Fairy Tale: A Very Short Introduction [Paperback]

Marina Warner guides us through the rich world of fairy tale, fromCinderellaandHansel and GreteltoSnow WhiteandPan's Labyrinth. Exploring pervasive themes of folklore, myth, the supernatural, imagination, and fantasy, Warner highlights the impact of the genre on human understanding, history, and culture.From wicked queens, beautiful princesses, elves, monsters, and goblins, to giants, glass slippers, poisoned apples, magic keys, and mirrors, the characters and images of fairy tales have cast a spell over readers and audiences, both adults and children, for centuries. These fantastic stories have traveled across cultural borders, and been passed on from generation to generation, ever-changing, renewed with each re-telling. Few forms of literature have greater power to enchant us and rekindle our imagination than a fairy tale.But what is a fairy tale? Where do they come from and what do they mean? What do they try and communicate to us about morality, sexuality, and society? The range of fairy tales stretches across great distances and time; their history is entangled with folklore and myth, and their inspiration draws on ideas about nature and the supernatural, imagination and fantasy, psychoanalysis and feminism.In thisVery Short Introduction, Marina Warner digs into a rich hoard of fairy tales in all their brilliant and fantastical variations, in order to define a genre and evaluate a literary form that keeps shifting through time and history. Drawing on a glittering array of examples, from classics such asRed Riding Hood,Cinderella, andThe Sleeping Beauty, the Grimm Brothers'Hansel and Gretel, and Hans Andersen'sThe Little Mermaid, to modern-day realizations including Walt Disney'sSnow White, Warner forms a persuasive case for fairy tale as a crucial repository of human understanding and culture.ABOUT THE SERIES:TheVery Short Introductionssels%