English Fairy Tales Andrew Lang Joseph Jacobs Joseph

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

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 Nights or 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? 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 8 th 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). • 9 th or 10 th Century in Iraq: Arab stories were added. • 13 th Century, tales were added of Syrian & Egyptian origin. • 18 th 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 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 Genius and the Merchants The Princess veils herself when she sees the Monkey

Images from Sinbad’s Voyages

More of Ford’s illustrations The genius comes out of the jar The king of China looks at the ring on the princess's finger.

Ford’s illustrations from Aladdin The slave of the ring appears to Aladdin's mother brings the slaves with the forty basins of gold before the sultan.

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 https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=h. PUAh. SGZtv. U • • 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

• • 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