Brothers Grimm

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Wilhelm (left) and Jacob Grimm (right) from an 1855 painting by Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann

The Brothers Grimm (German: Die Brüder Grimm or Die Gebrüder Grimm), Jacob Grimm (January 4, 1785 – September 20, 1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (February 24, 1786 – December 16, 1859), were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular.[1] Jacob was an academic in philology, researching how the sounds in words shift over time (Grimm's law). Furthermore, he was a lawyer whose legal work, German Legal Antiquities (Deutsche Rechtsaltertümer) in 1828, made him a valuable source of about the origin and meaning of much legal historical idiomatic usage and symbolism.[2] The brothers can be counted along with Karl Lachmann and Georg Friedrich Benecke as founding fathers of Germanic philology and German studies. Late in life they undertook the compilation of the first German dictionary.

The first collection of fairy tales Children's and Household Tales (Kinder-und Hausmärchen) was published in 1812 with more than 200 fairy tales. Many of the stories had already been written by Charles Perrault in the late 1600s. They are among the best-known story tellers of European folktales, and their work popularized such stories as "Snow-White and Rose-Red" (Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot), "The Frog Prince" (Der Froschkönig), "Hansel and Gretel" (Hänsel und Gretel), "Rapunzel", "Rumpelstiltskin" (Rumpelstilzchen), "The Town Musicians of Bremen" (Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten), and "Snow White" (Schneewittchen).

Contents

[edit] Life

[edit] Origin and early life

Sculpture of brothers Grimm in Hanau

Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm (also Karl - see Note a below) and Wilhelm Carl Grimm[a] were born on 4 January 1785 and 24 February 1786 respectively, in the Wolfgang section of Hanau, Germany near Frankfurt in Hessen, the sons of Philipp Wilhelm Grimm, a jurist and bailiff with offices at Schlüchtern and Steinau, originally from Hanau, and Dorothea Grimm, née Zimmer, a former neighbor and the daughter of an apothecary.[3] They were among a family of nine children: Frederick Herman George (German: Friedrich Hermann Georg; 12 December 1783 – 16 March 1784), Jacob, Wilhelm, Carl Frederick (German: Carl Friedrich; 24 April 1787 – 25 May 1852), Ferdinand Philip (German: Ferdinand Philipp; 18 December 1788 – 6 January 1845), Louis Emil (German: Ludwig Emil; 14 March 1790 – 4 April 1863), Frederick (German: Friedrich; 15 June 1791 – 20 August 1792), Charlotte "Lotte" Amalie (10 May 1793 – 15 June 1833) and George Edward (German: Georg Eduard; 26 July 1794 – 19 April 1795).[4][5] Their early childhood was spent in the countryside. The Grimm family lived near the magistrate's house between 1790 and 1796 while the father was employed by the Prince of Hessen.

When the eldest brother, Jacob, was 11 years old, their father, Philip Wilhelm, died and the family moved into a cramped urban residence.[5] Two years later, the children's grandfather also died, leaving their mother to struggle to support them in reduced circumstances.[6] "They urged fidelity to the spoken text, without embellishments, and though it has been shown that they did not always practice what they preached, the idealized 'orality' of their style was much closer to reality than the literary retellings previously thought necessary."[7] Others argue that "scholars and psychiatrists have thrown a camouflaging net over the stories with their relentless, albeit fascinating, question of 'What does it mean?'"[8] Another possible environmental influence can be discerned in the selection of stories such as The Twelve Brothers, which mirrors the collectors' family structure of one girl and several brothers overcoming opposition.[9]

[edit] Kassel and educational career

Both brothers Jacob and Wilhelm were educated at the Friedrichs-Gymnasium in Kassel and later both studied law at the University of Marburg. There they were inspired by their professor Friedrich von Savigny, who awakened an interest in the past. They were in their early twenties when they began the linguistic and philological studies that would culminate in both Grimm's law and their collected editions of fairy and folk tales. Though their collections of tales became immensely popular, they were essentially a by-product of the linguistic research, which was the brothers' primary goal.

In 1808, Jacob Grimm was appointed court librarian to the King of Westphalia. In 1812 the brothers published their first volume of fairy tales, Tales of Children and the Home. They had collected the stories from peasants and villagers; they were also aided by their close friend August von Haxthausen. In their collaboration, Jacob did more of the research, while Wilhelm, less sturdy in stature and intellect, put the work into a literary form that would appeal to children and the masses. They were also interested in folklore and primitive literature. In 1816 Jacob became a librarian in Kassel, where Wilhelm was also employed. Between 1816 and 1818, they published two volumes of German legends and a volume of early literary history.

