Tales and Translation: The Grimm Tales from Pan-Germanic Narratives to Shared International Fairytales (review)

This work concentrates on the mutual relationship between the brothers Grimm and Danish intellectual life in the early nineteenth century as well as the subsequent internationalization of the fairytale genre. In their collection and composition of the Kinder-und Haus-Märchen (KHM), Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were heavily influenced by Danish linguistics and Norse mythology as mediated from Denmark, while their work conversely influenced folklore collecting and fairytale writing in Denmark and beyond. Dollerup’s study ‘focuses on the brothers’ work on their tales at an intersection between folklore, linguistics and translation’ (x).

The first section (3–68) describes the Grimm brothers’ historical setting, their collecting and storytelling techniques, and their connections with Denmark. D argues that it is because of their correspondence and relationship with notable Danish scholars such as Rasmus Nyerup, professor of literary history, and the linguist Rasmus Rask, who had established the basis for the study of Indo-European linguistics, that the Grimms understood their tale-collecting as not only a recording of national heritage but of folklore with a common, pan-Germanic, narrative origin. This influenced their methods of collecting and editing their stories; in the seven complete editions and ten small editions of KHM from 1812–1857 (all completed by the Grimms in their lifetime), the editorial principles at work involved the assumption that behind any tale told to them by their upper-class female storytellers was an ‘ideal tale’, and therefore, any changes making the tale ‘more perfect’ were completely in line with the Grimms’ scholarly goal of reproducing the authentic voice of the common people.

After a catalog of the Danish translations of KHM based on Danish national bibliographies and catalogs (69–146), D develops the history of the tales in Denmark (147–96) and the direction taken by the Grimm repertory in Danish (197–252). The next to last section (253–86) documents the internationalization of the Grimms’ tales as co-prints in further languages are made and as the tales gain new tellers with illustrators and other ‘relayers’ of the flexible tales. In his summary and conclusion (287–325), D highlights several important issues for translation studies in general and proposes that the strongest interaction in the translation process of these kinds of texts is not between the sender and recipient but between the translator and the target audience; the new culture of the translated text remodels it according to its own purposes and severs it from its original author.

While this book will be very valuable, unfortunately D states that ‘little prior work has been directly useful’ to him (xi), and one does miss certain sources that would have added to his analysis, such as Siegfried Neumann, ‘The brothers Grimm as collectors and editors of German folktales’ (The reception of Grimms’ fairy tales, ed. by Donald Haase, 24–40. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1993); and Karin Pulmer, ‘Zur Rezeption der Grimmschen Märchen in Dänemark’ (Brüder Grimm Gedenken 8: 181–203, 1988).

Engaging illustrations from various Grimm editions heighten the attractiveness of this book. It concludes with a bibliography, a subject index, and three important appendices: a translation of Jacob Grimm’s Circular of 1815, which inspired Danes to begin collecting their own folkloristic material; a translation of Wilhelm Grimm’s ‘Introduction’ to the 1819 edition, which gives his thoughts on the nature of fairytales; and an index of KHM numbers and titles.