As my assigned suit is hearts (and I have nothing better to do over spring break), I prepared the following materials for our book clubs and socratic seminars next Monday:
- "Hansel and Gretel" by the Brothers Grimm
- "Heroides 1 (Penelope to Ulysseus)" by Ovid
- Robin Harris' contributions to the Card Catalogue Poetry Project
- and, of course, my own group's offerings: Tiger by William Blake and Design by Robert Frost
Even though I am intimately familiar with the Hansel and Gretel story, I found it very interesting to read the annotations provided by SurLaLune. Delving into psychology, allegory, history, and symbolism, these notes analysed the story in far more literary terms than I had ever bothered to--much to my own detriment, apparently. I had known previously that before the Brothers Grimm and a few of their predecessors, fairy tales were an entirely oral tradition and so given to a certain flexing of story, depending on the teller and the times. It seems that the same can be said for Jacob and Wilhelm. Their patriarchal, religious viewpoint flavors all aspects of the story, from the invention of the shrewish stepmother to the children's prayers for God to watch over them. Perhaps the most obvious example--"If a man yields once he's done for, and so, because he has given in the first time, he [the father] was forced to do so the second"--apparently contributed to the popularity of the Brothers' work in the mid-1800s. Likewise, I found it interesting that some scholars had interpreted the story as an allegory for peasant uprising. I can see how the desperately impoverished woodcutter's family might represent serfs of previous centuries, and the evil red-eyed witch their wealth-flaunting masters, who are later overthown and robbed of their luxurious appointments.
I also had some background knowlege of the events referred to by Penelope in her letter to Ulysseus (isn't this ususally spelled Odysseus? As in
Odyssey?), but apparently not enough to understand anything in the second paragraph. After a little research into Antilochus, Menoetius, and Tlepolemus, I think I get that Penelope was worried for her husband during the Trojan war. Honestly, I'd never really thought about her plight while her husband was off battling cyclops and lotus eaters for, what was it, fourteen years? I wonder if it would be sacrilege to compare Ovid to some sort of ancient fan fiction writer.
"If a man yields once he's done for, and so, because he has given in the first time, he [the father] was forced to do so the second"--I have read this before. Well, something similar, by a Spanish author, Conde Lucanor. Different story, but same moral. I haven't thought of that story in ages!
ReplyDeleteWow, I really like the background information on your book club's readings! My book club cohort also read Hansel and Gretel, and reading over your blog definitely gave me some additional perspective on the story. The peasant uprising theory was especially interesting to me, and something I've never heard before.
ReplyDeleteI have also never heard the peasant uprising theory, though I can totally see how that would come into play! I have never heard of the Card Catalogue Poetry Project before, and now I totally want to read it! It is unfortunate that some of it was illegible though.
ReplyDelete