[edit] Göttingen

The brothers became interested in older languages and their relation to German. Jacob began to specialize in the history and structure of the Germanic languages, devising a theory that became known as Grimm's law, based on immense amounts of data.In 1825, Wilhelm Grimm married Henriette Dorothea (Dortchen) Wild, (Jacob never married and lived most of his life in his brother's home). In 1830, they moved together to Göttingen, where both secured positions at the University of Göttingen.[10] Jacob was named professor and head librarian in 1830, Wilhelm a professor in 1835.

In 1837, the Brothers Grimm joined five of their colleague professors at the University of Göttingen, later known as the Göttingen Seven, in protesting against the abrogation of the liberal constitution of the Kingdom of Hanover by King Ernest Augustus I, the reactionary son of King George III. They were fired from their university posts and three were deported, including Jacob Grimm, who with Wilhelm settled in Kassel, outside Ernest's realm, at the home of their brother Ludwig. However, the next year brought an invitation to Berlin from the King of Prussia.[11]

Title page of the first volume of the German Dictionary.

Jacob and Wilhelm were ignored in the appointment of a chief librarian place in Kassel. A year later, in 1830 the two brothers moved away from Kassel to Göttingen, where they also had a common household. They spent time in writing a definitive dictionary, the German Dictionary, in German: Deutsches Wörterbuch, the first volume being published in 1854. The work was carried on by future generations.[12] Jacob then got a job as a librarian and professor of German Classical Studies. His brother William was also a librarian in Göttingen and a year later, Associate Professor. In his teaching, Wilhelm was often compromised by disease. Around 1832, the first volume of Jacob Grimm's "German Mythology" (Vol. 2: 1844, Volume 3: 1854) was published. This edition had an inspiring effect on many fairy tales and legends collectors.[12]

Between then and 1837, Jacob published two more volumes of "German Grammar". The two brothers then dealt with animal fables and in the same year, 1834, Jacob Grimm finalized a work he began in 1811, "Reinhart (Reineke) Fox", which was the first publication of this traditional animal epic, and the first coherent documentation of its vernacular versions. Subsequently, in 1835 he published his work on "German Mythology"; in this work Jacob examined pre-Christian beliefs and superstitions. This work had enormous influence on the research of myths. The third edition of the Children's and Household Tales was written in 1837 by Wilhelm alone. In 1838, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm began their joint work on the German dictionary.[12]

[edit] Grimms' Tales

Main article: Grimm's Fairy Tales

The Brothers Grimm began collecting folk tales[13] around 1806, in response to a wave of awakened interest in German folklore that followed the publication of Ludwig Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano's folksong collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn ("The Youth's Magic Horn"), 1805–08. By 1810 the Grimms produced a manuscript collection of several dozen tales, which they had recorded by inviting storytellers to their home and transcribing what they heard. However, these oral tales were heavily edited and many of the tales had its roots in written sources.[14] The brothers were bound to come across the same story more than once. When they did, the brothers used a technique of “contamination”, meaning they would strip away the similarities and try to rediscover the core of the story.[15] Buchmärchen (‘book tales’) is a term used to imply a mix of written and oral work. Some of the Grimm tales were referred to as this.[16] Although they were said to have collected tales from peasants, many of their informants were middle-class or aristocratic, recounting tales they had heard from their servants. For example; it was Dortchen Wild’s family and their nursery maid who told the brothers some of the more famous tales, such as “Hansel and Gretel” and “Sleeping Beauty”.[15] Several of the informants were of Huguenot ancestry and told tales that were French in origin.[1] Marie Hassenpflug, an educated woman of the French Huguenot ancestry, was just one of the women who shared her stories. They then adapted it.[16] It is possible that these informants could have been familiar with Charles Perrault’s tales because certain Grimm works are similar to those of Perrault's.[15] Some scholars have theorized that certain elements of the stories were "purified" for the brothers, who were devout Christians.[17] Aside from the added Christian elements, gender role models emerged and, over time, edited to become more ‘homey and cute’ to appeal to children.[15]

