Who can tell me what a fairy tale is?

Fairy tales are a type of children's literature. This kind of work uses rich imagination, exaggeration and symbolism to create images, reflect life, and educate children ideologically. The language is popular and vivid, and the storylines are often bizarre and fascinating. Fairy tales often adopt the method of personification. Flowers, birds, insects, fish, flowers, plants and trees, the whole nature as well as furniture and toys can be given life, infused with thoughts and emotions, and personified. And it is divided into two major categories. One category is created by writers. The famous ones include Denmark's "Andersen's Fairy Tales", Germany's "Hauf's Fairy Tales", and the United Kingdom's "Wilde's Fairy Tales". The other type is spread orally among the people and then searched and compiled by interested people. The famous ones include "Grimm's Fairy Tales", such as "Snow White", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Cinderella", etc., which are all selected from it. [1]

A fairy tale (fairy

tale) is a popular literary work with a novel theme, usually written for children. Generally, there are many supernatural characters in fairy tales, such as talking animals, elves, fairies, giants, witches, etc. In the writing method of modern Western literature, "fairy tale ending" usually refers to a happy ending, such as a princess and a prince in many fairy tales.

Since in many Western cultures, fairy tale elements such as demons and witches are often considered to exist in the real world, fairy tales may become legends and be close to historical facts. In terms of style, the main difference between fairy tales, legends, and epics is that fairy tales often add more fictional descriptions of people, events, and objects to the story to enhance the story. An example is to start the story with "A long time ago..." rather than a specific real time.

In recent centuries, various forms of fairy tales have been widely found in different countries and cultures. Fairy tales can exist in oral or written form, but only the written form has been passed down, making it difficult to verify the exact age of fairy tales. But as far as available literary records are concerned, fairy tales have existed for at least a thousand years. In the West, early fairy tales were not called "fairy tales", but were regarded as short story genres. The term "fairytale" is believed to have been first coined by the French writer Ms. d'Aulnoy. To this day, fairy tales are still spread mainly through writing.

The early audience of "fairy tales" included adults in addition to children. Later, with the emergence of the "Fairy Tales for Children and Family" collected by the Brothers Grimm and the works of some other writers, the genre of fairy tales was officially associated with children, and this association has been deepening since then.

Folklorists have used many different methods to classify fairy tales, the most famous of which are the Arnay-Thompson classification method and Vladimir Propp's morphological analysis method.

Edit the concept of this paragraph

The term "fairy tale" is explained in the "Modern Chinese Dictionary" as "a genre of children's literature that uses rich imagination, fantasy and exaggeration to Write stories suitable for children to enjoy." The basic explanation of the word "fairy tale" in "Cihai" is "a type of children's literature that uses imagination, fantasy and exaggeration to create artistic images, reflect life, and enhance the growth of children's characters." To sum up, the so-called fairy tale is one of the genres of children's literature, which uses rich fantasy, exaggeration, symbolism, and personification to create images that are suitable for children to read. [2]

Edit this historical origin

Fairy tales were originally part of traditional oral folk tales, usually told in a dramatic way and passed down orally from generation to generation. Therefore, the history of fairy tales is difficult to verify. In particular, stories told by illiterate storytellers in the early days often did not have any written records for later generations to refer to.

The earliest fairy tales circulated in written form were in ancient Egypt in 1,300 BC. Since then, fairy tales have begun to appear in written literary works, such as Apuleius between 100 and 200 AD. The Cupid and Psyche that appear in The Golden Ass may be the Five Books of India from 200 to 300 AD, but the story itself cannot Find out whether these stories reflect the folk tales circulated in the local society at that time. There is much evidence that many of the stories in later fairy tale collections were based on folk tales. These collections of stories are often based on older folk tales, such as One Thousand and One Nights, Vikram and the Vampire, and Bel and the Dragon.

