The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World - Hardcover

Zipes, Jack David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415900816 ISBN 13: 9780415900812

Publisher: Routledge Kegan & Paul, 1988

Synopsis

Most of the fairy tales that we grew up with we know thanks to the Brothers Grimm. Jack Zipes, one of our surest guides through the world of fairy tales and their criticism, takes us behind the romantic mythology of the wandering brothers. Bringing to bear his own critical expertise as well as new biographical information, Zipes examines the interaction between the Grimms' lives and their work. He reveals their personal struggle to overcome social prejudice and poverty, as well as their political efforts -- as scholars and civil servants -- toward unifying the German states. By deftly interweaving the social, political, and personal elements of their lives, Zipes rescues the Brothers Grimm from sentimental obscurity. No longer figures in a fairy tale, the Brothers Grimm emerge as powerful creators, real men who established the fairy tale as one of our great literary institutions. Part biography, part critical assessment, and part social history, The Brothers Grimm provides a complex and very real story about fairy tales and the modern world.

About this title

About the Author:

Jack Zipes is Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, USA. He is the author, translator, and editor of dozens of studies and collections of folk and fairy tales. His recent books include "Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre, "Relentless Progress: The Reconfiguration of Children's Literature, Fairy Tales, and Storytelling," and "The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films."

From Library Journal:

Zipes is probably the leading American authority on the fairy tale, which makes this new edition of his classic study of the Brothers Grimm (1988) especially welcome. Zipes has significantly revised and expanded his book, responding both to its earlier critics and to the wealth of new work on the Grimms to come out of East Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall. He is concerned with both the artistry and the ideology of the tales. While agreeing that the Grimms often transformed their tales to reflect the bourgeois values of their world, Zipes wishes to avoid simplistic readings, exploring the complexity of what such values actually meant. At the same time, Zipes is interested in their later reception and appropriation, including the efforts of Disney. His new chapter on the legacy of the Grimms in East and West Germany is especially illuminating. Highly recommended.
T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah, GA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge Kegan & Paul
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0415900816
• ISBN 13: 9780415900812
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224