The Grimm Brothers were collectors of folk tales and fairy tales. Apart from collecting and editing fairy tales, they wrote many articles, reviews and chapters and published numerous editions and translations.
In our presentation, we will talk a bit of their history and motivation, and talk about the meaning of the stories and analysis of ones speech.
Jacob Grimm was born on January 4th, 1785, and Wilhelm Grimm was born on February 24th, 1786. Both …show more content…
With his own kindness he projected nothing but kindness into others, always believing that good would prevail. It is important to realize his own innocent and naïve perspective on the world that was far removed from the perspective of gore and evil of which some critics are still accusing him in our time. His detached mythical view of the subject seemed to tame the dark and threatening forces in folktales, for he considered them merely an antithesis to the powers of love, goodness, empathy, and justice. Who but Wilhelm Grimm would have thought that the characters of a dragon or an evil stepmother were needed to arouse the listener’s love and empathy for the suppressed? In this context, the unpleasant and potentially fearful aspects of folktale characters were not merely reflections of folk reality; they served to develop the child’s sensitivity and love for others. Children exposed to such harsh characters and events would not at all fell depressed and dejected, he wrote, but liberated and free, for in the folktale hero’s struggle against evil they would rediscover in their own soul a spark of warmth and affection for those who suffered or were lost or abandoned. These were the gentle and liberating forces of folktales that had a positive effect upon the child’s soul. Folktales had a strange yet fascinating way of blending history with the present conditions of simple life, he observed, and, even more so, of transforming the world of reality by the power of the soul. To the child, the folktale world was really a gentle world, he said, for if it seemed that “might was right” and that evil powers gained the upper hand, one should wait for the power of love and magic to take their effect. Folktales also had fail and gentle characters, those who merely smiled and transformed the world. These were the ones who won the greatest battles. The folktales most touching moments were the ones