Time, Space, and Lutz Röhrich

Lutz Röhrich (1923-2006) is one of the eminent folklorists of the second half of the twentieth century. His theory of the relationship between folktale and reality challenged the existing paradigms and offered an analysis that was different from the romantic and the nationalist-fascist models of interpretation. This essay discusses how Röhrich uses the concepts of time and space as analytical categories in the interpretation of the folktale and fairy tale in his seminal work, Märchen und Wirklichkeit (1956; Folktales and Reality 1991), and argues that Röhrich's method is rooted in his own time and space as well.