Front cover of the Grimms Fairy Tales Book

In 1812, the Brothers published a collection of 86 German fairy tales in a volume titled Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales). In this volume, Wilhelm said that their stories came from the oral tradition of tales, which was a tradition they wanted to save.[15] They published a second volume of 70 fairy tales in 1814 ("1815" on the title page), which together make up the first edition of the collection, containing 156 stories. They wrote a two-volume work titled Deutsche Sagen, which included 585 German legends; these were published in 1816 and 1818.[18] The legends are organized in the chronological order of historical events to which they were related.[19] The brothers arranged the regional legends thematically for each folktale creature, such as dwarfs, giants, monsters, etc. not in any historical order.[19] These legends were not as popular as the fairytales.[18]

First page of Grimm's Children's and Household Tales, First part

A second edition of the Children's and Household Tales followed in 1819–22, expanded to 170 tales. Five more editions were issued during the Grimms' lifetimes,[20] in which stories were added or subtracted. The seventh edition of 1857 contained 211 tales. Many of the changes were made in light of unfavorable reviews, particularly those that objected that not all the tales were suitable for children, despite the title.[21] The tales were also criticized for being insufficiently German; this not only influenced the tales the brothers included, but their language. They changed "fee" (fairy) to an enchantress or wise woman, every prince to a king's son, every princess to a king's daughter.[22] (It has long been recognized that some of these later-added stories were derived from printed rather than oral sources.)[23] These editions, equipped with scholarly notes, were intended as serious works of folklore. The Brothers also published the Small Edition (German: Kleine Ausgabe), containing a selection of 50 stories expressly designed for children (as opposed to the more formal Large Edition (German: Große Ausgabe). Ten printings of the "small edition" were issued between 1825 and 1858.

The Grimms were not the first to publish collections of folktales. There were others, including a German collection by Johann Karl August Musäus published in 1782–87. The earlier collections, however, made little pretence to strict fidelity to sources. The Brothers Grimm were the first workers in this genre to present their stories as faithful renditions of the kind of direct folkloric materials that underlay the sophistication of an adapter such as Perrault. In doing so, the Grimms took a basic and essential step toward modern folklore studies, leading to the work of folklorists like Peter and Iona Opie[24] and others.

The Grimms' method was common in their historical era. Arnim and Brentano edited and adapted the folksongs of Des Knaben Wunderhorn; in the early 19th century Brentano collected folktales in much the same way as the Grimms.[25] The early researchers did their work before academic practices for such collections had been codified.

[edit] Linguistics

In the very early 19th century, the time in which the Brothers Grimm lived, the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had recently dissolved, and the modern nation of Germany did not exist. In its place was a confederacy of 39 small- to medium-size German states, many of which had been newly created by Napoleon as client states. The major unifying factor for the German people of the time was a common language. Part of what motivated the Brothers in their writings and in their lives was the desire to help create a German identity.

Less well known to the general public outside of Germany is the Brothers' work on a German dictionary, the Deutsches Wörterbuch. It was extensive, having 33 volumes and weighing 84 kg (185 lbs). It is still considered the standard reference for German etymology. Work began in 1838, but by the end of their lifetime, only sections from the letter 'A' to part of the letter 'F' were completed. The work was not considered complete until 1960.[26]

Jacob is recognized for enunciating Grimm's law, the Germanic Sound Shift, that was first observed by the Danish philologist Rasmus Christian Rask. Grimm's law was the first non-trivial systematic sound change to be discovered.

[edit] Death

Graves of the Brothers Grimm in the St Matthäus Kirchhof Cemetery in Schöneberg, Berlin.

The brothers died while still working on the dictionary: Wilhelm died in December 1859, having completed the letter D; Jacob survived his brother by nearly four years, completing the letters A, B, C and E, and was working on Frucht (fruit) when he collapsed at his desk.

[edit] Books, film and television

Two of the Grimm Brothers' best known fairy tales have been adapted by Walt Disney Animation Studios as animated feature film being Snow White and Rapunzel (Tangled 2010 film).[27][28]

Berlin memorial plaque, Brüder Grimm, Alte Potsdamer Straße 5, Berlin-Tiergarten, Germany

Henry Levin and George Pal released the 1962's United States movie The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm".[29]

A made-for-TV musical called Once Upon a Brothers Grimm was released in 1977, aired in the United States.

