Table of contents:
- There were two brothers, but … not two
- Brothers are not really fairy tale authors
- Not all of the Brothers Grimm tales were German and country
- The main business of the brothers Grimm was not fairy tales
- The Brothers Grimm knew Andersen. Half
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
The phrase "Brothers Grimm" is recognizable in almost every country. Fairy tales signed with this surname are so eternally relevant and popular that they are comprehended and reinterpreted thousands of times in modern literature and cinema. And yet their image is very vague, and not everyone has a clear idea of what exactly these brothers entered German history for and why their literary heritage is so special.
There were two brothers, but … not two
In total, the lawyer Grimm had eight sons - the brothers Grimm - and one daughter. As for the "fairy-tale" brothers Grimm, three of them worked on the editions of fairy tales. Two above the text - the very same Jacob and Wilhelm, the eldest Grimms, and one above the illustrations that became a model for subsequent designers of fairy tales - Ludwig Emil.
The Grimm children became orphans very early on - their father lived in his early forties. The older brothers, those who would later become famous, were sent by the mother to live with her aunt. There they studied diligently, first at the lyceum, then at the university, skipping courses in order to finish quickly and not hang around their relatives. They later helped raise their younger siblings.
By the way, initially Jacob and Wilhelm were also supposed to become lawyers - as a father and as a maternal grandfather, but, fortunately for many children of the world, as well as linguistics, they still chose linguistics.
Brothers are not really fairy tale authors
Many believe that the brothers Grimm's fairy tales were written by themselves. This is both true and not true. Jacob and Wilhelm lived at a time when the idea of nations and national cultures as something very important appeared. They were seriously carried away by the study and preservation of the heritage of the German people. Recording and publishing fairy tales was part of their project to preserve and popularize authentic German culture.
However, the tales were "unauthorized" only in the first edition of Grimm. While the brothers themselves considered it necessary to convey these tales to future generations without distortion, the entire German society fell upon them with indignation and accusations of immorality. First, the burghers reasoned, what will the fairy tales full of violence and sexual motives teach German children? Secondly, in this form, fairy tales, no doubt, offend the memory of the ancestors who composed them, portraying the Germans of the past as bloodthirsty and voluptuous. And ancestors should be honored and only good things should be remembered about them …
Under pressure from the public, in the next sixteen editions, the Brothers Grimm adapted the fairy tales to their contemporary moral requirements, turning them in fact into the author's retelling. The third brother Grimm, Ludwig Emil, also helped to change the image of fairy tales - he drew illustrations and tried to make them as chaste as possible and with noticeable Christian symbolism, otherwise the plots smelled of primordial paganism.
Not all of the Brothers Grimm tales were German and country
Alas, the linguistic brothers were not perfect in collecting fairy tales. In our time, their work would be considered very poor quality. They calmly recorded tales of the Saxon Slavs and their French neighbors as German tales, and the sources of tales for them were often familiar townspeople who were asked to remember something. Just not to go far. So some of the plots may be very late or even composed specifically to impress scientists. The Grimms did not in any way check the material dictated by him, but they often deliberately gave it a more common look.
The main business of the brothers Grimm was not fairy tales
First of all, the Brothers Grimm are revered in their homeland as the founders of Germanic studies in linguistics. They wrote an important scientific work on the history of the German language, and also became the founders (did not have time to write in full) a large dictionary of the German language. Moreover, Wilhelm died, having overcome only the letter D, and Jacob managed to compose sections A, B, C, E and about half of F.
This dictionary was so important that generation after generation of German philologists continued to work on it, and the work was officially completed only in 1961, that is, almost a hundred years after the start. Generations of German schoolchildren were referring to the dictionary, which the brothers Grimm began to work on, in the same way as in our country they referred to Dal and Ushakov.
The Brothers Grimm knew Andersen. Half
Hans Christian Andersen was considered one of a number of outstanding children's writers of his time, and virtually all of these children's writers were known through at least one handshake. In a way, Andersen was a colleague of the Grimms, because many of his philosophical tales are based on stories from folklore. Such, for example, are the tales of the twelve swans, red shoes, or the little mermaid. However, he did not deal with the adaptation of folk plots, as the Grimms did, but wrote his entire work based on motives.
Once Andersen was staying with Dickens for a very long time, which forever crossed out his warm attitude towards himself. Another time, traveling through Europe, the famous but very eccentric storyteller decided to see the Grimms at all costs. True, only Jacob was at home. He was very surprised at the appearance of Andersen on his doorstep, because he had never heard either his name or the names of his fairy tales - so it was hard for him to recognize his colleague. Hearing this, Andersen fled from the Grimm house in tears.
A few weeks later, Jacob Grimm found Hans Christian in Copenhagen to apologize and talk cordially. Since then, a friendship has struck up between them - they loved to talk about the deep meaning of fairy tales.
But with Dickens, Andersen's story was completely different. Delight, depression, binge: how the writer Andersen visited the writer Dickens.
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