ARTICLES
Inside Out: Folktale and Personal Story
Kay Stone
This article interweaves a popular folktale (AT 333), events in the life of the author's mother, and a dream of an archetypal garden. In the folktale, an old man tricks himself into Heaven by outwitting Death, the Devil, and St. Peter with wishes that St. Peter had granted him. The tale as now told by the author evolved from an interesting folktale into a personal story, as it came to be associated with the mother's struggle to deal with the death of her garden and then to face her own death. These factors continue to provide living energy for an old tale that is entirely relevant today, not as a consciously re-formed "modern" folktale, but as a traditional story that continues to speak in a new voice. The author suggests that this is one way that folktales remain relevant today, both encompassing and transcending personal history.
Laying the Rod to Rest: Narrative Strategies in Gisela and Bettina von Arnim's Fairy-Tale Novel Gritta
Jeannine Blackwell
Fairy tales by German women authors follow two European traditions that set them apart from the Grimms' Kinder- und Hausmärchen: first, they frequently emulate the moralizing tales of French and Enlightenment literature; and, second, they often present tales framed by other tales and narrative settings, as did the tale cycles in the pre-modern period such as the Thousand and One Nights and the Pentamarone. The fairy-tale novel by Bettina and Gisela von Arnim, Das Leben der Hochgräfin Gritta von Rattenzuhausbeiuns (The Life of the Countess Gritta von Ratsatourhouse, ca. 1843), is the best and most complicated example of the "Chinese box" narrative structure and imbedded social criticism in German women's fairy tales. This novel deconstructs fairy-tale archetypes of female behavior by rewriting the roles of stepmother, wise women, and nice(brav) little girls. The interlocking narratives criticize patriarchal notions of punishment, particularly punishment of female independence and mobility.
The Audience Should Be King: Bettina Brentano-von Arnim's "Tale of the Lucky Purse"
Helen G. Morris-Keitel
Following a discussion of the similarities and differences between the fairy tale and Vormärz social prose, an analysis of Bettina Brentano-von Arnim's "Tale of the Lucky Purse" (1845) underscores the affinity between the two genres. As demonstrated, however, Brentano-von Arnim's hybrid must be attributed not only to her familiarity with the entire spectrum of the fairy-tale tradition, but also to her unique ideological position in regard to the causes of and solutions to the "social question," the increasing impoverishment of the lower classes throughout the 1840s in the German states.
A Giant and Some Dwarves: Nietzsche's Unpublished Märchen on the Exception and the Rule
Richard Perkins
As a philosopher and culture-critic, Friedrich Nietzsche is intent upon exposing the intellectual and cultural conditions that impair a people's capacity to produce great human beings. At the same time, however, he recognizes the danger involved in promoting such radical exceptions to the general rule. Great men are "explosives." Greatness is problematic. He illustrates the basic relationship between greatness and smallness in an unpublished fragment depicting some dwarves on whom a giant is about to urinate. It is a comical tale hinging on word-play between Riese (giant) and rieseln (drizzle), and on other puns that stubbornly resist translation. Faced with drowning, the dwarves must rise to the occasion and avert disaster. Their strategy to accomplish this is rooted in a "doubling" process, which represents the story's central philosophical interest.
Theodor Storm's "The Rain Maiden": A Creative Process
Margaret T. Peischl
Theodor Storm's life-long interest in writing fairy tales found its most consummate expression in 1863 with the writing of "The Rainmaiden" ("Die Regentrude"). The story of a young girl who enters a subterranean realm in order to awaken the sleeping rainmaiden and to revive a drought stricken countryside is a metaphor for Storm's own descent into the realm of his subconscious in order to activate his slumbering creative powers. Both the author and his protagonist successfully locate the fecundating impulses they seek: the latter by discovering the source for the rain that will restore the arid farmlands, and the former by finding the means to revitalize his imagination and to produce not only this tale but also two others. "The Rainmaiden" is shown to be the story of its own making: a narrative about and demonstration of a search for fertility and creativity.
SCHOLARSHIP IN TRANSLATION
Introduction to the Work of Yvonne Verdier
Joseph Gaughan
Little Red Riding Hood in Oral Tradition
Yvonne Verdier/Translated by Joseph Gaughan
TEXTS & TRANSLATIONS
Bettina Brentano-von Arnim/Translated by Helen G. Morris-Keitel
Gisela von Arnim/Translated by Shawn C. Jarvis
Theodor Storm/Translated by Margaret T. Peischl
Reviews
Critical Exchanges
Professional Notices
Contributors
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