Dragon). In addition to these collections, Chinese Taoist philosophers such as Liezi and Zhuangzi also expressed some fairy tales in their philosophical thoughts. In a broader definition, Aesop's Fables (sixth century BC) is the first famous collection of fairy tales in the Western world. Allusions

A large number of allusions appear in Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", Stuart's "Puss in Boots", Spencer's "The Faerie Queene" ” and Shakespeare’s stage plays. The story of "King Lear" is believed to contain a large number of fairy tale allusions. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Italian Giovanni Francesco

Straparola reinterpreted Western literature in his book The Facetious Nights of

Straparola The stories in the book contain a large number of fairy tales, and "Naples" (Naples) by Giambattista

Basile is all fairy tales. Carlo Gozzi used many fairy tale allusions in his Italian opera scenes. For example, one of his opera scenes was taken from the Italian fairy tale "The

Love For Three Oranges" )》. At the same time, China's Pu Songling also collected many fairy tales in his "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" published in 1766. Fairy tales themselves became increasingly popular among the French upper class at the end of the seventeenth century. Fairy tales compiled by the fable poet La Fontaine and another famous writer Charles Perrault (the author of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella) Is one of the most popular representatives. While the fairy tale collections of Traparola (author of Puss in Boots), Charles Perrault, and Badgery contain many of the earliest forms of fairy tales, these editors also reinterpreted these stories to Literary effect.

"Grimm's Fairy Tales" and the first to try to preserve not only the personality of the characters in fairy tales but also the story style were the German Brothers Grimm. But ironically, although the first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales (1812 to 1815) is a treasure trove for folklorists, in order to ensure sales and popularity, the Brothers Grimm also began to rewrite the fairy tales in later published editions. story. The transformation of the Grimm's Fairy Tales not only deviates the content from the original folk tales, but also affects the appearance of the original folk tales. In addition, the Brothers Grimm also did not include some German oral folktales because they believed that these stories, which also appeared in Charles Perrault's collection of stories, were French rather than German stories. Andersen's fairy tales are the most famous.

Edit this story category

The original fairy tale

Illustrations of the fairy tale "Flying Fish" drawn by Wang Jianfeng The audience of the original fairy tale includes not only children but also adults. After the 19th and 20th centuries, fairy tales began to gradually transform into a part of children's literature.

The précieuses, a group of French writers including Madame Honoré, tried to promote their works for adults to children's readers. A countess of the time also declared that she would have loved reading fairy tales as a child. The later précieuses female writer, Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, rewrote Beauty and the Beast for children readers, and her version is also the version circulated today. After the Brothers Grimm published their Fairy Tales for Children and Households, they rewrote their stories into a version more suitable for children in response to complaints from readers.

Modern Fairy Tales

In modern times, fairy tales have been transformed into versions suitable for children. In order to make fairy tales more suitable for children, the Brothers Grimm also worked to reduce the description of sex in the stories. In the first edition of Grimm's fairy tales, Rapunzel began to ask the witch why her clothes were getting tighter after several late-night visits from the prince. Therefore, the witch knew that Rapunzel was pregnant, but in subsequent versions, this was revised to make it easier to woo the prince and harder to woo the witch. However, subsequent versions have increased violence (such as punishment for bad guys). But Tolkien also discovered that the cannibal's kebabs in The Juniper Tree story had been omitted from one version to make it more suitable for children. In the Victorian era, due to the background of the times, stories were often rewritten to have a moralizing meaning. Dickens, for example, protested against Prohibition as it appeared in the story of Cinderella.

Adaptations of fairy tales for children continued well into the twentieth century. Disney's Snow White is mainly produced for children. The Japanese animation "Little Princess Magic" is also adapted from a fairy tale.

Edit this section of famous fairy tales

"Andersen's Fairy Tales" is a story written by Danish Andersen, such as The Ugly Duckling and the Daughter of the Sea.

"Grimm's Fairy Tales", a collection of stories by the German Brothers Grimm, such as Rapunzel and Snow White.

