Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were scholars in 18th century Germany, whose prolific works included a vast collection of folktales and other lore. The chance combination of their personal values and circumstances uniquely situated them to influence both generations of readers and the study of folklore. The contribution of the Grimm brothers to the development of folklore studies can be demonstrated through an examination of the legacies they inherited and the ones they left behind.
The Grimm brothers began life in a middle-class, Reform Calvinist family in rural Germany. This agrarian setting of their stable childhood would be an influence on their ideas of essential German aesthetics. Their father, a lawyer and later judge, fostered a strong work ethic and sense of familial responsibility, including the motto “honesty is the best policy in life.” After the sudden death of their father, the family lost both status and financial stability, which led to discrimination that followed the Grimms through school and employment, shaping their attitudes toward class struggle.
With special permission and a desire to prove themselves, the brothers studied law at Marburg university. Their second educational inheritance came from their professor von Savigny. He believed that to understand the spirit of the law, one must understand the customs, language and historical context of the people employing said laws. This philological approach inspired the Grimms’ lifelong study of German language, history and folklore with a specific interest in German unification after partial conquest by the French and, later, the return to rule by self-interested German monarchs. While pursuing their research, the brothers worked as librarians and professors. Their financial stability varied through social and political changes, including a time period where they were blacklisted for refusing, in the name of academic freedom, to take an oath of service to the French king.
With an eye towards democracy, they both worked in politics briefly, but became disillusioned as monarchy prevailed. The Grimms were extremely prolific collectors and writers, who helped establish German Literature as an institutionalised field of study. They completed the German Dictionary through “F” and contributed to numerous academic disciplines, including folklore, ethnology, history, language, religion, law and literary criticism; however, they are most well known for their ten versions of Kinder und Häusmarchen (KHM). These volumes contained, not only folktales, but also legends, riddles, sayings, fables and religious tales.
The Grimms collected lore from primarily middle-class educated storytellers, who had access to both oral narratives from lower-class servants and contemporary literary works. The origins of the tales were often French or greater European rather than explicitly German. The brothers had specific intentions for their collections, which were not meant for children. They believed that through the collection and preservation of German tales they could promote a sense of pride and social justice, which was essential for change. They also asserted that the tales contained essential truths, as they reflected the language and customs of the people. Unfortunately, the brothers notoriously edited and reedited the narratives to, in their minds, better exhibit a rustic, German aesthetic and appeal to a middle-class audience. To these ends, the Grimms mimicked the style of Philipp Otto Runge by adding adjectives, direct dialogue, common motifs, Christian morals and clear structure. They also removed sexual references and reinforced patriarchal values. Although they made major changes to the stories they collected, they envisioned themselves as sort of narrative archaeologists, who were uncovering the usable past for inspiration in the present.
The Grimms’ legacy has been a topic of great debate among scholars, teachers, parents and critics. This multi-disciplinary discourse has helped to shape folkore studies. Parents and teachers have argued over whether the Grimms’ tales are harmful or beneficial for children. Although the Grimms meant for their tales to be educational for all ages and made later volumes of KHM “more appropriate” for children, the dispute has led to folklore studies involving child psychology and imagination. Other psychoanalytical study covers archetypes, collective consciousness and Oedipal conflicts in the tales. Some critics have attacked the Grimms’ use of educated, often unidentified, informants, who combined oral and literary motifs. This criticism ignores the organic interactions, which commonly occurred between oral and written literature, but does inform the modern practice of thoroughly identifying informants. There has been a lot of valid concern over misappropriation of the Grimms’ work for racist, sexist and nationalist aims, not to mention the brothers’ nationalist tendencies, but recognition of the dangers and power of weaponised folklore are relevant to its study.
Other approaches to folklore have been affected through work with the Grimm tales. Correspondence shows that the brothers recognized the greater European origins of the tales. They were able to uncover numerous motifs, which were compared to other versions of the tales and categorised by Arne, Thompson and Uther using the historic-geographic method. Structuralists look to the consistent structures present in Grimm tales to discover meaning. The brothers’ prolific nature left a wake of printed works, handwritten manuscripts, notes and correspondences. Rölleke, Zipes and others have utilised this ephemera to perform an ethnographic study of the Grimms themselves. They were able to compare changes to the tales over time and establish methods and intentions behind the Grimms’ work.
Much of the Grimms’ legacy has been a “what not to do” for contemporary folklorists, but their contributions are invaluable. The sheer volume of their work overall and the popular nature of the KHM have allowed for a persistence of interest in and survival of collected tales. The brothers also recognised the function of folk narratives as a reflection and reinforcement of culture and, most importantly, their amalgamation of narratives from multiple social classes speak to shared values that challenge systems of power and are still applicable today.
Sources
Zipes, Jack. 2003. “Once There Were Two Brothers Named Grimm.” Introduction. In The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, 3rd expanded ed., xxiii–xxxviii. New York: Bantam Books.
———. 2014. “Two Hundred Years After Once Upon a Time: The Legacy of the Brothers Grimm and Their Tales in Germany.” Marvels & Tales 28 (1): 54–74. https://doi.org/10.13110/marvelstales.28.1.0054.
———. 2019. “Speaking the Truth with Folk and Fairy Tales: The Power of the Powerless.” The Journal of American Folklore 132 (525): 243–59. https://doi.org/10.5406/jamerfolk.132.525.0243.
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