Tatar - The Cambridge companion to fairy tales

Fairy tales have never known geographical, disciplinary, or cultural borders. In many ways, they provided a model for thinking about storytelling on a transnational level long before comparative literature began transforming itself into world literature. As the simple expression of complex thought, fairy tales have increasingly become the focus of intense scholarly inquiry. In this Companion , international scholars from a range of academic disciplines explore the historical origins, cultural dissemination, and psychological power of these stories, and offer model interpretations of tales from a variety of traditions and sources, including Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, and the Thousand and One Nights . Rather than disenchanting the stories, the essays in this volume broaden our understanding of them and deepen our appreciation of the cultural work they do. A chronology and guide to further reading contribute to the usefulness of the volume for students and scholars.

MARIA TATAR is the John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, and chairs the Program in Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University. She is the author of The Annotated Brothers Grimm (2012), Enchanted Hunters: The Power of Stories in Childhood (2009), and may other volumes.

For a list of titles published in the series, please see .

The Cambridge Companion to Fairy Tales

Edited by

Maria Tatar

University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom

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Cambridge University Press 2015

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First published 2015

Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall.

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-107-03101-2 Hardback

ISBN 978-1-107-63487-9 Paperback

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