"The Story of Mother Goose" is a book and collection of French stories by French Charles Perrault, such as Puss in Boots, Little Red Riding Hood, and Mother Goose.

"The Story of Alibaba" is composed of a collection of folk stories that are suitable for children and are rich in philosophy.

"One Thousand and One Nights" is a collection of Arabic stories, but some of them cannot be considered fairy tales.

"Wilde's Fairy Tales" is compiled by the British writer Oscar Wilde.

"のこ的爱"

"Witch Village" is a collection of children's emotional intelligence education fairy tales written by Wang Wei.

Independent Fairy Tales

Beauty and the Beast, 1756, French

The House of Sweets

Jack and the Pea, 1807, English

The Three Little Pigs

Goldilocks

The Three Princes of Serendip, UK

Urashima Taro, Japan

Andersen's Fairy Tales

Momotaro, Japan

Kintaro, Japan

The Bamboo Forest Princess, Japan

The Wizard of Oz, 1900, United States

Charlotte's Web

Tiger Aunt

Alice in Wonderland

Bambi

The Little Prince

The Gingerbread Man

Robin Hood

The Sword in the Stone

Peter Pan

Edit the classification method of this paragraph

Alnay-Thompson Classification

1. Animal Stories 1. Wild animals ① Smart fox or other animals

② Other wild animals

2. Wild animals and domestic animals

3. Wild animals and people

4. Domestic animals

5. Other animals and things

2. Common folk tales 1. Magical stories ① Magical rivals

② Supernatural or enchanted relatives a. Wife

b. Husband

c. Brothers and sisters

③Magical jobs and tasks

④Magical helpers

⑤Magic artifacts

⑥ Supernatural power or knowledge

⑦Other stories about supernatural phenomena

2. Religious stories ①God’s rewards and punishments

②The truth is revealed

③Heaven

④The Devil

⑤Other religious stories

3. Short stories ①The boy who married the princess

② The girl who marries the prince

③Prove loyalty and innocence

④The stubborn wife learns obedience

⑤Good lessons

⑥Clever Words and deeds

⑦The legend of fate

⑧Robbers and killers

⑨Other true legends

4. The story of the stupid devil① Labor agreement

② Cooperation between humans and ogres

③ Contest between humans and ogres

④ Humans kill or harm ogres

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⑤The ogre was frightened by humans

⑥Humans outsmarted the demons

⑦Saved his life from the demons

3. Jokes and Anecdote 1. The story of a fool ① A silly couple

② A silly wife and her husband

③ A silly husband and his wife

④ A pair Silly couple

2. Women’s stories ① Looking for a wife

② Jokes about old women

③ Other stories about women

3. Men’s stories ① Clever man

② Lucky accident

③ Stupid man

4. Clergy or religious figures ① Clergy’s tricks

②Clergy and sextons

③Other jokes by religious figures

5. Anecdotes about other groups or people

6. Ridiculous stories

4. Programmed stories 1.

Serial stories

2. Serial stories based on numbers, objects, animals or names

3. Serial stories related to death

Classification of character abilities

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Classified representative works pictures

Anthropomorphic fairy tale "Pinocchio" "Pinocchio"

Superhuman fairy tale "Giant's Garden"

Human body fairy tale "The Emperor's New Clothes"

"Andersen's Fairy Tales"

"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"

Intellectual Fairy Tales

Edit this paragraph to explain the basic ideas of fairy tales in detail

The basic ideas of fairy tales are expressed through characters and storylines. Characters are the core of the entire work. Without lifelike characters, the basic ideas of the work cannot be vividly and powerfully conveyed to readers.

Brief introduction

Fairy tales are a kind of literary theme that is more suitable for children to read. They use rich fantasy and exaggerated techniques to create distinctive images according to children's psychological characteristics and needs. , uses twists and turns of the story and easy-to-understand language to reflect real life, suppress evil and promote good, and achieve the purpose of educating people.

