[edit]

When Jacob returned to Marburg from Paris in 1806, their friend Brentano sought the brothers' help in adding to his collection of folk tales, at which time the brothers began to gather tales in an organized fashion.^[1] By 1810 they had produced a manuscript collection of several dozen tales, written after inviting storytellers to their home and transcribing what they heard. These tales were heavily modified in transcription, and many had roots in previously written sources.^[18] At Brentano's request, they printed and sent him copies of the 53 tales they collected for inclusion in his third volume of Des Knaben Wunderhorn.^[2] Brentano either ignored or forgot about the tales, leaving the copies in a church in Alsace where they were found in 1920. Known as the Ölenberg manuscript, it is the earliest extant version of the Grimms' collection and has become a valuable source to scholars studying the evolution of the Grimms' collection from the time of its inception. The manuscript was published in 1927 and again in 1975.^[19]

Although the brothers gained a reputation for collecting tales from peasants, many tales came from middle-class or aristocratic acquaintances. Wilhelm's wife Dortchen Wild and her family, with their nursery maid, told the brothers some of the more well-known tales, such as "Hansel and Gretel" and "Sleeping Beauty".^[20] Wilhelm collected a number of tales after befriending August von Haxthausen, whom he visited in 1811 in Westphalia where he heard stories from von Haxthausen's circle of friends.^[21] Several of the storytellers were of Huguenot ancestry, telling tales of French origin such as those told to the Grimms by Marie Hassenpflug, an educated woman of French Huguenot ancestry,^[18] and it is probable that these informants were familiar with Perrault's Histoires ou contes du temps passé (Stories from Past Times).^[12] Other tales were collected from the wife of a middle-class tailor,Dorothea Viehmann, also of French descent. Despite her middle-class background, in the first English translation she was characterized as a peasant and given the name Gammer Gretel.^[15]