1000 Deutsche Mark (1992)

The Grimme Prize-nominated German TV crime thriller, titled A Murderous Fairytale (Ein mörderisches Märchen) was produced in 2001, used elements of Brothers Grimm fairytales. In the film directed by Manuel Siebenmann, which was written by Daniel Martin Eckhart, the elderly killer challenges the detectives with a series of Brothers Grimm fairytale riddles. Comic book writer Bill Willingham created in 2002 the comic book Fables, which includes characters from fables as the main characters.[30] In 2005 The Brothers Grimm was released.[31] John Conolly published in 2005 The Book of Lost Things which includes many darker adaptions of the Grimm's tales; including Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Rumpelstiltskin.[32][33]

[edit] Notes

a. ^ The New German Biography records their names as "Grimm, Jacob Ludwig Carl"[34] and "Grimm, Wilhelm Carl".[35] The German Biographical Archive records Wilhelm's name as "Grimm, Wilhelm Karl".[35] The General German Biography gives the names as "Grimm: Jacob (Ludwig Karl)"[36] and "Grimm: Wilhelm (Karl)".[37] The National Union Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints also gives Wilhelm's name as "Grimm, Wilhelm Karl".[35]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Zipes 1998, pp. 69–70
  2. ^ Seul, Jürgen (2011-01-04). "Jacob Grimm zum Geburtstag: Von der Poesie im Recht" (in German). Legal Tribune ONLINE, Spiegel Online. http://www.lto.de/de/html/nachrichten/2267/Von-der-Poesie-im-Recht/. Retrieved 2011-03-29. 
  3. ^ "Geschichte der Grimms". http://www.grimm01.de/geschichte/index.html?1. Retrieved 2011-04-06. 
  4. ^ Grimm, Anne Louise (January 2012). "Grimm Genealogy". ReachONE Internet. willapabay.org. http://www.willapabay.org/~anne/grimm.htm. Retrieved January 23, 2012. 
  5. ^ a b Michaelis-Jena 1970, p. 9
  6. ^ It has been argued that this is the reason behind the brothers' tendency to idealize and excuse fathers, leaving a predominance of female villains in the tales—the infamous wicked stepmothers, for example, the evil stepmother and stepsisters in "Cinderella", but this disregards the fact that they were collectors, not authors of the tales.Alister & Hauke 1998, pp. 216–219
  7. ^ Simpson & Roud 2000
  8. ^ Thomas O'Neill, National Geographic, December 1999
  9. ^ Tatar 2004, p. 37
  10. ^ "Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm", Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, 2nd e., 8 vols. Gale Group, 2002.
  11. ^ Die Brueder Grimm Timeline at DieBruederGrimm.de, Retrieved 4 February 2007
  12. ^ a b c "Grimm, Jacob und Wilhelm, Biographie" (in German). Zeno.org (Contumax GmbH & Co. KG). 2003. http://www.zeno.org/nid/20004900235. Retrieved 2011-03-28. 
  13. ^ James M. McGlathery, ed., The Brothers Grimm and Folktale, Champaigne, University of Illinois Press, 1988
  14. ^ Haase, Donald (2008). "Literary Fairy Tales". In Donald Haase. The Greenwood encyclopedia of folktales and fairy tales. 2. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 579. ISBN 0313334412. 
  15. ^ a b c d e Vanessa Joosen "Grimm" The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature. Edited by Jack Zipes. Oxford University Press 2006. York University. 25 October 2011
  16. ^ a b Haase, Donald, ed. "Literary Fairy Tales." The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales. Greenwood Group, 2008. 579. Web.
  17. ^ Clarissa Pinkola Estes, 'Women Who Run with the Wolves, p 15 ISBN 0-345-40987-6
  18. ^ a b Michaelis-Jena 1970, p. 84
  19. ^ a b Kamenstsky, Christa. The Brothers Grimm & Their Critics: Folktales the Quest for Meaning. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1992
  20. ^ Two volumes of the second edition were published in 1819, with a third volume in 1822. The third edition appeared in 1837; fourth edition, 1840; fifth edition, 1843; sixth edition, 1850; seventh edition, 1857. All were of two volumes, except for the three-volume second edition. Donald R. Hettinga, The Brothers Grimm: Two Lives, One Legacy, New York, Clarion Books, 2001; p. 154
  21. ^ Tatar 1987, pp. 15–17
  22. ^ Tatar 1987, p. 31
  23. ^ Kathleen Kuiper, Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, Springfield, MA, Merriam-Webster, 1995, p. 494; Valerie Paradiz, Clever Maids: The Secret History of the Grimm Fairy Tales, New York, Basic Books, 2005, p. xii. One example: the tale "All Fur," Allerleirauh, in the 1857 collection derives from Carl Nehrlich's 1798 novel Schilly. Laura Gonzenbach, Beautiful Angiola: The Great Treasury of Sicilian Folk and Fairy Tales, London, Rootledge, 2003; p. 345
  24. ^ Peter and Iona Opie. The Classic Fairy Tales, London, Oxford University Press, 1974, is the most famous of their many works in the field
  25. ^ Ellis, One Fairy Story too Many, pp. 2–7
  26. ^ Grimm Brothers' Home Page, University of Pittsburgh, Retrieved 28 February 2007
  27. ^ Disney Archives – Retrieved 2011-03-21
  28. ^ "Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge (1937)". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029583/. Retrieved 2011-03-22. 
  29. ^ Crowther, Bosley (1962-08-08). "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962)". The New York Times (The New York Times Company). http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9A01E6DC103CE63ABC4053DFBE668389679EDE. Retrieved 2011-04-06. "Screen: 'Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm':George Pal Production at Loew's Cinerama Laurence Harvey Heads a Cast of Stars" 
  30. ^ Boucher, Geoff (2010-01-17). "‘Fables’ writer Bill Willingham finds a happy ending despite ‘that damned Shrek’". Los Angeles Times. http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2010/01/17/fables-writer-bill-willingham-finds-a-happy-ending-despite-that-damned-shrek-1/. Retrieved 2011-03-23. "Over the last decade, one of the most consistently compelling comic-book runs has been writer Bill Willingham’s “Fables,” an intricate tapestry that weaves together familiar characters from fables, fairy tables, literature, children’s rhymes and folklore. It’s a great time to revisit the Vertigo series – or discover for the first time – with the recently released hardcover “Fables: The Deluxe Edition, Book One,” which collects the first 10 issues of the dark refugee epic that chronicles the very unexpected modern-day adventures of Bigby (aka, the Big Bad Wolf), Snow White, Jack Horner, Mowgli, Geppetto, Old King Cole and many, many others. The 53-year-old Virginia native has also recently published “Peter and Max: A Fables Novel,” which takes his franchise into the prose novel sector with a tale of Peter Piper and his brother Max." 
  31. ^ Brand, Sira (2003-11-14). "Grimmige Gebrüder Grimm" (in German). Spielfilm.de (Think-Media GmbH). http://www.spielfilm.de/news/6213/grimmige-gebrueder-grimm-inszeniert-terry-gilliam-in-prag.html. Retrieved 2011-03-29. "Matt Damon und Heath Ledger in bayerischen Lederhosen – in Terry Gilliams Version der Gebrüder Grimm" 
  32. ^ "John Conolly". Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Connolly_(author). Retrieved 2011-03-21. 
  33. ^ The Book of Lost Things Conolly, John (2007-10-16). The Book of Lost Things. ISBN 9780743298902. http://books.google.de/books?id=GSRhnPVpNyQC&lpg=PP1&dq=The%20Book%20of%20Lost%20Things&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2011-03-21. 
  34. ^ Deutsche National Bibliothek, citing Neue Deutsche Biographie.
  35. ^ a b c Deutsche National Bibliothek, citing Neue Deutsche Biographie, Deutsches Biographisches Archiv and The National Union Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints.
  36. ^ Wilhelm Scherer (1879) “Grimm, Jacob (Ludwig Karl).” In Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. 9. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. pp. 678–688. (German)
  37. ^ Wilhelm Scherer (1879) “Grimm, Wilhelm (Karl).” In Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. 9. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. pp. 690–695. (German)

[edit] Sources

  • Alister, Ian; Hauke, Christopher, eds (1998). Contemporary Jungian Analysis. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415141664 
  • Michaelis-Jena, Ruth (1970). The Brothers Grimm. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 0710064497 
  • Simpson, Jacqueline; Roud, Steve (2000). A Dictionary of English Folklore. Oxford University Press. ISBN 019210019X 
  • Tatar, Maria (1987). The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-06722-8 
  • Tatar, Maria (2004). The Annotated Brothers Grimm. W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-393-05848-4 
  • Zipes, Jack (2002). The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-0312293802 

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

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