English Fairy Tales

Andrew Lang & Joseph Jacobs

Joseph Jacobs (1854-1916)

Born in Australia

Educated in England

Died in USA (citizen after 1900)

Jewish historian and scholar

English Fairy Tales    1890

Celtic Fairy Tales    1892

More English Fairy Tales    1894

More Celtic Fairy Tales    1894

Indian Folk and Fairy Tales    1912

European Folk and Fairy Tales   1916

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Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books

• Scottish writer and critic• Twelve collections of fairy tales• Published between 1889 and 1910. • 437 tales from a broad range of

cultures and countries• Extremely influential!• First time in English for many tales• He and his wife did a lot of

translating and retelling

Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books

The Victorian Era

• Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 to 1901.

• It was a long period of local peace, prosperity.

• Refined sensibilities • National self-confidence for Britain • Height of the British colonial Empire• Very conservative morally• Industrial revolution• Technical advances• On the heels of romanticism• Coincides with the first Golden Age of

Children’s literature

Jack and the Beanstalk

What do you think?

1. What is Jack like? What are his main qualities (at different places in the story)?

2. Why does Jack return a second and third time?

3. Is it wrong for Jack to steal from the ogre?

4. What do you think about the ending?

5. How can this story relate to real life?

More about the story

• Jack. common name, from fool to clever trickster• Cow stopped giving milk. Weaning. Jack needs to grow

up.• Man knows Jack’s name. implies a bigger story.• Beans. A common person’s food.• No dinner. Childish punishment. Relates to crime• A stairway to heaven. Like Tower of Babel, Budha’s

Bodhi tree, Yggdrasil the South American world tree. • Ogre’s wife seems to like Jack. Charmed by him?• Hides in oven. Womb. Transformed. Resurrected.

More still

• Some version make Jack righteous by saying that the giant murdered Jack’s father and stole his treasure.

• Jack returns the second time for money, the third time because he is not satisfied.

• Story alludes to other Jacks. Jack Robinson and Jack and Jill from the nursery rhyme.

• The story recalls the Bible story of David and Goliath (a giant defeated by a youth)

• Most versions do not end with Jack marrying a princess.

The foolish trade

The beanstalk

In the ogre’s/giant’s home

The giant climbs down

Death of the giant

Jack and the goose

The Arabian Nightsor

1001 Nights

Western Traditions•Antoine Galland•Richard Burton•Andrew Lang

What do you think?

1. What do you like about the story?

2. What do you think is Scheherazade's greatest accomplishment?

3. What do you think about Scheherazade's sister and father? Do they deserve praise?

4. How do you think westerners view Asian cultures? Are there any general tendencies?

5. Do you like the story structure of having stories inside stories inside stories?

6. How are these stories unique compared to Grimm and Perrault's?

Background

• The stories of the Arabian Nights were written by many people over the course of hundreds of years.

• Early 8th Century: Core stories from Persia and India.• Translated into Arabic and given the name Alf Layla or The

Thousand Nights (although the number of stories wasn’t close to that).

• 9th or 10th Century in Iraq: Arab stories were added. • 13th Century, tales were added of Syrian & Egyptian origin. • 18th Century: Galland adds tales in the first major European

(French) translation.

Background

• First collected stories written AD 800–900 • Stories come from the Middle East and South Asia. The

roots of many tales can be traced back to mythology and the cultures of such areas ass Arabia, Yemen, India, Persian, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria and Asia Minor.

• Some of the most famous stories appear to have been added to the collection in European editions by Galland.– "Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp," – "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," and – "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor.”

• These particular stories are probably genuine Middle Eastern folk tales but were not part of the "Nights" in its Arabic versions, but were interpolated into the collection by its early European translators.

Important Versions

• The first European version of the Book of the Thousand and One Nights (1704-1717) was translated into French by Antoine Galland from an Arabic text and other sources. This was a 12-volume book.

• Edward Lane: 1839. First major edition in English.• The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (1885) by

Sir Richard Francis Burton, was ten-volume translation of Galland (he added six more volumes later). Though printed in the Victorian era it contained erotic nuances of the source material. He avoided strict Victorian laws on obscene material by printing a private edition for subscribers only.

• The Arabian Nights' Entertainments, edited by Andrew Lang (1898), was one volume, heavily edited for children and illustrated by H. J. Ford.

The Frame Story

• Details differ, but Scheherazade is always the daughter of the Grand-Vizier and willingly marries the sultan, thus beginning the stories.

• The different versions have different individually detailed endings (in some Scheherazade asks for a pardon, in some the king sees their children and decides not to execute his wife, in some other things happen that make the king distracted) but they all end with the king giving his wife a pardon and sparing her life.

Ford’s Illustrations from The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments

Frontispiece

Scheherazade, Dinarzade, and the Sultan

The Sultan pardon’s Scheherazade

Ford’s illustration (1898)

The Princess veils herself

when she sees the Monkey

The Genius and the Merchants

Images from Sinbad’s Voyages

More of Ford’s illustrations

The king of China looks at the ring on the princess's finger.

The genius comes out of the jar

Ford’s illustrations from Aladdin

Aladdin's mother brings the slaves

with the forty basins of gold

before the sultan.

The slave of the ring appears to Aladdin

Exotic Otherness

• The US and other Western countries have a history of viewing people of color differently, often assuming them to be closer to nature, theoretically “better” because they are less civilized. (In much the same way Rousseau viewed children as “wise”).

• Edward Said calls this “Orientalism”

Orientalism (Edward Said)

• patronizing Western attitude toward middle eastern, north African and Eastern cultures.

• Tends to portray “eastern” cultures as – Less civilized, less developed– More pure, closer to nature– More barbaric, dangerous– Exciting, exotic– Feminine, sensual, erotic

A collection of memorable images from The Arabian Nights

Exotic imagery excited Western minds

The Sultana Held Conversation with a Man. Arabian Nights - Illustrated by Virginia Frances Sterrett. Penn Publishing Company, 1928.

Disney’s Aladdin

• Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place; • Where the caravan camels roam • Where it's flat and immense, And the heat is intense • It's barbaric, but hey, it's home

• Original first verse (1992-93): • Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place • Where the caravan camels roam • Where they cut off your ear, If they don't like your face • It's barbaric, but hey, it's home

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPUAhSGZtvU

• When the wind's from the east • And the sun's from the west • And the sand in the glass is right • Come on down • Stop on by, • Hop a carpet and fly • To another Arabian night

• Arabian nights • Like Arabian days • More often than not • Are hotter than hot • In a lot of good ways

• Arabian nights • 'Neath Arabian moons • A fool off his guard • Could fall and fall hard • Out there on the dunes