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  • Steeped in Lore
  • Cay Dollerup (bio)
The Grimm Reader: The Classic Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Maria Tatar, ed. and trans.; Introduction by A. S. Byatt. W. W. Norton. http://books.wwnorton.com. 325 pages; paper, $16.95.

The brothers Grimm published the first volume of their Children and Household Tales, now known as the Grimm Fairytales, shortly before Christmas in 1812 at the same time that Napoleon's fatigued army beat its retreat from Russia. The second volume of Tales appeared in 1815, the year that saw Napoleon's final defeat. Jacob Grimm was in the service of Napoleon's brother, King Jérôme of Westphalia, and in this capacity he was present at meetings of the council of state where he was probably an interpreter. From this international vantage point, he observed how the wars wrought havoc in Europe. There was incipient nationalism, and a growing recognition that the core of "German" cultural identity was to be found in the German past and notably in folklore as expressed in ballads, legends, and tales.

Steeped in old German lore, the brothers Grimm had begun to collect folktales around 1807, partly in order to create a basis for a "history of poetry" and partly to save the tales from oblivion. Whereas Napoleon brought destruction to many countries, the brothers Grimm succeeded both in establishing a scholarly foundation for folkloristic research and committing to paper and the general public the tales that bear their name. The Tales were by no means an instant success. It required translations into Danish (1816, 1817, 1823), Dutch (1820), and, above all, English (1823) to make Wilhelm publish a Small Edition for children in Germany. It comprised only 50 tales that primarily belonged to the fairytale genre, and this selection appealed to large audiences of delighted children in Germany and abroad.

Although both brothers initially collected the tales, it was Wilhelm Grimm who gave them the form that we know today by introducing, over a period of 40 years, numerous changes that were inspired by his reading aloud of the stories.

Most translations of the Grimm Tales offer a selection of the "core" fairytales such as "Snow White," "Briar Rose," and "The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats." But in this collection, Maria Tatar offers the general reader a unique insight into the "realities" of the genuine Grimm Tales by printing some of the controversial and barbaric ones. Her aim is to make for a more nuanced perception of the two brothers. She promises that readers "will find here a hotline to stories that hiss and cackle with narrative energy, to narratives that have migrated from nineteenth century Germany to other times and places."

She has selected 46 tales and legends for children from the Grimm volume of 210 stories. They have been translated expertly and fluently and include an adaption of the German punctuation and word order. She succeeds in this, and all tales are well suited for reading aloud. In contrast to most edited translations for children that are often adapted and censored, Tatar renders the contents adequately.

Before we condemn re-writing in translation, it should be borne in mind that in the oral tradition from which most of the Grimm tales ultimately derive, no one owns a story. It is only in the narration that the tale lives, and only then does it belong to the speaker. Every narrator in the chain can add as well as leave out features, passages, characters, and crucial events, and perhaps create a tale with another basic theme from the same mould. Translators of tales are merely links in the narrative chain, and their produce is consumed with or without changes by readers, parents and grandparents, listeners, and children, who are free to summarize the tales they heard any way they can.

This edition comes with scholarly comments and is therefore to be taken more seriously, but at the same time, it is not to be judged by any other standards than those set by Tatar herself. I believe the original's "Hochzeit" in "Cinderella" as a "festival" or "ball" since the word "Hochzeit" is here used in the sense also recorded in the Grimm...

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