There are generally four types of fairy tales: anthropomorphic fairy tales (representative works such as "Pinocchio"), superhuman fairy tales (representative works such as "The Giant's Garden"), and human body fairy tales (representative works such as "The Emperor's New Clothes") ), intellectual fairy tales, etc. When reading, you should delve into the author's fantasy world, understand the content of the article, and experience the author's writing intention. Some fairy tales directly state the truth in the article through the mouth of the protagonist or in summary language. Others require careful reading and understanding and in-depth analysis of the article to realize the truth. Therefore, when reading fairy tales, you must learn to see the essence through phenomena and understand the true meaning of life.

Furthermore, fairy tales show our yearning and pursuit of beauty, so they are often contrary to the reality of life.

In addition, fairy tales can make people gain knowledge and make them happy. Human beings grow up under the guidance of fairy tales.

Human fairy tales have a long history, and ancient myths and folk tales can also be regarded as a type of fairy tales. The two most outstanding representatives of human fairy tale writers are Nordic, the Danish Andersen and the Swedish Selma Lagerhof.

Character images

The characters in fairy tales are the most free and broad, ranging from the sun, moon and stars, to birds, beasts, insects, fish, flowers, plants, trees and stones, whether animate or inanimate, tangible or Intangible, concrete substances or abstract concepts can all be "personified" and appear in fairy tales as characters with language, actions, thoughts and personalities; in addition, some ideas that are generated from human imagination and only exist in the magical world can also become Fairy tale characters, such as elves, sirens, mythical beasts, etc. Of course, there are more people in fairy tales, ancient or modern, natives or foreigners, people of this stage or that stage. Moreover, in some fairy tales, images of ordinary people and supernatural characters, as well as various anthropomorphic creatures and non-biological images, can appear at the same time, interact with each other, and move together in the fairy tale environment designed by the author. But no matter what characters are chosen to act as fairy tales, they all reflect the real life of human beings, and they also have the social personalities of various characters. Writers can't just call some living and non-living things to play roles. When choosing, on the one hand, we must take into account the original shape, habits and natural attributes of these things to see if they have some connection and similarity with the various human roles they play. On the other hand, we must consider the need to express the theme. Moreover, the kind of characters a fairy tale allows to appear depends largely on the theme. For example, in "The Singing Bird", the bird is chosen as the embodiment of freedom, and the king is the embodiment of tyranny. If the bird is replaced by a piglet in a pigsty, it is obviously inappropriate. And it would be equally inappropriate to replace the king with an artist who has no power and cannot control the power of life and death. The song of the bird is the song of freedom, and that is why the king suffocates it. If it were replaced by a robot bird that could be manipulated at will, it would be difficult to produce the plot of the king killing the bird.

"The Strange Travels of Minhao" became a world-famous novel because of its absurdity and boldness; "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", "Pinocchio", "Adventures in the Land of Lies", etc. are all famous for their outstanding The strange and absurd charm has won over generations of young readers.

Absurdity

The concept of "absurdity" referred to here is a sense of absurdity and absurdity in an aesthetic sense. The concept is relatively broad and is different from the word absurd in real life. There is a difference. It covers many meanings such as fantasy, strange, weird, strange, fickle, ridiculous, nonsense, unbelievable and so on. It is this absurdity in a broad sense that can make fairy tales produce interesting aesthetic effects. Absurdity is a means used by children's literature writers to create fairy tale art. Its expressions can be diverse, but in fairy tales it is often inseparable from strong exaggeration, bizarre fantasy, distortion and witty irony. Among them, exaggeration and imagination are the most important. In a fantasy world, anything can happen, and incredible things can be experienced as facts. Based on unlimited imagination and rich expressions, a fantasy world that is completely different from reality is created. For example, the world represented in "Da Lin and Xiao Lin" is an extremely absurd world with a great disparity between rich and poor. In order to highlight the absurdity of this society, the author uses extreme exaggeration to distort and deform the characters, vilify the behavior, and use extremely absurd stories to reveal the class nature of the exploiting class who get something for nothing and are greedy. Therefore, the essence of absurdity is to reflect the essential reasonableness through the superficial absurdity, because what people see and feel in the strangeness of the image is a new harmony and unity. Absurdity is at the expense of "natural possibility" and at the same time compensated by preserving "inner possibility", thus creating a unique fantasy world that contains all the implications of real life. Therefore, excellent absurd creation should be A new aesthetic meaning.

