To put it simply, there was not a sense of a collective German nation. Prior to the Brothers Grimm, Germany found itself heavily influenced by the French. In the late 18th century, France occupied German territories, and by 1794, found itself in possession of the western extent of contemporary Germany (Roberts 28). As a result, the idea of what it meant to be intrinsically German was vastly neglected, until the efforts of the Grimms’. The brothers’ reverent collection of Germanic folklore marked, arguably, the stirring of instituting a Germanic nationalism. We can see this search clearly expressed in the first publication of their Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales)
To put it simply, there was not a sense of a collective German nation. Prior to the Brothers Grimm, Germany found itself heavily influenced by the French. In the late 18th century, France occupied German territories, and by 1794, found itself in possession of the western extent of contemporary Germany (Roberts 28). As a result, the idea of what it meant to be intrinsically German was vastly neglected, until the efforts of the Grimms’. The brothers’ reverent collection of Germanic folklore marked, arguably, the stirring of instituting a Germanic nationalism. We can see this search clearly expressed in the first publication of their Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales)