On this day in 1785, Jacob Grimm, one of the Brothers Grimm, was born. Their master work, Children's and Household Tales, later known as Grimm's Fairy Tales, was published in several volumes from 1812 to 1822, and all of the volumes quickly became best sellers. Grimm's Fairy Tales preserved these Marchen: "Cinderella," "Hansel and Gretel," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Rapunzel," "Rumpelstiltskin," "The Six Swans," "Sleeping Beauty," and "Snow White." Unlike many other fairy tale collections, which presented folklore as fables, poems, or Gothic tales, these Marchen were presented as stories. The Brothers Grimm documented the phrases and narrative styles of the storytellers who passed these tales down from generation to generation, preserving the imagery as accurately as possible. This transcription approach to the tale inaugurated a scientific approach to the study of oral history and folklore.
Three things strike me about Jacob's later work. First, he was interested in languages and their interrelationships, how they shifted over time. Grimm's Law documents a systematic sound shift in Indo-European languages and is influential in the study of modern linguistics. (I remember Grimm's Law from my own linguistics classes). Second, Jacob also wrote other books about monsters and German mythology. German Mythologies traces Teutonic myth back to its earliest origins. Finally, Jacob, along with his younger brother Wilhelm, began to assemble a gargantuan German dictionary, but Wilhelm died in 1859, in the throes of the letter D. F felled Jacob four years later.
What can I conclude from this musing?
1. Story should be preserved. Integral to story is the sound of the language--dialogue, imagery, narrative frame, narrative arc all depend on sound and silence.
2. Sounds change over time, so slight shifts in the storytelling voice may tell the reader something more about how time moves than she might initially think. How does a child's voice change from beginning to end, when he may be an adult? Does it change in the frame novel? How? (I've been re-reading True Grit, and thinking about Mattie's voice).
3. Mythology is vital to literature, and understanding motif means knowing mythology. The origin of the word, mythos is simply story. I have never had this subject addressed in a creative writing or forms class, and I've have never addressed it as an instructor except in a poetry class. (I have proposed genre seminars on the Marchen, but I've never been approved to teach one).
4. Oh, yeah, nonfiction can kill you.
And now my tale is done. See the mouse run.
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