Imagining Germany: fairy tales by Goethe, Tieck, and the Brothers Grimm

Guo, Lujun

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120371 Copy

Description

Title

Imagining Germany: fairy tales by Goethe, Tieck, and the Brothers Grimm

Author(s)

Guo, Lujun

Issue Date

2023-04-16

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Johnson, Laurie R

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Johnson, Laurie R

Committee Member(s)

• Niekerk, Carl Hendrik
• Hilger, Stephanie M
• Pinkert, Anke

Department of Study

Germanic Languages & Lit

Discipline

German

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• fairy tales
• Germany
• Goethe
• Ludwig Tieck
• the Brothers Grimm

Abstract

This dissertation argues that fairy tales by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ludwig Tieck, and the Grimm brothers are transformative literary media that represent German bourgeois sociopolitical perspectives during the transition from the Enlightenment to Romanticism. Each of these authors modified traditional folk narratives, in part to criticize, reflect on, and shape the way in which their era would be remembered. I apply insights from comparative world mythology, fairy-tale studies, and theories of cultural memory to reexamine these texts and argue that they are expanded forms of collective cultural memoir about how these authors imagined a future Germany in the Age of Revolution. As I provide new close readings and interpretations of these fairy tales, I assert that they continue to provide valuable references, inspirations, and messages in global conversations of our own time. Goethe’s Das Märchen (Fairy Tale) of 1795, embedded in the Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten (Conversations of German Emigrants), is a powerful response to the French Revolution. And yet, to address this contemporary event and the crises it engendered, Goethe turns to very old stories. Chapter One of my project compares mythical motifs and patterns in Goethe’s tale with materials from Chinese, Greek, Near Eastern and Norse mythology. As the tale’s characters attempt to rebuild the world from chaos and division, restore order and harmony, and recover tradition, their solidarity and selfless sacrifice transform Das Märchen into a revolutionary myth created for a very contemporary Age of Revolution. With the publication of Der blonde Eckbert (Eckbert the Blond) in 1797, Tieck laid the foundation for other Romantics to use the Kunstmärchen for social and political critique as well as for provocative psychological exploration. Chapter Two reveals the drastic demythologization of a remote “golden age” beneath the supernatural and mysterious design of Tieck’s tale. Psychological conflicts within and among characters who lack sociopolitical development (or Bildung) constitute the fundamental subjects of this tale. This chapter exposes how, in Tieck’s Early Romantic view and in contrast to Goethe’s Das Märchen, a society’s internal crisis may result in personal and communal destruction. Meanwhile, this chapter re-examines Tieck and his contemporary bourgeois intellectuals’ professional predicaments and creative efforts, which situates the early German Romantic movement in an underexplored context: until now, most investigations of early Romantic work have focused on its philosophical and literary-aesthetic innovations, without much attention to the emerging middle class in which these authors lived and worked. My focus on the material conditions of Romantic production supports my reading of Tieck’s Kunstmärchen as a piece of social critique that investigates the class struggle and social changes reflected in cultural domain of German society during the Age of Revolution, as opposed to previous work that has focused almost exclusively on the tale’s psychological aspects. The Brothers Grimms’ revisions of traditional folk tales, in the Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Childhood and Nursery Tales), are now standards in the field of German Studies, and also in popular culture. And yet the collection was an invention that created an illusion of a shared past in part, the Grimms hoped, to help culturally unite Germany in the future. The tale Von dem Machandelboom (The Juniper Tree) manifests the revolutionary actions of the younger generation in the middle of traditional, archetypal conflicts and crises in the nuclear family, who attempts to reinstate a sense of home and domestic stability. Chapter Three positions The Juniper Tree within the context of world mythology to observe that crisis at home represents much larger destruction, and the emphasis on a return to a longed-for past harmony for the present and future, are endemic to tales, legends, and myths beyond the Grimms and the German context.

Graduation Semester

2023-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2023 Lujun Guo

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