Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao
Published in Indian Express on 14th October, 1983
Folk and Fairy tales contain myths and folk lore and were the learning of non-literate societies as transmitted by word of mouth and by example and imitation. They are an intellectual subject in their own way. The recognition of folk tradition was felt as early as the eighteenth century. A manuscript by Wilhelm Grimm penned in 1816 was published three decades ago on September 30, 1983. Thus yet another fairy tale came out from hiding.
The fairy tales of the Grimm brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm, became so famous throughout the world that no child or adult could restrain himself from reading them. Their work on the folklore literature of different countries gave a new direction to children’s literature.
Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm and his younger brother Wilhelm Carl Grimm had to live with family responsibilities because their parents died when they were still very young. While studying law they came under the influence of Clemens Brentano and developed a liking for folk poetry. They pursued their interest and colleted numerous folk songs. They felt that real poetry which could express the eternal joys and sorrows and hopes and fears of mankind could be found in folk songs.
The Grimm Brothers (Courtesy Google Search)
The Grimms then published their collected tales-Children's and Household Tales-as “Kinder-und-Hausmarchen” (in German) which means that these stories are both for children and adults. The 200 stores are mostly taken from verbal stories – very few from printed material. It is a collection of German origin fairy tales first published in 1812. The collection is commonly known today as Grimms' Fairy Tales.
While on December 20, 1812, they published the first volume of the first edition, containing 86 stories, the second volume of 70 stories followed in 1814. For the second edition, two volumes were issued in 1819 and a third in 1822, totaling 170 tales. The third edition appeared in 1837, fourth edition in 1840, fifth edition in 1843, sixth edition in 1850 and seventh edition in 1857. Stories were added, and also subtracted, from one edition to the next, until the seventh held 211 tales. All editions were extensively illustrated, first by Philipp Grot Johann and after his death in 1892 by Robert Leinweber. The Brothers investigated in the valley of the Weser to collect oral folk tales that they believed had their origins in authentic German tradition.
These stories tell us the beliefs of people through the generations and are almost a genuine production of the words of the person who actually told them. While writing them, the Grimms did not change their basic character of folk lore. The collection which has been translated into several languages is still a model for folk takes. It is believed to be the earliest collection of folk tales with a scientific approach.
Theodor Ben fey, a German scholar in his introduction to the Indian story collections–“Panchatantra” claimed that India was the home of master tales, subsequently found in the Grimms collection. These according to him diffused from India to Europe in the ancient times.
Whatever be their origin and from whatever they might have been diffused, one thing is certain, that, all the tales whether ‘King Grisly-Beard’ or the ‘Wood-cutters Daughter’ or ‘The Fisherman and His wife’ are very interesting. After all “Folk lore is as old and as young as Human being”.
"Long before books were made, people told stories. They told them to one another and to the children as they sat before the fire. Many of these stories were about interesting people, but most of them were about the ways of fairies and giants. In those days, if people did not know why strange things happened, they said it was because of fairies. Even then, they could imagine such wonderful things that fairies might do. Of course, the people who told the stories in that long ago time, and the people who listened to the stories, really believed in fairies.
At the same time, these are about people, too. The people in the stories are often so real that you imagine you might be in their place, or that we might know them in real life. Most of the fairy stories also have some lesson that we might learn and thus be a wiser person" according to Dolch and Jackson.
A fairy tale is a story, usually told to children, concerning the adventures of mythical characters such as: fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, giants and others. Also, it often involves princes and princesses. American fairy tales normally have a happy ending, but German and other European tales most often have a bad ending.
The story usually begins with "Once upon a time...” takes place in fantasy or imaginary lands (the enchanted forest), has a "good" character (Snow White), has a "evil" or "bad" character (Evil queen), the number 3 or 7 appears usually (3 bears), sometimes it has royalty (Prince Charming), story ends on happy note (they lived happily ever after) and so on.
The influence of these books was widespread. W. H. Auden praised the collection, during World War II, as one of the founding works of Western culture. The tales themselves have been put to many uses. The Nazis praised them as folkish tales showing children with sound racial instincts seeking racially pure marriage partners, and so strongly that the Allied forces warned against them. For instance, Cinderella with the heroine as racially pure, the stepmother as an alien, and the prince with an unspoiled instinct being able to distinguish.
Wilhelm Carl Grimm, the younger of the Brothers Grimm, was born in Hanau, Hesse-Kassel. In 1803 he started studying law at the University of Marburg, one year after his brother Jacob started there. The whole of the lives of the two brothers was passed together. In their school days, they had one bed and one table in common. As students, they had two beds and two tables in the same room. They always lived under one roof, and had their books and property in common. Wilhelm took great delight in music, for which his brother had but a moderate liking, and had a remarkable gift of story-telling. He died when he was 73 years old on 16 December 1859.
Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was best known as the discoverer of Grimm's Law and more popularly as one of the Brothers Grimm. He was also known as the editor of Grimm's Fairy Tales. He was born in Hanau, in Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel). Grimm's Law, also known as “Rask's-Grimm's Rule” is the first law in linguistics concerning a non-trivial sound change. It was a turning point in the development of linguistics, allowing the introduction of a rigorous methodology to historic linguistic research. It concerns the correspondence of consonants in the older Indo-European, and Low Saxon and High German languages, and was first fully stated by Grimm in the second edition of the first part of his grammar. He died at the age of 78 on 20 September 1863.
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