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Author
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Comment
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lena123jg
Registered User
(3/5/05 12:54 pm)
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Fairy Tales reflecting culture
I'm doing a project in school about Fairy tales reflecting the culture that they were written for, at the time they were written. Any thoughts, examples and help on this would be really appreciated.
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lena123jg
Registered User
(3/5/05 1:43 pm)
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just clarifying....
I was a little vague...(just want to make sure i'm understood, and making sense too ; ) ).
This is an oral Thesis Presentation that I'm in the works of making for my high school class. The goal is to give the class the 'big picture' of my topic, with analysis of it's significant contribution to the evolution of western civilization. I had thought about it, researched some (not finding much), yet decided to do this project on how fairy tales reflected, or recreated the culture of which they were written for/ the events of what was going on. I'm still fuzzy in the part where I'm supposed to show the contribution to western civilization, (I plan on talking to my teacher about that bit)
Hopefully that helps, with the lot of information that I had missed in the first comment. I'm just beginning, and would love the input, so of course any help is more than welcome.
-Lena
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Afallenau
Unregistered User
(3/5/05 10:10 pm)
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your high school project
The question you've been presented with for your thesis is huge. Of course, it all depends on who you're asking. I don't know if this is the answer that you are looking for, but I'll try to help and hopefully someone else will explain it better than I!
I've fairy tales for years. From what I've been able to gather, some had their genesis in the middle ages. As with any oral tale/history, this is all very hard to substantiate, if that is true. But you can do no better of an example than the Arthurian legends, which did come from the dark ages. In the time these tales were being told, language itself was morphing into other languages. The Roman Latin was merging with languages scattered among ancient tribes all throughout Europe. What might that contribution to Western Civ. have been? Huge. They helped piece together history in a time when libraries were burning and only monks knew how to read. Legends of that sort helped hold together shifting cultures and carry on their tales, traditions, and non-Christian religions of the time. And to close, all I just said probably didn't help a single bit, but hopefully it gave you point of reference. Good luck.
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Terri Windling
Registered User
(3/6/05 9:16 am)
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Re: your high school project
Lena, there's actually an *enormous* amount of material out there for your research. Personally, I'd start with Marina Warner's book "From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers," but you might also want to check out the many books by Jack Zipes and Maria Tatar.
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lena123jg
Registered User
(3/7/05 12:15 am)
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thanks...
Thanks, that was actually quite helpful, with the information I was lost in. The responses were both great use, appreciated much.
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redtriskell
Registered User
(3/12/05 11:11 am)
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western civilization
Lena- I hope I'm still in time to be helpful. I agree that your topic is huge, but it can be narrowed down. The books previously mentioned are great places to begin. A suggestion for relating your topic to the development of Western culture: how do you think stories, especially "magical" ones, influence people? How do stories embody our desires, our good points, our bad points in the guise of characters? How do stories simplify the identification of good and evil? How do stories show people other ways of thinking? If you answer these kinds of questions for yourself, you'll have a good springboard for explaining how folk and fairy tales helped shape our culture. To put it another way, why do you think we are still telling ourselves stories of a mythical/legendary British king from the dark ages? What does King Arthur have to offer anyone in the modern American life?
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