February 24: Wilhelm Grimm, the younger of the two brothers, was born on this day
in 1786. Most commentators describe Jacob as the scholar of the family and
Wilhelm as the story-shaper, as well as the one responsible for
"contaminating" the Grimm tales according to the values which they
held, or felt their contemporary audience expected.
The brothers' original
goal, part scholarly and part patriotic, was to gather and preserve authentic
German folk tales. When the Grimms realized that similar versions of their
tales had existed in many cultures for a long time, and that their reading
public was mostly interested in a good story, they adjusted course. Mostly
under Wilhelm's supervision, the scholarly tone and footnoting gave way in
subsequent editions, and the stories became increasingly sanitized and preachy.
(Though the Disneyfication did not go as far as it later would, or as far as
some wanted: at the end of World War II, Allied commanders banned publication
of the Grimms' tales in the belief that their violence contributed to Nazi
savagery.)
In The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales (1987), Maria Tatar
states that adults today who read the original, unexpurgated tales should be
ready for "graphic descriptions of murder, mutilation, cannibalism,
infanticide and incest"—stepsons decapitated by moms and eaten as stew by
dads, bad girls forced to disrobe and roll down hills in nail-studded kegs, or
to have their hands and breasts chopped off for refusing father, etc. The
Rapunzel of the early editions inadvertently lets her jailer know that she's
been spending her nights with the Prince, and doing more than sleeping:
. . . she took such a liking
to the young king that she made an agreement with him: he was to come every day
and be pulled up. Thus they lived merrily and joyfully for a certain time, and
the fairy did not discover anything until one day when Rapunzel began talking
to her and said, "Tell me, Mother Gothel, why do you think my clothes have
become too tight for me and no longer fit?"
Daybook is contributed by Steve King, who teaches in the English Department of Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. His literary daybook began as a radio series syndicated nationally in Canada. He can be found online at todayinliterature.com.
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