Reviewed by Stephen Laker, Kyushu University

Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm’s Kinder-und Hausmärchen (Children’s and household tales) was first published in 1812 and went into its seventh and final edition in 1857. Over the years, the Brothers Grimm changed the number and selection of the tales, and those that remained often underwent substantial revisions. In this book, Orrin W. Robinson presents a linguist’s interpretation of the motivations behind some of the editorial choices performed by the Grimms.

Ch. 1 introduces the approach, aims, and limits of the book. Ch. 2 then gives some idea of how the language of the tales transformed over time by juxtaposing the first and seventh editions of a single tale, ‘Die sechs Schwäne’ (‘The six swans’). Clearly, the tales become much longer, and the reader gains an impression of the range of linguistic alterations that were made, some of which are explored in detail in later chapters.

Ch. 3 considers how the Grimms used dialect, usually snippets of dialect in the form of regional names and verses, to give the tales an extra air of German authenticity. Ch. 4 investigates how possession is expressed grammatically in the tales. With very few exceptions, the Grimms avoided the non-standard dative + possessive pronoun construction (e.g. dem Mann sein Haus ‘the man-DATIVE his house’) and the von ‘of’ possessive (e.g. das Haus von Hans ‘the house of Hans’), in favor of traditional genitive case marking. Ch. 5 looks at how characters in the tales address one another. R shows that the formal Sie-plural form, for the polite second-person singular, is rarely used; the Grimms clearly favored the older ihr form. Ch. 6 deals mainly with the use of the present and preterite subjunctive in earlier and later editions of the tales. Interestingly, several grammatical changes between the first and seventh editions echo opinions found in Jacob Grimm’s Deutsche Grammatik about what constitutes proper German grammar.

Chs. 7–11 consider lexical choices (e.g. nouns, adjectives, and pronouns) and how these relate to gender roles in the tales. R determines, for instance, that boys are more likely to be referred to by their real names than girls, and if girls do have a name, then their appearance is key (e.g. Schneewittchen ‘Snow White’, Rotkäppchen ‘Little Red Riding Hood’). Girls are more commonly described for their appearance, morals, and industry, while boys tend to be described in terms of sociability, size, and mental aptitude. Such choices probably reflect not only the attitudes of the Grimms, but also nineteenth-century German attitudes, about gender roles.

Grimms’ fairy tales are some of the most famous and influential works of world literature, and much scholarship has been devoted to the interpretation of their plots. R demonstrates that the German language in which they are written also offers considerable scope for interpretation, especially as a reflection of attitudes about language and society in nineteenth-century Germany.