Folktales and fairy tales entertain and teach their audiences about culture. They explain taboos, model ideal behaviors, and demonstrate the punishments for violating the collective and its prescribed social roles. These tales pass on vital cultural and social histories via metaphoric language. In this course, we will examine a variety of classical and contemporary fairy and folktale texts from German and other European cultures, learn about approaches to folklore materials and fairy tale texts, and look at our own culture with a critical-historical perspective.
We will explore relevant topics, values, and fears of Western society across a timespan ranging from 1400 to the present. These aspects of human life include arranged marriage, infanticide, incest, economic struggles, boundaries between the animal and human, gender roles, and class antagonisms. The course is organized around clusters of Aarne, Thompson, and Uther’s tale types, providing a solid framework for our examinations. We will learn about the history of both oral and literary fairy tales as we examine reworkings from different periods. Various interpretive approaches and critical lenses will be modeled and critiqued in class. Students will have the chance to apply these models in a final creative project.