FAIRY TALES Pre- reading activities: 1. Do you know what a fairy-tale is? 2. Did you use to read them when you were a child? 3. Which was your favourite fairy-tale? Why did you like it so much? Now read something about the origins and features of the fairy-tale: Something about fairy-tales. Like folk songs, the fairy-tale has always been the popular work of anonymous artists. However, lots of problems about its origins are still to be solved. The Romantic period was extremely concerned with fairy-tales, as the collection of the Grimm's brothers shows. It was put together between 1812 and 1815. Since then, an endless number has come to light in Europe as well as all over the world. The stories they narrate focus on mystery, legend, and the supernatural. They highlight the devil-like layer of life; they warn against our enemies and the unknown forces the listener must learn to perceive. This is a common aspect they share with popular legends, but no popular legend is surrounded by mystery like a fairy-tale. Its enigmatic quality lies in the fact that the fairy-tale blends what is far with what is near, what is natural with what is supernatural and in a very ordinary way, as if it was the simplest attitude to life. Features of the fairy-tale The characters in a fairy-tale deal with supernatural creatures, accept their gifts or fight them but are never impressed by them, they always walk their way, they are never surprised, not even when they fight a dragoon with twelve heads; on the contrary, they are so determined that they can turn it into a meek hare or a white dove, thanks also to that magic ring or hair or potion another wonderful creature had given them. Besides, they have no past nor future; they lack time, as well as a real body and a mind. We read of ill princesses, bit we never know what they suffer from; their illnesses leave no consequences on their bodies, you could cut their arm off and this wouldn't cause any deep change in their psyche. Another feature is that it is never an inner need to make the character move, but always an external one. It is not their heart which leads them, but a magic 'something' they found somewhere. They not only lack an inner world, but also an external world. We do not know anything about the village the hero loves in; actually, we are usually shown the moment when he leaves it for ever. The third aspect which is completely absent in a fairy-tale is time: people never grow old, a damsel sleep for a hundred years and, when the prince finds her, he does not notice anything old or out of fashion about her clothes or her castle. What is typical of the fairy-tale is also the happy ending, its optimism, which talks to ordinary people: 'Beauty and the Beast', 'Sleeping Beauty', 'Cinderella', 'Snow-white and the Seven Dwarfs'. If there are names, they are never proper names; they have a general, descriptive meaning. This aspect is emphasized by the fact that nobody has a name in a fairy-tale. We can only read of the mother, the father, or the step-mother. a) If you were a primary school teacher, would you read children fairy-tales? Why? b) Choose one of the tales you remember best and complete this table: WHAT WHO WHEN WHERE c) Think of 'Little Red Riding Hood' in the wood. If you were to write the story, what would happen there? LA FIABA 1. Origini 2. Struttura 3. Brani 4. Sviluppi 5. Letture individuali 6. Stesura fiaba contemporanei Mezzi: fotocopie e audiocassette Strategia Warm-up 1. Have you ever been told fairy-rales? Who used to tell them? Your parents? Your grand-parents? Family friends? Which stories do you remember best? Why? Lettura fotocopia sulle origini della fiaba (brani?) Lettura fotocopia sulla struttura della fiaba (brani?) Reading Comprehension Practice (pił brani da fiabe diverse) Warm-up 2. Do you know contemporary writers of books for children? How, do you think, do their stories differ from the typical fairy tale? Lettura fotocopia sugli sviluppi contenporanei della fiaba (brani?) Letture individuali a scelta tra: Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Pinocchio Stesura di una fiaba, breve, a casa. (Due settimane per la consegna) Lavoro di gruppo per stesura fiaba di gruppo (?) 1. ORIGINS The fairy tale is a fantastic tale of popular origins. It has been handed down orally and without any pedagogic aim. The characters of a fairy tale are never animals, but withches, ogres, fairies, gnomes and goblins. It was recognized as a literary genre first in India, in the c.II-III A.D., while in the European culture there is no written evidence of this genre up to 1550, when the Italian writer Straparola collects in his 'Piacevoli notti' some fantastic popular tales with the best known novelle of the period. The 'Pentamerone' o 'Cunto de li cunti' has popular origins too. It was written by G. B. Basile in Neapolitan volgare, and it is a collection of fifty tales told by ten old women in five days. In France, the fairy tale becomes an independent literary genre at the end of the XVII century with 'Storie e racconti del tempo passato. I racconti di mamma l'Oca', by Ch. Perrault,and with the collection of tales by Mme d'Aulnoy. In the XVIII century, thanks to a translation in French by A. Galland, Europe comes to know 'The Thousand and One Nights', the Arabian collection, which became much more popular in western countries than in the Eastern ones which created it. However, it is during the Romantic period that the fairy tale acquired new relevance, both because it evokes a naural, ancient and mysterious world and because of its popular origins it was then regarded as the creative voice of ordinary people. Grimm's 'Fairy tales for Children and Families' were published in seven editions from 1812 to 1857 and other writers dedicated their time to create new fairy tales. Among them: Hoffman, Novalis, Andersen, Carroll and Collodi. STRUCTURE In very simple words, we can say that there is a fixed structure in every fairy tale, built on four main parts: 1. the 'situation' is given Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived with her mum in a little house near a wood ... Little or nothing at all happens here, but the situation is given to start the tale 2. the protagonist is introduced Little Red Riding Hood left home and ... In this section the protagonist is doing something which makes the tale go on. 3. something happens to the protagonist The wolf saw the little girl and asked her where she was going .... This section introduces the rival, the antagonist, which acts as the enemy of the main character and wants to do her/him harm. 4. the 'hero' the hunter opened the wolf's stomach with his knife ... The harm done by the antagonist is always righted by the action of the hero. THE FABLE Different from the fairy tale, it is an ancient literary genre, usually a moralistic tale in verse or prose that uses non-human characters to act out a situation of folk or allegorical significance. The European country which developed the fable and brought it to a high literary level is France, which loved and studied the fable starting from its Greek origins (Aesop, the slave who lived about five hundred years before Christ and whose stories seem designed to teach lessons about human life) to the Latin work by Fedro up to modern times. Since the Middle Ages, France has created fables as well as heroic poems. The best known example of fable in this period is the Roman de Renard, which has among its characters two of the typical heroes of this genre: the fox (renard in French means 'fox') and the wolf. The most important artist in this field of literary production was Jean de la Fontaine, who lived in France in the XVII century. Italy has its collection of fables too. They were written in prose and were simplified versions from Fedro. The literary tradition of Latin nations has developed the fable according to precise standards among which is the moral at the end of the story. This is not always present in the northern tradition which exploited the complex and fantastic world of animals living with men, from the times of oral tales to R. Kipling's 'Jungle Book', G. Orwell's 'Animal Farm' and the modern writer W. Somerset Maughan. SELECTED PASSAGES Vladimir Odoevskij, Igosa, in Fiabe variopinte, Letteratura universale Marsilio, pg, 151 C. Collodi, Pinocchio, Ladybird, pg1 e 4 W.Grimm, Snow White and the Seven Dwarf, Ladybird, pg.1,2,3,4 G. Gozzano, la danza degli gnomi, BIT pg.11 e 12 W. Somerset Maughan, The Appointment in Samarra, from X. J. Kennedy, Literature, Harper Collins, pg.2 James Thurber, The Unicorn in the Garden, ibid., pg.15-16 NEW DEVELOPMENTS There have recently been new developments in books for children which tried to modify them and to make them closer to everyday life. The best known author in Italy is Gianni Rodari, who died in 1980. The U.K. has a long tradition concerning books for children. As a specific genre, it was developed under Queen Victoria, whose age was perhaps the greatest of English fiction. Sensation novels, adventure novels, imaginative romantic novels, historical novel and romances, fantastic novels, humanitarian novels and domestic novels were written in this period. You have certainly read 'The Pickwick Papers' or 'Oliver Twist' by Ch. Dickens, 'Wuthering Heights' by E. Bronte, or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Nowadays, the best known writers of books for children (and of other short stories), is Roald Dahl. He was born in Wales of Norwegian parents, and lost his father at the age of four. He studied in England but started to work in Washington. In Holliwood he wrote a book about the Gremlins for the Disney production. in 1988 he received The Children's Book Award. In Italy, Willy Wonka e la fabbrica di cioccolato was translated twenty years ago. Then 'Matilda' and 'Le streghe'were translated too. Both Willy Wonka and Le streghe have been made into a film, the latter with the title of 'Chi ha paura delle streghe? PERSONAL READINGS Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, La Spiga (Easy Readers) £ 4.000