Handbuch zu den "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" der Brüder Grimm. Entstehung—Wirkung—Interpretation (review)

After making a significant contribution to the field of international folklore by revising Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson's The Types of the Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography in 2004, Hans-Jörg Uther has performed another notable and useful deed by producing the most thorough handbook of annotations to the Grimms' collection of folk tales to date, including all the tales that the brothers had deleted or omitted in the course of publishing seven editions from 1812 to 1857. This is a major accomplishment, for Uther provides a plethora of references and sources for scholars and students who might be interested in the origins, impact, and criticism of the Grimms' tales, and he covers a wide range of scholarship (most of it German) with élan and perspicacity.

Uther divides his book into four parts: a forward; references und commentary, which deal with the first 200 texts in the order of the final 1857 edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen along with the ten children's legends; the omitted texts (46 tales in all); and a short essay on the history of the collection. There are also a bibliography, a concordance of types and motifs, and a list of the Grimms' sources, contributors, and informants. Each entry begins with the categorical ATU (Aarne-Thompson-Uther) number and designation, the date of the tale's first publication in both the Große and Kleine Ausgabe published by the Grimms, when and if it was altered, the names of the informants or contributors, and a brief history of the tale's background. This factual information is followed by a commentary that traces the tale's origins to either an oral or literary tradition, discusses the variants and transformations up through the twenty first century, and offers remarks on its critical reception. The final part of each entry is a short bibliography of works cited and other important references to the tale.

In reading any of Uther's entries it becomes clear to what extent the Grimms relied upon the literary and scholarly print tradition to collect and edit their tales. As Uther points out in his short essay, "Zur Geschichte der Kinder- und Hausmärchen," the Grimms were fastidious collectors of print material, and though they initially endeavored to remain as true as possible to the oral tradition, they—in particular, Wilhelm—continually changed and embellished the texts to suit their ideological concept of didactic tales that were to form an Erziehungsbuch. It is generally due to the artistic and ideological transformations of the tales from the second edition of 1819 to the final one in 1857 that the collection became successful and became second only to the Luther Bible in popularity in Germany. It is probably still the most popular collection of folk and fairy tales in the world. However, the tales are not "genuine" folk tales, as Uther demonstrates. Rather, they are often appropriately referred to as Buchmärchen.

Much of what Uther writes about the origins, impact, and interpretation of the tales in his essay is already well known. His accomplishment resides in his capacity to summarize the results of previous scholarship in a concise and accurate manner. If there are any shortcomings to his work, they are related to the narrow approach to the history of the origins of the tales and to his neglect of the breadth of international scholarship on the Grimms' tales. Recent folklore and literary scholarship has explored connections of the Grimms' tales to the Greco-Roman myths, early medieval texts, and the Arabian Nights. Uther pays scant attention to this scholarship, nor does he explore how American, Japanese, French, Italian, and other folklorists and literary critics have contributed to a massive re-interpretation of the Grimms' work that challenges the philological approach of many German scholars. In addition, there are only two references to Walt Disney, and if the Grimms have...