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Author
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Comment
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flamebrain00
Registered User
(10/31/02 6:12:27 pm)
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Fairy Tales/Fantasy in the Romantic Era
I was pointed this way by sending a request to Realms of Fantasy & Terri Windling suggested this site. I'm really enjoying reading these threads and will come back often, but first, I'm hoping for some help.
I'm an English major, this semester taking a class in Romantic Literature. I have a paper coming up, and my topic is fairy tales and the supernatural in romantic literature. I was hoping someone could give me a direction to start (I really need a specific area) and places to look for information.
Thanks,
~flamebrain
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Jess
Unregistered User
(11/1/02 7:16:11 am)
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A couple of suggestions
You might want to look at the writings of lesser known women, i.e., not Jane Austin. In England especially women were exploring the outer ranges of fantasy.
Another thought, you might look at the connection between Romantic literature and Romantic opera - how did fantasy in literature translate to the operatic stage. I would look at Italian opera for this. There are several good examples.
Jess
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Terri
Registered User
(11/3/02 11:37:08 pm)
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fairy tales in the Romantic era
Are you looking at English Romantic literature specifically, or Romantic literature in general? If the later, then German Romanticism in particular was steeped in fairy tales and myth. And scholars are beginning to uncover the role of German women writers of the period who worked with fairy tales -- there have been some fascinating articles in Marvels and Tales: the Journal of Fairy Tale Studies.
Can you tell us parameters you're using to define Romanticism (since people sometimes mean different or quite specific things by the term), and what source materials you're using now so we have a better idea what you may be looking for? Are you focusing on literature, or are you also looking at art, opera, ballet, etc.?
It sounds like a fascinating topic.
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Judith
Berman
Registered User
(11/4/02 6:35:50 pm)
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Russian Romanticism and fairy tales
Another place to look, starting with Pushkin's lovely verse retellings; and Russian music as well -- "Baba Yaga" in PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION and Stravinsky's FIREBIRD and so on. And what about SWAN LAKE?
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Jess
Unregistered User
(11/4/02 9:32:12 pm)
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Music
Judith,
A few notes on Romanticism in music. First, music tends to lag somewhat in time behind literature and other art forms. Romanticism is exemplified by the works of Berlioz, Liszt, Chopin, Wagner, Verdi, and Schumann. From a musical standpoint, some of the pieces you mention , i.e., the Firebird Suite, are catagorized more as Nationalism mixed with Impressionionism in music. Within a few years, Stravinsky had moved on to neo-classicism. Ravel and Rimski-Korsakov were the primary two orchestrators for Pictures (by Mussorgsky - who lacked the refinement of most "Romantic" composers). Ravel uses a method that, while derived somewhat from Romantic examples, is less so than R-K, who did follow Berlioz's style somewhat. I guess my point is - which I got to rather late - is these pieces may be too late and perhaps stylistically too different to be considered from the "Romantic" period in music.
Certainly, all of the works of Wagner and some Mendelssohn, i.e. Midsummer Night's Dream, (and perhaps Tchiakovsky's Swan Lake) would work. But be careful with Verdi, Falstaff is not really Romantic as it musically honors Beethoven, and thus is more Classical despite its late date. How about Shubert's Erlkonig, probably on the cusp of Romanticism, although it keeps Classical form?
Operas? How about Der Freischutz by von Weber (early Romantic/late Classical)? Or Norma by Bellini? Both of these have "magical" elements while being examples of early Romantic/late Classical opera.
Jess
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Carrie
Unregistered User
(11/5/02 7:28:43 am)
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opera
Jess,
By any chance have you read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett? I'm about halfway through this tale of a soprano, businessmen and terrorists. The story has a distinct feel of a fairy tale, but I can't quite pin down why that would be. The opera singer is loved by all -- both her fellow hostages and the terrorists alike. Something I find interesting about the novel is that her song gives her a holy power over all that hear her. She knows that none will harm her. However, even though the terrorists let all of the other women, children and sick men go -- they kept her with the throng of international businessmen. It's almost as if they can't bear to be away from her. I also find it interesting that Patchett intensifies that fact that music speaks across language and class barriers -- that such song can break the strongest of hearts. Is this soprano a siren then? A fairy princess trapped among mortal men? Can a human woman become immortal through her voice? Just thoughts.
Carrie Miner
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Judith
Berman
Registered User
(11/5/02 8:31:48 am)
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Romanticism
Jess--
Agreed, categorization is always difficult. You might put Beethoven's early and late stuff into entirely different categories. I can't regard the 9th Symphony or late quartets as being all that Classical. Then there's the question of what level of taxonomy is in question -- I was thinking more of Romanticism as a sort of broad epoch rather than in terms of particular music schools or styles. Calling a building Federalist doesn't mean it isn't neoclassical in a broader sense. And then there's the related fact that such taxonomic terms tend to be used differently from discipline to discipline -- thus modernism or postmodernism or deconstruction mean something rather different in architecture as opposed to literature. But Stravinsky really is too late and too modern (in the general sense of approach to form) to be Romantic no matter what!
I'm a pianist (or maybe I should say I once played the piano a great deal) so I always think first of the original PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION, not the later orchestral version.
I have always wondered why there was no character named Mussourgsky in THE MASTER AND MARGARITA (especially given his NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN), when Bulgakov had a Stravinsky and a Rimsky-Korsakov.
Judith
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flamebrain00
Registered User
(11/5/02 9:58:51 am)
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Re: Romanticism
Wow. I think I'm impressed with my paper topic. For the purposes of my class, the Romantic Era is defined as 1790-1848. In class we are mainly studying English authors - specifically, romantic relationships - Dorothy & William Wordsworth, Percy & Mary Shelley, Hartley, Sara, & Samuel Coleridge. However, no one has said I can't branch out into other areas in the same time period.
For books, so far I have "Romantic Fairy Tales" - translated & edited by Carol Tully and (hoping to cull some information) Maria Tatar's "The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales." I've had trouble finding books on romantic fairy tales, or what I have found, has generally been collections of fairy tales with neither criticism nor information about authors.
Any other suggestions?
~flamebrain00
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Jess
Unregistered User
(11/5/02 12:57:55 pm)
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Not sure about the dates
Sorry I got so off-thread with the music stuff. I am not sure about the dates, but have you looked at Washington Irving? His stuff is full of fantasy and supernatural? Of course, it isn't about the kind of relationships you were discussing above, which incidentally were represented musically by the Schumanns (Clara and Robert). Right off, I can't think of any "fantasy/fairytale" stuff written by either of them.
Judith,
I love Mussorgsky! In fact, I wrote a whole exposition on Night on Bald Mountain for either a Music Composition and Theory class or a Music History class several eons ago. As a pianist you are acquainted with Mussorgsky in his rawest (and some would say his most creative) form. He was almost completely untrained in music. If I recall correctly (and it has been probably close to 20 years) he was a bit of contradiction, working as a minor government clerk and holding nihilist political and philosophical leanings. You can hear this in his music...struggling against convention, but also wanting a degree of acceptance.
I agree with you about catagorization. You just got me thinking about another favorite topic with your suggestions. And I wanted to alert flamebrain to some of the difficulties in looking at this "subtopic".
Carrie,
I haven't read that book, but it sounds right along my interests - music, fairy tales, and terrorist/intrigue. I'll have to pick it up.
Jess
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Jess
Unregistered User
(11/5/02 1:12:38 pm)
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And what about....
E.T.A. Hoffmann?
Are you stuck with studying romantic relationships between authors of Romanticism? Or are you allowed to look more at "Romantic" motiffs, i.e., dark and light, nature, the peasantry, true love, good and evil magic, etc., in literature?
Jess
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flamebrain00
Registered User
(11/5/02 6:42:35 pm)
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Re: And what about....
I'm not stuck with romantic relationships. We're allowed pretty free reign on our topic so long as we clear it with the professor. All of those options are workable - nature is, of course, one of the biggest themes in romanticism. Dark and light, evil and good, depending on how much I find is where I'll concentrate my paper.
~flamebrain
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Helen
Registered User
(11/5/02 9:03:37 pm)
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Stemming from Jess and Terri's suggestions ...
... concerning German woman writers of the period, you might want to look into two wonderful books, entitled, respectively, _The Queen's Mirror: Fairy Tales by German Women, 1780-1900_ (ed. Jarvis & Blackwell) and _The Romantic Realist: Caroline de la Motte Fouquet_ (Wilde). The former presents a wonderful cross-section of fantastic tales (with a brilliant introduction contextualizing the contributions that female authors made to the genre) and the latter is a close examination of the life and work of the wife of Baron de la Motte Fouquet, author of the highly influential "Undine." If your professor does have an interest in the interrelations of life and literature, and the many ways in which various authors interacted through their writing, this might make for a possible jumping off point. Good luck!
Best,
Helen
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Don
Registered User
(11/5/02 10:01:19 pm)
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English Romantic Fairy Tales
Flamebrain,
If your professor's intent is to have you write about the English Romantic fairy tale, then you need to adjust your sights, I think. I mean that you won't generally find among English Romantics the kind of literary tales produced by the Germans or the pseudo-folktale produced by the Grimms. You'll need instead to think in terms of ballads, the works of Scott, or fairy-fantasy in English Romantic poetry (for example, Keat's "La Belle Dame sans Merci" or Coleridge's "Christabel"). The classic form of the fairy tale didn't really take hold in England until the Victorian era, encouraged in part by the translations of Grimms' tales that paved the way and the reception of German writers of fairy tales, such as Ludwig Tieck and Novalis. So you could also think in terms of those English translators and critics who contributed to the transmission of German tales during the period your course covers--Edgar Taylor and his "German Popular Stories" (1823/26), for example. Thomas Carlyle translated some of Tieck's literary fairy tales, although I don't recall off the top of my head the precise date of his translations. You might orient yourself further by reading the article on "British and Irish Tales" in "The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, " edited by Jack Zipes.
One final thought: one writer who does fit the time period you cover, although he is not a Romantic but a Victorian writer, is James Robinson Planché, whose fairy extravaganzas are based on classic French tales.
In any case, if I were you, I'd talk to my professor to see what s/he had in mind with this topic.
Edited by: Don at: 11/5/02 10:02:57 pm
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Karen
Unregistered User
(11/8/02 10:38:06 pm)
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--
Dear Flamebrain,
Given the focus of the course, it sounds like the obvious thing to do would be something about the fairy bride or mistress- Christabel, Lamia, etc, but most of the class will probably do that.
Can you do some early Tennyson? That way you could discuss how Romantic concerns are carried over into the Victorian period and possibly into the Victorian interest in literary fairy tales. Also, it might be worth looking at the impact The Arabian Nights had on Romantic writers, particularly Coleridge.
Karen.
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flamebrain00
Registered User
(11/17/02 8:51:13 am)
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Re: --
Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions. After talking to my professor, I decided to do elements of magic within the framework of "reality" stories. I'm specifically using Mary Shelley - Frankenstein, Valperga, & possibly Matilda.
~flamebrain
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