In 1812, the Brothers Grimm published their first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen, Children 's and Household Tales. This collection of fairy tales was well-known for its violent and premarital sex content. However, why did the stories of the Brothers Grimm become less violent and more children friendly throughout the years? The editions of the Brothers Grimm Tales were greatly influenced by their culture and surroundings leading their first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen to be greatly different from the ones following. The Brothers Grimm started the research and writing of their stories during the Romantic period, “a movement in the arts that favored a return to nature and a greater focus on national culture, especially folk tales”
…show more content…
Examples of these stories include but are not limited to “The Little Red Riding Hood”, “Rapunzel”, and “Hans Dumm” (Grimms’). These premarital sex references seemed to contradict with the people of Germany at the time of the publishing.
As stated before, sex before marriage was against the church and the Brothers Grimm made sure that while writing their second edition they would take out as much of the references to premarital sex as possible (Brothers Grimm Biography). In some cases, they simply took away the whole story from their collection as was the case with “Hans Dumm” (Greenspan). “Hans Dumm” was taken completely out because the story was about a prince that impregnated any girl that he wished, making the story extremely hard to clean up.
While some stories had what people would consider mild violence nowadays, other stories were filled with much worse violence, so much that the stories were completely taken out of the later versions. This was the case of the story “How Some Children Played At Slaughtering”. In this story, an older brother kills his younger brother and in turn when the mom finds out she goes on to kill that son and so on (Keyser). This story ,being too violent to clean up for children, was completely taken out from all of the later versions of Kinder- und …show more content…
In the first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen, the story of “Rapunzel” graphically depicts the relationship between Rapunzel and the prince. Whereas, in the second edition of the collection the story it is still there but this time, it is more child-friendly (Godwin-Jones). Also, the Brothers Grimm did not leave out the premarital sex from this one as they simply made it more discreet by just writing that Rapunzel gave birth to twins. Although the Brothers Grimm add an engagement between the Prince and Rapunzel in this second edition, they never mention her marriage to the prince (Tatar 364). This change being between the first and second edition of the story, but in the seventh edition of the Brothers Grimm collection, pregnancy is completely taken out of the story as it was not considered child-friendly
Examples of these stories include but are not limited to “The Little Red Riding Hood”, “Rapunzel”, and “Hans Dumm” (Grimms’). These premarital sex references seemed to contradict with the people of Germany at the time of the publishing.
As stated before, sex before marriage was against the church and the Brothers Grimm made sure that while writing their second edition they would take out as much of the references to premarital sex as possible (Brothers Grimm Biography). In some cases, they simply took away the whole story from their collection as was the case with “Hans Dumm” (Greenspan). “Hans Dumm” was taken completely out because the story was about a prince that impregnated any girl that he wished, making the story extremely hard to clean up.
While some stories had what people would consider mild violence nowadays, other stories were filled with much worse violence, so much that the stories were completely taken out of the later versions. This was the case of the story “How Some Children Played At Slaughtering”. In this story, an older brother kills his younger brother and in turn when the mom finds out she goes on to kill that son and so on (Keyser). This story ,being too violent to clean up for children, was completely taken out from all of the later versions of Kinder- und …show more content…
In the first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen, the story of “Rapunzel” graphically depicts the relationship between Rapunzel and the prince. Whereas, in the second edition of the collection the story it is still there but this time, it is more child-friendly (Godwin-Jones). Also, the Brothers Grimm did not leave out the premarital sex from this one as they simply made it more discreet by just writing that Rapunzel gave birth to twins. Although the Brothers Grimm add an engagement between the Prince and Rapunzel in this second edition, they never mention her marriage to the prince (Tatar 364). This change being between the first and second edition of the story, but in the seventh edition of the Brothers Grimm collection, pregnancy is completely taken out of the story as it was not considered child-friendly