Innocent Tales for Innocent Children?: Johann Gottfried Herder's Image of the Child and the Grimms' Fairy and Household Tales
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Innocent Tales for Innocent Children?: Johann Gottfried
Herder's Image of the Child and the Grimms' Fairy and
Household Tales
Amy Horning Marschall
Children's Literature Association Quarterly, 1991 Proceedings, pp. 205-216
(Article)
Published by Johns Hopkins University Press
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/chq.1991.0013
For additional information about this article
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/457752/summary
[ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ]Innocent Tales for Innocent Children?
Johann Gottfried Herder's Image of the Child
and the Grimms' Fairy and Household Tales
It is no wonder that scholars have seen in Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's Fairy and
Household Tales of 1812 the culmination of Johann Gottfried Herder's program for
the collection of oral literature.1 Like Herder before them, the Grimms envisioned
the fairy tale as a genre for children and as educational material, they regarded it as
the remnants of ancient myth, and they invoked a stereotypical female figure as the
teller of tales. The most seductive argument, however, is based on the fact that the
Grimms' first edition of their collection of fairy tales appeared at Christmas, and that
their friend Achim von Arnim presented it to his wife, Bettina—to whom, together
with their son, it was dedicated-on Christmas eve. In his essay, "Tales and Novels,"
of 1802, Herder had called for a collection of fairy tales for children. "A pure
collection of fairy tales, intended for the heart and soul of children, endowed with all
the riches of magical scenes as well as with the perfect innocence of a youth's soul,"
Herder proclaimed, "would be a Christmas gift for the young world of future
generations, for precisely in this holy night, the horrors of the ancient primeval world
were banished through the radiance of a child, who destroyed the power of evil
demons."2 Herder added in a footnote that such a collection would be appearing at
Christmas in 1802, but he died shortly thereafter, no collection having in the
meantime appeared. It was the Grimms, it seems, who answered his call.3
The relationship between Herder's conception of a collection of tales appropriate
for children, and that which the Grimms produced, however, is not so
straightforward. Herder was interested in new, adapted, and revitalized tales. He
explains: "It is now time for us to lay new meaning into old tales, and to use the best
ones with true understanding."4 The Grimms did not claim to have achieved such a
goal; on the contrary, Wilhelm Grimm, in his prefaces to the collections, claimed to
present tales from Germany's oral tradition, without addition, deletion, or
embellishment.5 In the preface to the second volume of their collection, Grimm
actually describes in detail the word-for-word transcription of oral recitations by a
peasant raconteur.6
On the other hand, there are discrepancies between the Grimms' claims and their
practices. Although as yet there is no clear consensus regarding the extent to which
the Grimms may have intended to deceive their audience, it is safe to say that simply
comparing the Grimms' manuscripts to each subsequent version of the Fairy and
Household Tales reveals substantial editing from one edition to the next.7 Perhaps
in the end they did, then, fulfill Herder's demand. ,And yet the story is more
complicated, for the images of the child that Herder, and later the Grimms, present-
in juxtaposition with the tales they described and published, respectively-is
205doubly ironic. It provides, in all its irony, an interesting perspective on the long-held
association between children and fairy tales.
As was absolutely typical of his characterizations of the phenomena of human
culture with which he concerned himself, Herder turns, at the outset of his discussion
of the tale, to its origin: "We awaken into the world in astonishment; our first
sensation, if not fear, is wonder, curiosity, astonishment. What is all of this around
me? How did it come to be? ... So asks, unaware of itself, the childlike mind."8
The questioning spirit that Herder invokes finds its answers, as he proceeds to
proclaim, in tales. Thus the genre arose in order to fill a need, and the oldest tales
were, accordingly, "explanations of nature."10 Wonder, then, surprise, and
astonishment at the world around the human being, is the human trait that begets
the genre. Wonder, as Herder establishes after having argued in favor of its
significance, is the faculty of a childlike mind. If it is not a child who, at the very
origin of the tale, summons it into existence, the image of the child serves as a means
for describing the human being who did so. Herder operates on the assumption that
human beings, at their anthropological beginning, were comparable to the individual
in the state of childhood, and the child, according to Herder's image, is one who
wonders.11
Herder's concern with the creative processes that engender such narratives
occupies a central position in his essay, "Tales and Novels"; indeed, in turning to
their origins as an attempt at their description, he implicitly privileges genesis, and
thus it is not surprising that the tale, as a human creation, is discussed in the context
of human creativity. The central section of this essay, entitled "Dream: A
Conversation with the Dream," is a celebration and investigation of the mystery of
the creating mind.12 In its parallels to dreams, then, tales are characterized by their
freedom from the limits of time, space, and mortality (23: 289). At the same time,
Herder suggests an analogy between the creative processes that engender tales and
dreams (23: 290-92). This undermines, however, the possibility for artistic control of
the tale. Though the dreamer is the author of the dream, the dream is a surprise to
its very own creator; it eludes control. This is the basis for a fundamental tension
that characterizes Herder's essay, for he regards the tale, in addition, as an
educational genre. In his call for the composition of a new set of tales Herder offers
prescriptive and prescriptive descriptions of the finished product.13 His wonder-
inspired, dream-like mode of creativity, however, precludes an author's planned and
intentional movement toward a preconceived goal. In his discussion of the fairy tale
in particular, which is comprised in part by his reception of Charles Perraulfs Tales
of Mother Goose,14 Herder develops the concept of the tale he hopes to see created,
and it derives, as I will argue, from his image of the child. It is important, however,
as I emphasize this side of Herder's discussion, that the tension in the essay not be
forgotten. This tension is significant because it mirrors the ambiguities in Herder's
conception of the audience for whom such tales arose and for whom they should, in
the future, be composed. The wondering human being may be childlike, but s/he is
not necessarily a child. Having voiced the questions he imagines gave rise to the
tale, as quoted above, Herder shifts his focus from its ultimate origin to its
206transmission. At this point, the questioning spirit really is a child, and the answers
this child seeks are given by "those who received us from nature's womb and once,
themselves, so asked" (see note 9). The tension, then, between a creative process that
originates in wonder and is akin to dreaming, and one that requires an author's
control in order to fulfill a preconceived plan, finds its parallel in the ambivalence of
Herder's conviction that such tales are appropriate literature for children.
"It would have been better," Herder suggests as he takes note of the immense
popularity of Charles Perrault's Tales of Mother Goose, "if one had called them Tales
of Father Gander." As justification for this opinion, Herder refers to the ideal mother,
but he fails to elaborate on her character. "A mother goose," he explains, "would
have told [the tales] to her goslings more appropriately."15 Although the maternal
voice is invoked as if its existence and nature were self-evident, a more fully
developed conception of the child, and a description of the tale that corresponds to
this conception, emerge as Herder addresses what he regards as the inadequacies of
Perraulfs collection.
Herder's critique of Perraulfs Mother Goose corresponds to certain ideals of the
Enlightenment. He objects to disguising dangers, for example, as wolves and ogres,
and he expresses the opinion that the "demons of our hearts" should be "revealed as
errors and phantoms, they should die away and be silent."16 Herder illustrates his
first point with the objection that "Little Red Riding Hood" will not recognize the true
danger that threatens her when it is disguised as a wolf, and Perraulfs goal of
protecting his female reader's chastity will not have been accomplished (23: 286).
What will occur, however, is that the fantasy of the child who hears her story and
others like it will be ruined by the phantoms which inhabit them.17 The child, in
Herder's view, is not only pure, but also innocent of the threats to its purity, and the
child's fantasy is, in its original state, free of demons. Fears are introduced, and they
are weaknesses, but they are not natural to the child's mind.
Herder leaves his discussion of Perrault and describes his perception of children
as listeners:
Whoever doubts the holiness of the child's soul should watch children when
someone is telling them a tale. "No! that is not how it goes, they say, you
told it differently before." They believe the fairy tale poetically; they do not
doubt truth even in the dream of truth, even though they know full well that
they are being told a tale. And if, in the course and at the end of the fiction,
their sense of reason or morality is offended, if vice and virtue fail to receive
their just due, the reward or the punishment they deserve, the child listens
unwillingly, and is not satisfied with the ending.18
Herder reveals a great deal about his notion of the child as he describes this scenario.
The explicit purpose of his illustration is to prove that the soul of the child is holy,
and he demonstrates what comprises this holiness in the course of the passage.
Children have a poetic sense, and they have a privileged insight into truth. They are
not only sophisticated enough to recognize a tale aá fiction; they are also capable of
207discovering the truth-value it obliquely reveals. They have a strong sense of reason,
and a strong moral sense as well. Herder attributes a sense of justice to children, one
that he regards as self-evident.19
If the tellers of Herder's tales are gendered, his ideal child is not, and if he hints
in his reference to "Little Red Riding Hood" at the sexuality that imbues Perraulfs
tales, he speaks of dangers that threaten the child from without, and proceeds to
emphasize the natural chastity of children.20 The "holiness" of children makes them
worthy of tales as pure as they are; it makes them worthy, in fact, of a gift analogous
to the gift of the Christ child. Though gendered, this child achieves his special status
by virtue of having been born of a virgin. The "perfect innocence of a youth's soul,"
for Herder, most certainly includes a lack of sex and sexuality, and so should,
accordingly, fairy tales.
In the preface to the first edition of the Grimms' tales, one of Wilhelm Grimm's
comments echoes Herder's images: "The same purity, for which children appear so
wonderful and blessed to us, inhabits these fictions."21 Not all of his readers found
this to be true, however, and in the preface to the second volume of the collection,
Wilhelm Grimm responds to his critics with an extensive defense of his collection as
an educational book.22 By 1819, however, Grimm is prepared to make concessions.
Stating, as in 1814, that his collection is suitable educational material, he adds:
We do not seek, in an educational book, that purity that is achieved by a
fearful exclusion of that which relates to certain conditions and relations that
occur daily and can in no way remain hidden, a practice which would in
addition imply that that which can be carried out in a book would be possible
in real life as well. We are seeking the purity in the truth of an honest story.
... At the same time we have carefully deleted, in this edition, every
expression that is not appropriate for childhood.23
There is a clear progression in Wilhelm Grimm's prefaces, from the tacit assumption
of 1812 that the tales upon which the collection is based are for children, to the
lengthy defense of its status as an educational book, first offered in 1814, and finally
to the implicit admission of 1819 that some aspects of the tales are not suitable for
children at all.
Herder's image of children as pure and innocent occasions his deep ambivalence
regarding the appropriateness of fairy tales for them, as well as his call for the
rewriting of the tales. That he operates, nonetheless, on the assumption that children
are the appropriate and intended audience for such narratives is evident both in this
call and in his speculation about the tales' origins. Herder's image of the child
suggests a context that informs Wilhelm Grimm. The evolution of Grimm's prefaces,
from assumption to defense and ultimately to accomodation, undermines his initial
assertion that "the same purity, for which children appear so wonderful and blessed
to us, inhabits these fictions" (Preface 1812, 1:3). It suggests the very same
208discrepancy between the child and the tale that pervades Herder's essay, and so
obviously disturbed him.
I would argue, and if I had the time I would support my claim with countless
studies, that the narratives we call fairy tales originated in illiterate peasant societies
in which few distinctions were made between children and adults, and that, being
told rather than read, they were heard by all,·24 further, that they were introduced
into the literate classes by domestic servants who brought the oral literature of their
own culture—as a whole-to the children of the upper classes. They brought it to the
children, of course, because these were the family members with whom they had
contact, or at least in whom they found a willing audience for their stories.25 Thus
it is from the perspective of the literate classes that fairy tales came to be regarded as
children's literature at all. The coincidences and ironies of Herder's and the Grimms'
perspectives give pause. Despite Ruth Bottigheimefs convincing argument, in her
Grimms' Bad Girls and Bold Bovs. that Wilhelm Grimm expunged a great deal of
sexual imagery as he edited the Fairy and Household Tales, and Grimm's own
admission, as quoted above, that he had deleted all inappropriate references, these
tales are not "innocent"; they are not free of violence, nor even of sex, as Maria Tatar
has amply demonstrated in her The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales. But
neither, as Sigmund Freud has made abundantly clear, are children.
If the historical context of the Grimms' collection of fairy tales casts doubt on
their status as children's literature, it ultimately reaffirms it. How strange, indeed,
that an image of children as innocent would engender the notion that they deserved
a collection of fairy tales; and stranger still that tales so full of horrors, violence, and
sexuality-so ill-suited to its imagined audience-would come to be viewed, after all,
as children's literature.
Notes
1In his preface to the Altdeutsche Wälder, Wilhelm Schoof notes that the Grimms
believed that the "Geist der Romantik sich weniger in den Zeugnissen einzelner
Kunstdichter, sondern in den Volksliedern, Sagen und Märchen offenbarte. Deshalb
sammelten sie besonders fleißig die beiden letzten Gattungen und schritten auf dem
von Herder angebahnten Wege fort, der zur Tat aufgerufen hatte ..." (xxvii). Hans
Arens says of Jacob Grimm: "Und niemand nach ihm hat so wie er wieder den
gesamten Bereich der Lebensäußerungen des deutschen Volkstums mit scharfem
Geist und liebendem Herzen durchdrungen und so das unendliche Herdersche
Programm zu einem Teil verwirklicht" (194). See also note 3 below.
2Herder's essay is entitled "Mährchen und Romane." The translations are my
own; the German originals for all quotes will be provided in notes. I use "tales" for
209"Mährchen" as the term assumes a very broad meaning in Herder's essay. It can best
be characterized as an essence that seeks embodiment in a particular form, which
varies from one culture to another. In Greece, for example, the Mährchen assumed
the form of the Epos. Thus the term acquires specificity only in its particular
historical manifestations; Herder states as the purpose of his essay, in fact, to examine
"wozu, im Zeitalter Ludwigs, das dem ganzen Europa Ton gab, auch das Mährchen,
die Erzählung, der Roman wurde" (23: 278). This explains the title. "Fairy tale" will
be used, as it has in the Grimms' title, for Kindermährchen. As is clear in the
passage under discussion, this is the manifestation of the more general Mährchen
whose rejuvenation Herder seeks. The passage reads as follows: "Eine reine
Sammlung von Kindermährchen in richtiger Tendenz für den Geist und das Herz der
Kinder, mit allem Reichthum zauberischer Weltscenen, so wie mit der ganzen
Unschuld einer Jugendseele begabt, wäre ein Weihnachtgeschenk für die junge Welt
künftiger Generationen: denn eben in dieser heiligen Nacht sind ja die Schreckniße
der alten Urwelt durch den Glanz eines Kindes verjagt, das die Gewalt böser
Dämonen zerstört hat" (23: 288).
3Quirin Gerstl notes: "Neun Jahre nach Herders Tod zu Weihnachten 1812, erfüllte
sich bereits sein Wunsch für die nachkommenden Generationen. Das Brüderpaar
Jakob und Wilhelm Grimm veröffentlichte den ersten Band seiner Sammlung von
'Kinder- und Hausmärchen"' (24).
4"An uns ist es jetzt, aus diesem Reichthum (den geglaubten Mährchen der
verschiedensten Völker) zu wählen, in alte Mährchen neuen Sinn zu legen, und die
besten mit richtigem Verstände zu gebrauchen" (23: 289).
5The Grimms' quotes are also my own translations. I refer to a passage near the
close of the preface to the first edition (1812): "Wir haben uns bemüht, diese Märchen
so rein als möglich war aufzufassen, man wird in vielen die Erzählung von Reimen
und Versen unterbrochen finden, die sogar manchmal deutlich alliterieren, beim
Erzählen aber niemals gesungen werden, und gerade diese sind die ältesten und
besten. Kein Umstand ist hinzugedichtet oder verschönert und abgeändert worden,
denn wir hätten uns gescheut, in sich selbst so reiche Sagen mit ihrer eigenen
Analogie oder Reminiscenz zu vergrößern, sie sind unerfindlich. In diesem Sinne
existirt noch keine Sammlung in Deutschland, man hat sie fast immer nur als Stoff
benutzt, um größere Erzählungen daraus zu machen, die willkührlich erweitert,
verändert, was sie auch sonst werth seyn konnten, doch immer den Kindern das
Ihrige aus den Händen rissen, und ihnen nichts dafür gaben" (1: 7-8).
6ThIe following story is added to the preface to the second volume (1814): "Einer
jener guten Zufälle aber war die Bekanntschaft mit einer Bäuerin aus dem nah bei
Cassel gelegenen Dorfe Zwehrn, durch welche wir einen ansehnlichen Theil der hier
mitgetheilten, darum acht hessischen, Märchen, so wie mancherlei Nachträge zum
ersten Band erhalten haben. Diese Frau, noch rüstig und nicht viel über fünfzig Jahre
alt, heißt Viehmännin, hat ein festes und angenehmes Gesicht, blickt hell und scharf
210aus den Augen, und ist wahrscheinlich in ihrer Jugend schön gewesen. Sie bewahrt
diese alten Sagen fest in dem Gedächtniß, welche Gabe, wie sie sagt, nicht jedem
verliehen sey und mancher gar nichts behalten könne; dabei erzählt sie bedächtig,
sicher und ungemein lebendig mit eigenem Wohlgefallen daran, erst ganz frei, dann,
wenn man will, noch einmal langsam, so daß man ihr mit einiger Übung
nachschreiben kann" (2: 5-6). In reference to this passage, Heinz Rölleke remarks on
the Grimms' failure to note, specifically, which fairy tales the woman from Zwehrn
told. The reasons for this were, as Rölleke surmises: "... einmal weil die Grimms
. . . auf das anonyme 'Volk' als Träger und Gestalter dieses Erzählguts insistierten,
zum anderen weil so der Eindruck erweckt wurde, daß der (vor allem nach Jacob
Grimms Theorie) kollektive Ursprung der Märchen gleichsam eine kollektive
Überlieferung bedinge und nur so greifbar sei. Die bewußt außerhalb der einzelnen
Anmerkungen plazierte und nicht eben datenfreudige Charakterisierung einer
einzigen Gewährsperson wollten die Brüder Grimm offerbar als pars pro toto
aufgefaßt wissen; mehr über ihre Quellen öffentlich mitzuteilen, waren sie jedenfalls
nicht bereit" (40).
7Such comparisons have stimulated a great deal of discussions regarding the
Grimms' editorial practices as well as the meaning of their collection. See
Bottigheimer and John M. Ellis, One Fairv Story Too Many: The Brothers Grimm and
Their Tales (Chicago: U Chicago P, 1983).
8"Staunend erwachen wir in die Welt; unser erstes Gefühl, wo nicht Furcht, so
Verwunderung, Neugierde, Staunen. 'Was ist alles um mich her? wie wards? Es
gehet und kommt; wer zieht die Fäden der Erscheinung? Wie knüpfen sich die
wandelnden Gestalten?' So fragt, sich selbst unbewußt, der kindliche Sinn ..." (23:
274). The ellipsis in the translation replaces the third and fourth questions: "It comes
and goes; who pulls the strings of this vision? How are these transient images
connected to each other?"
9ThIe passage continues: "... von wem erhält er Antwort? Von der stummen
Natur nicht; sie läßt erscheinen und verschwinden, bleibend in ihrem dunkeln
Grunde, was sie war, was sie ist, und seyn wird. Da treten zu uns sie, die uns selbst
aus dem Schooße der Natur empfingen und einst selbst so fragten; wie sie belehrt
wurden, so belehren sie uns, durch-Sagen" (23: 274). Herder uses Sagen
interchangeably with Mährchen.
lO.i
Erklärungen der Natur" (23: 274).
"The analogy between the child and the human race at its inception recurs in
Herder's work, most notably in his "Von den Lebensaltern einer Sprache." Here, too,
wonder is characteristic of human beings on the threshold of culture, in this case in
the stage Herder regards as the "childhood" of language. His description is similar to
the passage from "Mährchen und Romane" quoted above: "Eine Sprache in ihrer
Kindheit bricht wie ein Kind einsylbichte, rauhe und, hohe Töne hervor. Eine Nation
211in ihrem ersten, wilden Ursprünge starret, wie ein Kind, alle Gegenstände an;
Schrecken, Furcht und alsdenn Bewunderung sind die Empfindungen, derer beide
allein fähig sind, und die Sprach^ dieser Empfindungen sind Töne,~und Geberden"
(1: 152). Despite the fact that here Herder is speaking of language, and in the
passage quoted above of tales, he refers in both instances to wonder as the
motivating force that engenders human linguistic expression.
12"Der Traum. Ein Gespräch mit dem Traume." "Mährchen und Romane" consists
of several sections, each of which is titled according to its part in the overall structure
of the essay, for example, "Beilage," "Fortsetzung über Mährchen und Romane," and
"Schluß." The section on the dream departs from this pattern, and it is additionally
set off from the rest of the essay in its dialogic, rather than expository, style. It
follows immediately upon Herder's call for a new collection of fairy tales.
13These are included in the "Schluß," which is actually the penultimate section of
the essay. Herder asks that the author not intrude, that the fairy tale have unity,
reason and purpose ("Einheit, Verstand, Absicht"), says that it should lift its readers
above the everyday world, that wonders must be necessitated, and finally that the
tale should do as the dream does: "Aus dem tiefsten Grunde holt er die
Heimlichkeiten und Neigungen unsres Herzens hervor, stellt unsre Versäumniße und
Vernachläßigungen ans Licht, bringt unsre Feinde uns vor Augen und weckt und
warnet und strafet. ..." (23: 297). His ultimate demand illustrates the contradictory
impulses he envisions in the creative process: "Ihr Dichter, fühlt euren Beruf! Voll
Geistes der heiligen Götter, träumt glücklich. Um also zu träumen, seyd nüchtern"
(23: 297).
14Herder refers to the title Contes de ma Mère l'Ove. Perraulfs collection was
first published in 1697 under the title Histoires ou Contes du temps passé. It
included a frontispiece with the subtitle Contes de ma mère l'Ove.
15"Beßer, dünkt mich, hätte man sie Mährchen des Vater Gansert nennen sollen:
denn eine Mutter Gans hätte sie ihren Küchlein Zweckmäßiger erzählet" (23: 286).
16The passage to which I am referring warrants quotation in full as it supports the
notion that Herder's thought was surprisingly closely allied to trends considered
characteristic of the Enlightenment: "Die Menschheit muß einmal dahin gelangen, daß
sie, ihrer selbst gewiß, einsehen lerne, wie auch die Queerstriche unsres Schicksals
von keinem als der großen und gütigen Mutter der Dinge nach ihren ewigen
Gesetzen gezeichnet wurden, und daß die Fehler, die wir selbst, die Bosheiten, die
andre gegen uns begehen, Verirrungen des menschlichen Verstandes, Krankheiten
des menschlichen Herzens seyn, die unsre heilende Pflege erwarten. In diesem Licht
die Natur betrachtet, verschwindet aus ihr der große böse Dämon; sein Reich ist
zerstöret. Die kleinen Daemunculi in unserm und andrer Herzen sollen (selbst im
Mährchen) nie Mitregenten des Weltalls oder unsres Lebens seyn; sondern als Fehler
und Phantome aufgedeckt, sollen sie verstummen und schweigen" (23: 288).
21217Herder notes that if the Kindermährchen were "überdem eben so Verstand- und
Zwecklos als schrecklich und häßlich; Vater Gansert selbst würde sie schwerlich
erzählen" (23: 286-87). The implication is that the ideal mother will object to the
frightfulness and ugliness of Perraulfs tales, while the father, who might overlook
these drawbacks, will be interested in the reason and moral purpose illustrated
therein. Images of the mother as the protector, the father as the voice of reason,
emerge.
18"Wer an der Heiligkeit einer Kinderseele zweifelt, sehe Kinder an, wenn man
ihnen Mährchen erzählet. 'Nein! das ist nicht so, sprechen sie; neulich erzähltest Du
mir es anders/ Sie glauben also dem Mährchen poetisch; sie zweifeln an der
Wahrheit auch im Traum der Wahrheit nicht, ob sie wohl wißen, daß man ihnen nur
ein Mährchen erzählet. Und wird in Diesem ihre vernünftiger oder moralischer Sinn
beleidigt, empfangen Laster und Tugend im Fort- und Ausgange der Dichtung nicht
ihr Gebühr, Lohn oder Strafe; unwillig horcht das Kind, und ist mit dem Ausgange
unzufrieden" (23: 287).
19This is a common notion, often referred to as the "naive morality" of the fairy
tale. It has, for good reason, come under attack in the last few years. See Neues
vom Rumpelstilzchen, ed. Hans-Joachim Gelberg (Weinheim, 1976) and Iring
Fetscher, Wer hat Dornrößchen wachgeküßt? Das Märchen-Verwirrbuch, Erweiterte
Neuauflage (Hamburg: Claasen, 1974).
20Although Herder is translating Perraulfs "Le petit chaperon rouge," it is
interesting that a female character is given names based on the garments she wears,
and that they happen to be masculine in French, neuter in German ("Rottkäppchen").
21"Innerlich geht durch diese Dichtungen dieselbe Reinheit, um derentwillen uns
Kinder so wunderbar und seelig erscheinen" (Preface 1812, 1: 3).
Grimm's most important critic, whose words find distinct echoes in his revised
prefaces, was Ludwig Achim von Arnim. He was a dose friend of both of the
brothers. See Achim von Arnim und die ihm nahe standen, ed. Reinhold Steig and
Herman Grimm, 3 vols., Stuttgart: Cotta, 1904, 2: 213-73 for their correspondence on
the Kinder- und Hausmärchen. The salient passage of Grimm's revised preface reads
as follows: "Wir wollten indeß durch unsere Sammlung nicht blos der Geschichte der
Poesie einen Dienst erweisen, es war zugleich Absicht, daß die Poesie selbst, die
darin lebendig ist, wirke: erfreue, wen sie erfreuen kann, und darum auch, daß ein
eigentliches Erziehungsbuch daraus werde. Gegen das letztere ist eingewendet
worden, daß doch eins und das andere in Verlegenheit setze und für Kinder
unpassend oder anstößig sey (wie die Berührung mancher Zustände und
Verhältnisse, auch vom Teufel ließ man sie nicht gern etwas böses hören) und Eltern
es ihnen geradezu nicht in die Hände geben wollten. Für einzelne Fälle mag die
Sorge recht seyn und da leicht ausgewählt werden; im Ganzen ist sie gewiß unnöthig.
Nichts besser kann uns vertheidigen, als die Natur selber, welche gerad diese Blumen
213und Blätter in dieser Farbe und Gestalt hat wachsen lassen; wem sie nicht zuträglich
sind, nach besonderen Bedürfnissen, wovon jene nichts weiß, kann leicht daran
vorbeigehen, aber er kann nicht fordern, daß sie darnach anders gefärbt und
geschnitten werden sollen. Oder auch: Regen und Thau fällt als eine Wohlthat für
alles herab, was auf der Erde steht, wer seine Pflanzen nicht hineinzustellen getraut,
weil sie zu empfindlich dagegen sind und Schaden nehmen könnten, sondern lieber
in der Stube begießt, wird doch nicht verlangen, daß jene darum ausbleiben sollen.
Gedeihlich aber kann alles werden, was natürlich ist, und darnach sollen wir
trachten." (2: 7-8). Grimm attempts to assuage potential critics by invoking nature; in
any event, he defends his position that the Fairy and Household Tales would make
an appropriate Erziehungsbuch.
2311Wk suchen für ein solches (Erziehungsbuch) nicht jene Reinheit, die durch ein
ängstliches Ausscheiden dessen, was Bezug auf gewisse Zustände und Verhältnisse
hat, wie sie täglich vorkommen und auf keine Weise verborgen bleiben können,
erlangt wird und wobei man zugleich in der Täuschung ist, daß was in einem
gedruckten Buche ausführbar, es auch im wirklichen Leben sei. Wir suchen die
Reinheit in der Wahrheit einer geraden, nichts Unrechtes im Rückhalt bergenden
Erzählung. Dabei haben wir jeden für das Kinderalter nicht passenden Ausdruck in
dieser neuen Auflage sorgfältig gelöscht" (Preface 1819, 1: 17). Maria Tatar discusses
the reception of the Grimms' collections and the changes that resulted at the urging
of critics and friends (15-22 and notes). She regards the changes I am discussing as a
shift in focus as the Grimms lost their scholarly ambitions for the work and edited it
in the direction of children's literature. She does not radically question the Grimms'
assumption that the tales they published were intended and appropriate for children,
although she does point out that in many cases they were originally entertainment
for adults (21).
24Neil Postman argues that it is literacy that brings about a distinction between
children and adults. Reading skills afford access to information beyond that which is
accessible through first-hand experience. Through the withholding and controlled
release of information, at points deemed appropriate for the younger members of a
society, a concept of childhood develops (20, 28-36). Philippe Aries attributes the
notion of childhood to the development of schools and the ensuing separation of
children from the rest of society (369). Prior, then, to the conception of childhood,
children are integrated into adult society and are not perceived as requiring, for
example, their own oral literature. More concrete studies concur with these findings
that support, theoretically, the assumption that fairy tales were part of the oral
literature of the societies, in which they were traded, as a whole. Werner Psaar and
Manfred Klein argue that: "Weiter abliegende Beispiele wie die der noch intakten
Märchengemeinschaften der Naturvölker müssen gar nicht bemüht werden, um zu
zeigen, daß kein prinzipieller, apriorischer Unterschied zwischen dem erwachsenen
und dem kindlichen Märchenrezipienten besteht" (115). For arguments, from a
variety of perspectives, that the fairy tale was integrated into society in some way
214other than specifically as children's literature, see Walter Benjamin, "The Storyteller
and Artisan Cultures," Critical Sociology: Selected Readings, ed. Paul Connerton
(New York: Penguin, 1976), 277-300; Jack Zipes, Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical
Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales (Austin: U of Texas P, 1979); Dieter Richter and
Johannes Merkel, Märchen, Phantasie und soziales Lernen (Berlin: Basis, 1974); Linda
Dégh, Märchen, Erzähler und Erzählgemeinschaft dargestellt an der ungarischen
Volksüberlieferung, trans. Johanna Till, Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu
Berlin, Bd. 23 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1962); and Ernst Bloch, Das Prinzip
Hoffnung, 3 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1959).
25ThIe interchangeability of the terms Ammenmärchen and Kindermärchen that is
evident in Bolte and Polivka's list of references to Märchen suggests this, as the terms
refer to the same narrative situation, with emphasis merely shifting to the teller or
the listener.
Works Cited
Arens, Hans. Sprachwissenschaft: Der Gang Ihrer Entwicklung von der Antike bis
zur Gegenwart. 2nd ed. Freiburg: Karl Alber, 1969.
Ariès, Philippe. Centuries of Childhood. Trans. R. Baidick. London: Jonathon Cape,
1962.
Bolte, Johannes, and Georg Polivka. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- und
Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm. 5 vols. Leipzig: Dieterich'sche
Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1932.
Bottigheimer, Ruth. Grimms' Bad Girls and Bold Boys: The Moral and Social Vision
of the Tales. New Haven: Yale UP, 1987.
Gerstl, Quirin. Der erzieherische Gehalt der Grimmschen Kinder- und Hausmärchen.
Diss., München, 1963. München: UNI-Druck, 1963.
Grimm, Wilhelm. Preface. Die Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm: In
ihrer Urstalt. By Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm. 1812 and 1814. Ed.
Friedrich Panzer. 2 vols. Hamburg: Stromverlag, 1948. 1: 1-8, 2: 5-9.
—. Preface. Kinder- und Hausmärchen gesammelt durch die Brüder Grimm. 1819.
Die Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm. Ausgabe letzter Hand. 1857.
Ed. Heinz Rölleke. 3 vols. Stuttgart: Redam, 1980. 1: 15-24.
Herder, Johann Gottfried. "Mährchen und Romane." 1802. Sämmtliche Werke. 33
vols. Ed. Bernhard Suphan. Berlin: Weidmann, 1891. 23: 273-98.
—. "Von den Lebensaltern einer Sprache." Ueber die neuere Deutsche Litteratur: Eine
Beilage zu den Briefen, die neueste Litteratur betreffend. 1766 and 1767.
Sämmtliche Werke. 33 vols. Ed. Bernhard Suphan. Berlin, 1877. 1: 151-55.
215Postman, Neil. The Disappearance of Childhood. New York: Delacorte, 1982.
Psaar, Werner, and Manfred Klein. Wer hat Angst vor der bösen Geiß? Zur
Märchendidaktik und Märchenrezeption. Braunschweig: Westermann, 1976.
Rölleke, Heinz. "Die 'stockhessischen' Märchen der 'Alten Marie.'" "Wo das
Wünschen noch geholfen hat": Gesammelte Aufsätze zu den "Kinder- und
Hausmärchen" der Brüder Grimm. Bonn: Bouvier, 1985.
Schoof, Wilhelm. "Die 'Altdeutsche Wälder' der Brüder Grimm": Eine Einführung.
Altdeutsche Wälder. Ed. Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm. 1813. Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1966. v-xxiii.
Tatar, Maria. The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
UP, 1987.
Amy Horning Marschall
Johns Hopkins
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