Contents of
Vol. 14, No. 2 (2000)

Editorial Policy

Guidelines for Submission

ARTICLES

Complex Entities in the Universe of Fairy Tales

Francisco Vaz da Silva

This paper considers fairy tales as conveyers of symbolic patterns pertaining to the oral traditions of Europe, endeavors to disclose aspects of such symbolism that are often veiled by typological assumptions, and submits the idea that a complex ontology is conveyed in the workings of European oral traditions. By treating a number of fairy-tale themes as parts of the global "picture of transformations" delineated by Propp, and by moreover considering those themes against their ethnographic background, this paper brings to light some basic features of an underlying metaphysical worldview.

"History's Bearer": The Afterlife of "Bluebeard"

Stephen Benson

Starting out from the idea of the past as a pervasive presence in Charles Perrault's "Bluebeard," this essay seeks to explore the interrelation of two sets of retellings of "Bluebeard," one operatic, one literary. The first set--Dukas/Maeterlinck's Ariane et Barbe-Bleue and Bartók/Balázs's Duke Bluebeard's Castle--can be read as situating the tale within fin-de-siècle discourses of gender and history, and it is to this particular contextualization that the second set of narratives--John Updike's "George and Vivian" and Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber"--returns. What emerges from the various historical and textual toings and froings, is a reading of "Bluebeard" which aligns the two central protagonists with particular attitudes to history, thus offering a representation of gender difference as a difference of historical perspective.

Disney's Mulan--the "True" Deconstructed Heroine?

Lisa Brocklebank

This article examines Disney's Mulan in light of cross-dressing within fairy tales, the articulation of gender paradigms, and the role of Disney as purveyor of "canonical" meaning within popular culture. It first looks at Mulan in terms of the motif cross-dressing motif, situating the film within the larger discussion of cross-dressing in the fairy tale and briefly exploring similar tales of transgendered warriors by looking at common themes, motifs, narrative strategies, and disruptions. Secondly, it discusses the film itself by analyzing the performance of gender. It then evaluates the extent to which Mulan offers a depiction of a deconstructed heroine--one able to incorporate both traditionally "male" and "female" gender characteristics. Next, the essay examines Mulan in terms of a paradigm shift within the Disney production of gender and it debates the possible effects of the "Disneyfication" of a marginal and subversive form such as the folk tale. The essay concludes by looking at the relation of the Internet to the reception of the tale/film.

SCHOLARSHIP IN TRANSLATION

A New Debate about "Old Marie"? Critical Observations on the Attempt to Remythologize Grimms' Fairy Tales from a Sociohistorical Perspective

Lothar Bluhm / Translated by Deborah Lokai Bischof

TEXTS & TRANSLATIONS

One More Step

Roland Kübler / Translated by M. G. Hesse

REVIEWS

CRITICAL EXCHANGES

PROFESSIONAL NOTICES

CONTRIBUTORS

INDEX TO VOLUME 14 (2000)