Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Reviewed Works One Fairy Story Too Many: The Brothers Grimm and Their Tales by John M. Ellis
Reviewed Works One Fairy Story Too Many: The Brothers Grimm and Their Tales by John M. Ellis
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
University of Wisconsin Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Monatshefte.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 86.10.83.239 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 14:37:09 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
114
Monatshefte
bibliothek PreuB3ischer
Kulturbesitzin West Berlin; and scholarlycommentary
is provided for each text. The volume resulted from a project undertakenby
Rolleke's seminarat the University of Wuppertal.No attemptwas made to transcribeall such materialavailablein the manuscripts;the aim was ratherthat "ein
Eindruckdessen vermittelt werden sollte, aus welcherArt Materialdie Grimms
ihre richtungweisendenund zeittiberdauerndenMirchen- und Sageneditionen
schufen" (4). The volume does fulfill this aim, if only in the negative sense that
the materialis of a sort that, for one reason or another,the Grimms were unable
or unwilling to use.
The texts contained here make interestingreadingfor students of folktale,
if not perhapsfor the generalreadingpublic. The book calls special attention to
this rejectedmaterialand invites furtherstudy of it. Thus, here too, as with his
synoptic edition of the 1810 manuscriptsand the versions of the original 1812
edition (Die diltesteMdrchensammlungder BrutderGrimm, 1975) and his new
Reclam edition of the Kinder-und Hausmdrchen(3 vols., 1980), not to mention
his many other publications in this area, R611ekehas come to the aid of more
criticallyand scholarlyminded readerswho wish to probe furtherinto the backgroundof the Grimms'collection.(The changesand additionsin this thirdedition
are minor, as was the case, too, with the second edition relative to the first.)
-James M. McGlathery
Universityof Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
This content downloaded from 86.10.83.239 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 14:37:09 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Book Reviews
115
This content downloaded from 86.10.83.239 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 14:37:09 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
116
Monatshefte
readersof literarytexts, does not explore-or even suggest-what the new status
of these tales means in terms of their interpretivepotential.
Jack Zipes' approachto the KHM in Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion
puts Ellis' concern with the state of Grimm scholarshipinto perspective. Proceeding from the apparentlyobvious premise that the Grimms' tales are literary
creations,Zipes cites both R611ekeand Weber-Kellermannto supporthis matterof-fact claim that the myths of the tales' origins "have been proven false" (47).
What Ellis takespains to prove, Zipes considersalreadywell established.Whereas
Ellis maintains that the Grimms deceived their readersbecause they "wantedto
create a German national monument while pretendingthat they had merely discovered it" (100), Zipes implies a slightlymore subtle ideologicalmotivation. He
says that in rewritingthe tales the brothers'"intentions were honorable:they
wanted the rich culturaltraditionof the common people to be used and accepted
by the rising middle classes" (47). In other words, like their literate informants,
"the Grimm Brotherscontributedto the literary'bourgeoisification'of oral tales
which had belongedto the peasantryand lower classes."When Zipes agreeswith
Weber-Kellermannthat the KHM was "a work which was both 'bourgeois'and
'German'" (48), he is not succumbingto the cliche but suggestingthat the tales
were rewrittenby the Grimms not simply to reflecttheir own moral sensibilitieswhich is what Ellis rathergenerallyconcludes-but more specificallyto embody
the bourgeoisvalues and standardsof nineteenth-centuryGermany.When Zipes
calls the Grimms' intentions "honorable,"he is not singinga hymn of praisebut
viewing the Grimms in a socio-historicalcontext and acknowledgingthe tales
were written as pedagogicaltools to be used in the process of civilization. Like
Shakespeare'sAntony, Zipes knows all about honorablemen.
Indeed, the purpose of Zipes' book is to show how the literary fairy tale
has been consciouslyused since the 17thcenturyas a means of socializingchildren
in a bourgeois society. He is not arguing,of course, that the writers of literary
fairy tales "had nefariousplans and conspired to fill children'sheads with false
illusions" (16), but he does contend that "fairy tales operate ideologically to
indoctrinate children so that they will conform to dominant social standards
which are not necessarilyestablishedin theirbehalf' (18). His argumentproceeds
historically:CharlesPerraultshapedfolk materialsinto the classicalliteraryfairy
tale and began setting standardsof fairy tale discourse and of civilization that
influenced writers to come. Perrault'sideological intention was shared by the
Grimms in their KHM, where characters,events, and themes, were constantly
altered in order to reflectbetter the rigid standardsof bourgeois society, and by
Hans ChristianAndersen, whose personal struggleto ascend the social ladder
instilled in his tales a distinct ambiguityvis-g-vis the dominant class. The enormous influence of these writers,however, encouragedlater 19th-centurywriters
such as George MacDonald, Oscar Wilde, and L. Frank Baum to turn the fairy
tale against itself and to question and subvert the values it had come to promulgate. In describing the power struggleover fairy tale discourse during the
Weimar and Nazi periods, Zipes then shows just how conscious both "conservative" and "progressive"writershad become of the fairy tale's socializingpotential.
This content downloaded from 86.10.83.239 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 14:37:09 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Book Reviews
117
This content downloaded from 86.10.83.239 on Thu, 06 Aug 2015 14:37:09 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions