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Author
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Comment
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roslyn
Registered User
(4/20/05 1:20 am)
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Censoring of Fairytales through the Ages.
Hello! I'll get straight to the point. I am currently studying fairy tales and some questions have popped up in my mind.
What are some of the methods used by society in selecting fairytales that they consider to be appropriate? I assume there were some since in the past hundreds of fairy tales were created yet only a small number survived to this day. I.e. Cinderella, Rapunzel etc.
E.g. I know there were plenty during the Classical Period in France yet only Charles Perrault's name is memorable to people today. Why and How?
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Writerpatrick
Registered User
(4/20/05 9:14 am)
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Re: Censoring of Fairytales through the Ages.
"What are some of the methods used by society in selecting fairy tales that they consider to be appropriate? "
That's a very general question. How do you define "society"? "Appropriate" to whom?
Nowadays, "society" tends to think of them as children's entertainment, so what's appropriate requires minimal violence, no sex and no obscene language.
There are many collections of fairy tales, but unless one really studies them they are usually only familiar with the larger collections such as Grimm's and Arabian Nights.
I would say that more than a few survived, although few have been used. If it hasn't been animated, many don't know about it. The complete Grimm's collection has more than 200. But folk stories have been primarily oral, and many stories appear to be variations on other stories, so it's hard to really count them.
I know Arabian Nights became popular after it was translated, but the translation added material. I believe the translation may have occurred during the Classical period but I'm not sure. the French would have also had many of the stories the Grimm's wrote down.
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redtriskell
Registered User
(4/20/05 4:15 pm)
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Re: Censoring of Fairytales through the Ages.
It seems what you're asking is nearly impossible to answer. I agree with the previous post in that we tend to regard fairy tales today as the province of children; therefore, no "bad" bits, like sex. I wish I could lay all the blame on the Grimms. It seems to me they started off as folklorists- setting down on paper exactly what they heard, and later cleaned up what they deemed inappropriate. But I think they mostly did what their publishers wished them to do. Also, societal ideas of appropriateness change so swiftly... I believe the current trend of literary re-tellings (mostly) adheres to keeping the intent of the stories aimed at a more adult audience. For example, McKinley's "Deerskin" is a wonderful novel, but I wouldn't give it to a child to read because of the themes addressed. I think I read somewhere we have the Grimms to thank for the wicked stepmother, as their sensibilities couldn't tolerate a wicked mother. Fortunately, the stories are flexible- they can be terribly neutered and still retain some of the darkness that makes them so wonderful.
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Erica
Carlson
Registered User
(4/20/05 9:13 pm)
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Re: Censoring of Fairytales through the Ages.
Hmm. I'm not sure how answerable these questions are, either, or
if there are conscious methods of selection and de-selection. Perrault
might be a good case study for you, though. I think the sort of
questions you're asking are part of the reasons Perrault is so heavily
studied. He was part of a very early movement of transferring tales
from oral traditions to literary ones. And several people (Jack
Zipes, Marina Warner) point out that the fairy tales written by
the 17th-century French upper-class weren't simple and pure transmissions
of folk tales. These tales were told in ways that reflect the values
of the people writing them. Jack Zipes has a good chapter on this
in Fairy
Tales and the Art of Subversion. I'm not sure why Perrault
is more well known that the women of his circle who also wrote down
tales, but I'm tempted to guess that his tales might have adhered
more to the main-stream values of his time and place than those
of the women.
Best,
Erica
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darklingthrush
Registered User
(4/23/05 10:00 am)
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Re: Censoring of Fairytales through the Ages.
Yes it's interesting to imagine that we can blame one person or a group of people but it certainly doesn't work that way with fairy tales. We could blame the Victorians perhaps (they do seem to be made for scapegoating.) But then perhaps we should also examine a bookshelf put together by a parent for a child. By selecting the nature of the material they are willing to read to their child they are also censoring the works. You could even examine how the Grimm's were censored in part to cut down on Nazi propaganda in our own century at a certain point. This is a huge topic perhaps it would be better to take one fairy tale and examine how it changes and draw a hypothesis of how moral censorship by 'group A' affected its evolution. Its only natural that a fairy tale will morph to suit its audience just as language changes to suit the cultural temperment. How much censorship then is artificial to this process and how much is natural? Will it eventually go back to an earlier more risque form on its own as people retell it?
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Rosemary
Lake
Registered User
(4/26/05 5:51 am)
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Warner's _From the Beast to the Blonde_
This book might have some material for you. It looks at oral storytellers and the situations in which they told their stories.
Amazon
link: From the Beast to the Blonde
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leprendun
Registered User
(4/27/05 7:15 am)
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Dickens
Read Charles Dickens "A Fraud on the Fairies" to see some Victorian debate on the subject.
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