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Fairy Tales and Fables from Weimar Days

Collected Utopian Tales / New and Revised Edition

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Editors:
  1. Jack Zipes

    1. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

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  • Presents a fascinating and accessible collection edited and translated by the world's leading expert on fairy tales
  • Updates the previous edition with a revised introduction, 3 new tales and over 50 new illustrations
  • Includes translations of work by a range of noted Weimar writers including Kurt Schwitters

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Table of contents (31 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-x
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  3. Learning from Mistakes

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 27-27
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    2. Happiness (1925)

      • Kurt Schwitters
      Pages 29-32

    3. A Fairy Tale About God and Kings (1921)

      • Carl Ewald
      Pages 33-35

    4. The Giant and His Suit of Armour (1920)

      • Edwin Hoernle
      Pages 37-40

    5. The Boy Who Wanted to Fight with a Dragon (1921)

      • Berta Lask
      Pages 41-45

    6. Kuttel Daddeldu Tells His Children the Fairy Tale About Little Red Cap (1923)

      • Joachim Ringelnatz
      Pages 47-50

    7. The Little King and the Sun (1920)

      • Edwin Hoernle
      Pages 51-53

    8. The Honest Seaman (1908)

      • Joachim Ringelnatz
      Pages 55-57

    9. Learn to Grasp the World from Others (1931)

      • Joachim Ringelnatz
      Pages 59-63

    10. The Fence (1924)

      • Hermynia zur Mühlen
      Pages 65-69

    11. The Servant (1923)

      • Hermynia zur Mühlen
      Pages 71-79

    12. The Victor (1922)

      • Béla Balázs
      Pages 81-83

    13. The Patched Trousers (1928)

      • Bruno Schönlank
      Pages 85-90

    14. The Fairy Tale about the Wise Man (1923)

      • Eugen Lewin-Dorsch
      Pages 91-101

  4. Kings, Tyrants, Misers and Other Fools

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 103-103
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    2. The Holy Wetness (1924)

      • Maria Szucsich
      Pages 105-110

    3. The Enchanted King (1922)

      • Robert Grötzsch
      Pages 111-117
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Keywords

About this book

This book is a collection of traditional German fairy tales and fables, deliberately transformed into utopian narratives and social commentary by political activists in the Weimar Republic (1919-1933). Against a backdrop of financial and political instability, widespread homelessness, and the reformation of public institutions, numerous gifted writers such as Berta Lask, Kurt Schwitters, Hermynia zur Mühlen, Oskar Maria Graf, Bruno Schönlank, and Joachim Ringelnatz responded to the need for hope among the common people by creating fairy tales and fables that offered a new and critical vision of social conditions. Though many of their tales deal with the grim situation of common people and their apparent helplessness, they are founded on the principle of hope. This revised edition includes over 50 illustrations by contemporary international artists who reveal how similar the Weimar conditions were to the conditions in which we presently live. In this respect, the Weimar fairy talesand fables have not lost their spirit and significance.

Reviews

“Zipes’s collection is a marvellous book, one which will appeal to both the general reader and those working on fairy tales or those researching the Weimar Republic or German intellectual life before the outbreak of the Second World War.” (Paul Quinn, Gramarye, Issue 17, 2020)

“This collection of thirty literary stories in the genre of fairy tales, assembled and translated by Jack Zipes, offers a good read to anyone who enjoys stories. … This collection of stories is enjoyable also because of the smooth translations. … The tales collected and presented in this volume are important for scholars of literature as well as of folktales, fairy tales, and fables. The volume is also meant for the simple pleasure of reading inspiring stories” (Sadhana Naithani, Journal of Folklore Research, April, 2019)


“Its creative wave of tales, some playful, some ironic, some wrenchingly utopian, speaks directly to the world we find ourselves in today.” (Jo Radner, Storytelling Magazine, 2018)

Editors and Affiliations

  • University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Jack Zipes

About the editor

Jack Zipes is Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, USA. Some of his recent publications include: Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre (2006), The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films (2010), and Grimm Legacies: The Magic Power of Fairy Tales (2014).

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