So, what kind of absurdity is excellent absurdity? Excellent absurdity should be absurdly bizarre, absurdly fresh, absurdly wonderful, and absurdly witty and humorous.

Only if it is absurd, fresh and bold can it be effective. Otherwise, following in the footsteps of others will never give people a sense of novelty. There is a strategy in Sun Tzu's Art of War to "win by surprise", which refers to the variety of strategies and the use of "surprise" to win. Similarly, the absurdity of fairy tales must also be surprising, beyond the imagination of ordinary people, causing a strong contrast between imagination and the reality of life. Then, the best effect of absurdity will be reflected. For example, the 46 stories in "Min Hao's Strange Travels" are endlessly interesting because of their bizarre fantasies, bold exaggerations, and extremely ridiculous absurdities.

It should be said that only fresh and unique absurdity can leave a deep impression on people. But freshness and originality are not easy to come by, and they are also testing the fairy tale writer's sensitivity, wit and creativity.

Of course, absurdity can sometimes be wonderful. People sometimes describe beautiful scenes as if they have entered the "fairy tale realm", which fully shows that there are indeed many beautiful elements in the absurdity of fairy tales. For example, Andersen's fairy tale "The Daughter of the Sea" vividly demonstrates the absurd and beautiful realm of "the world of mermaids under the sea". Of course, this beauty is not only expressed as the beauty of artistic conception, but also includes the warmth of human feelings, the beauty of the soul, the noble spiritual realm, etc., which can all be expressed through absurd fantasy. "The Daughter of the Sea" expresses the little mermaid's lofty spiritual realm and beautiful and kind heart through the touching story of the little mermaid's persistent pursuit of love and her willingness to sacrifice her life for love. Its absurd aesthetic connotations are very rich and evocative. endless.

Similarly, the fairy tale "The Charitable Giant" by British writer Rod Dahl also expresses beautiful absurdity. The good giant in the story used the method of catching butterflies in a net bag to collect hundreds of millions of dreams floating in the air like mist, and put them in hundreds of millions of bottles. Then he used a dream blower to blow the beautiful dreams and golden dreams into Blow into the bedrooms of sleeping children in thousands of households, letting them sleep sweetly and have happy dreams.

In addition, absurdity can also be expressed through the grotesque and the comic. In fact, grotesque and funny often appear at the same time, showing a kind of meaningful laughter.

For example, Norwegian writer Egner's fairy tale "The Residents and Bandits of Cardamom Town" is a very interesting work, famous for its comical anomalies. The three robbers in the fairy tale are not the ferocious and cruel robbers that people usually think of. On the contrary, they are three childlike, lazy, stupid, and not evil-minded robbers. Their slogan is: "Down with dishwashing!" Therefore, their den of thieves is dirty and smelly. In order to change this situation, they stole the sleeping Aunt Sophie to be the "housekeeper". However, Aunt Sophie's strict control tried to make them earn their own living, which made them prefer to sit in the prison rather than be disciplined. So he sent her home again while she was sleeping soundly. Later, the robbers were caught, but the squad room was at the policeman's house. With the education and help of the kind-hearted policeman and his wife, they finally gave up their profession of banditry, corrected their evil ways, and made great contributions to Cardamom Town during a firefighting. The whole work is filled with hilarious humor in the absurd story of generosity and benevolence, making it endlessly interesting to read.