The Shadow (fairy tale)
 Vilhelm Pedersen illustration | |
| Author | Hans Christian Andersen |
|---|---|
| Original title | Danish: Skyggen |
| Language | Danish |
| Genre | Literary fairy tale |
Publication date | 1847 |
| Publication place | Denmark |
Shadow (Danish: Skyggen) is a literary fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen. The tale was first published in 1847.
Plot summary
“Shadow" is the story about a learned man and his shadow, his attempt to visualize and fulfil his own writings about Beauty, Truth and Goodness, and it is the story of the act of writing itself: the storyteller's attempt to maintain the potential for Poetry in a reality dominated by appearances.
Analysis
 | This section possibly contains original research. (August 2012) |
 | This section is written like a review. (August 2012) |
The Shadow is an exemplary story in Andersen's darker fairy tales. Throughout the tale, the writer is portrayed as a moral person, concerned with the good and true in the world. But as it says, the people around him are not much interested in his feelings on the subject. Indeed, his shadow says he does not see the world as it truly is.
The shadow claims to have seen all that is in the world, but does not own a soul himself. He strongly desires to own a shadow of himself, and later asks his former master to reverse the roles on their trip. When the learned man finally realises how far his shadow has degraded, it is already too late.
The ending is especially bleak for a fairy tale, as Andersen suggests that it is not always good that triumphs, and that evil does indeed have a powerful grip over the good and just.
Some critics have suggested that Andersen wrote the story as a form of indirect revenge against Edvard Collin, his patron's son, who had rejected him.[1]
Publication
"The Shadow" was first published 6 April 1847 as a part of New Fairy Tales. Second Volume. First Collection. 1847. (Nye Eventyr. Andet Bind. Første Samling. 1847.). The work was re-published December 1847 as a part of A Christmas Greeting to my English Friends, and again 18 December 1849 as a part of Fairy Tales. 1850. (Eventyr. 1850.). The tale was re-published 30 March 1863 as a part of Fairy Tales and Stories. Second Volume. 1863. (Eventyr og Historier. Andet Bind. 1863.).[2]
Precedent
In 1814, three decades before the publication of "The Shadow", Adelbert von Chamisso had published "Peter Schlemihl's Miraculous Story", a story about a man who sells his shadow to the devil in exchange for a bottomless wallet. Andersen's story was prompted by Chamisso's, and he refers to it in "The Shadow":[1]
He was very annoyed, not so much because the shadow had disappeared, but because he knew there was a story; well-known to everybody at home in the cold countries, about a man without a shadow; and if he went back now and told them his own story, they would be sure to say that he was just an imitator, and that was the last thing he wanted.
Andersen's story in turn appears to have influenced Oscar Wilde's "The Fisherman and His Soul".[1]
Adaptations
The Shadow became the first text of some considerable length to be published in Esperanto. It was contained in the 1888 Dua Libro (Second Book) by the creator of that language, L. L. Zamenhof (the first book had contained only single bible verses, short poems and the like).
Evgeny Shvarts has explicitly based his Tyen (The Shadow) play on Andersen's tale, introducing additional characters and plot lines and a different ending.
In 1945 the story was adapted as an episode of the syndicated radio program The Weird Circle.
In 1994 Frederik Magle, Thomas Eje, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and others released the album The Song Is a Fairytale with songs based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairytales. "The Shadow" is one of the songs.[3]
Skuggaleikur (Shadow Play) is an opera by Icelandic composer Karólína Eiríksdóttir with libretto by Sjón. Premiered in November 2006.
In 2003, the Carolina Ballet premiered a ballet version of The Shadow with choreography by artistic director Robert Weiss, set to the music of Khachaturian, Kabalevsky, Gyorgy Ligeti, Fauré and Rachmaninoff.[4] The ballet features an eerie[opinion] sequence in which the poet contemplates his shadow in the mirror. The image, which at first copies his movements in complete synchrony, seamlessly emerges from the mirror frame (through effective[opinion] changes in lighting) as another dancer in a gray full body stocking.[5]
See also
- List of works by Hans Christian Andersen
- 1847 in literature
- Vilhelm Pedersen, first illustrator of Andersen's fairy tales
References
- ^ a b c Jacqueline Banerjee, The Impact of Hans Christian Andersen on Victorian Fiction, The Victorian Web, 12 December 2008.
- ^ Hans Christian Andersen Center: Hans Christian Andersen: The Shadow
- ^ "The Song is a Fairytale". magle.dk. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
- ^ Van Gelder, Lawrence (29 May 2003). "Arts Briefing". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
- ^ Dobbs Ariail, Kate (May 2003). "Carolina Ballet: The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen". Classical Voice of North Carolina. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
External links
- "The Shadow" Jean Hersholt's English translation
- Skyggen Original Danish text
- English translation (full text) from "Andersen's Fairy Tales"
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