The Brothers Grimm: life of the week

Summary

History Extra Podcast Summary: "The Brothers Grimm: Life of the Week"

Episode Details:

• Title: The Brothers Grimm: Life of the Week
• Podcast: History Extra Podcast
• Host: Ellie Cawthorn
• Guest: Anne Schmeesing, Professor of German and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and author of The Brothers: A Biography
• Release Date: April 14, 2025

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Introduction to the Brothers Grimm

The episode opens with Ellie Cawthorn introducing the focus of the week: the multifaceted lives of Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, best known for their iconic collection of fairy tales. Unlike the familiar narratives popularized by Disney, the Grimms’ endeavors extended beyond storytelling into linguistics, folklore preservation, and political activism. To delve deeper, Ellie converses with Anne Schmeesing, who authored a comprehensive biography on the brothers.

Early Lives and Family Dynamics

At [02:21], Anne Schmeesing highlights the common misconceptions surrounding the Grimms, noting that while their fairy tales are widely recognized, their individual personalities and broader contributions remain less known.

Ellie Cawthorn elaborates on their childhood: Jakob (born 1785) and Wilhelm (born 1786) grew up in Hanau, later moving to Steinau. Their father’s untimely death when Jakob was in his mid-40s profoundly impacted him, instilling a sense of urgency and diligence in his scholarly pursuits [05:07]. This event not only destabilized their family's finances but also deepened the brothers' bond, as Clemens Brentano described them as “a double hook” due to their inseparable nature [10:32].

Academic Pursuits and Shifting Interests

Both brothers initially pursued law at the University of Marburg, inspired by their father's legacy. However, under the mentorship of Friedrich Karl von Savigny, they developed a passion for German folklore and medieval literature [07:16]. Their interactions with romantic writers like Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arning further fueled their interest in preserving German cultural heritage [08:56].

Cultural Context and Folklore Preservation

Anne explains the cultural milieu of early 19th-century Germany, where folklore and fairy tales were undervalued. The Grimms aimed to elevate these narratives, fearing that industrialization and urbanization would erase oral storytelling traditions [08:56]. Their efforts were also intertwined with the political landscape, as Germany was fragmented into principalities struggling against French occupation [10:17].

Collecting and Editing Fairy Tales

A significant portion of the episode delves into the Grimms' methodology in collecting and curating fairy tales. Contrary to popular belief, the Grimms did not simply transcribe tales from rural peasants [12:48]. Instead, many stories were sourced from educated townspeople and women in their reading circles. Anne points out that the Grimms often merged different versions of the same tale to create more coherent and accessible narratives [16:21].

Ellie Cawthorn discusses the editorial process, emphasizing that Wilhelm often revised tales to align with 19th-century bourgeois sensibilities, sometimes increasing the stories' violence to underscore moral lessons [17:56]. This editorializing introduced changes that sometimes made the tales darker and more didactic [20:48].

Intended Audience and Societal Impact

The Grimms titled their compilation Children's and Household Tales, indicating a broad intended audience beyond just children. They believed these stories would appeal to all ages and serve as a vessel for promoting German identity and unity [19:30]. However, the inclusion of violent and morally strict elements sparked criticism even within their circles [20:40].

Political Engagement and Challenges

Jakob Grimm's foray into politics as a representative at the Frankfurt National Assembly [27:00] reflected his commitment to a unified Germany with a constitutional framework. However, his political endeavors led to disillusionment, especially after the failed 1848 Revolution and the ensuing suppression by reactionary forces [29:18]. The Grimms' nationalist endeavors were later co-opted by extremist movements, including the Nazis, who briefly banned their tales post-World War II due to their association with German nationalism [30:09].

The Grimms' Linguistic Legacy

Beyond storytelling, the Grimms made substantial contributions to linguistics, particularly through their monumental German dictionary project [25:22]. Initiated in 1837, the dictionary spanned over a century, finally completing in 1961—a testament to their enduring scholarly dedication [25:22].

Legacy and Modern Interpretations

Anne Schmeesing reflects on the enduring legacy of the Grimms, noting that while their fairy tales remain globally celebrated and extensively translated [31:50], their other scholarly contributions are often overshadowed. Contemporary retellings in various media underscore the timeless nature of their stories, even if the brothers themselves might have been surprised by the extent of their cultural impact [31:50].

Favorite Tales and Personal Insights

Concluding the discussion, Anne shares her personal favorites from the Grimms' collection:

• "Hans My Hedgehog", a violent yet fantastical tale about a boy born half-human, half-hedgehog, symbolizes the blend of reality and imagination in fairy tales [33:07].

• "How Six Made Their Way in the World", which highlights the ingenuity and cooperation of underdog characters against authoritative figures [33:07].

These stories exemplify the Grimms' fascination with blending moral lessons with rich, imaginative narratives [34:22].

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Notable Quotes

• Anne Schmeesing [02:21]: "People might not even know the individual brothers' names and they might not know much about their lives or anything else that they did."

• Ellie Cawthorn [05:07]: "Jakob talks a lot in his correspondence about how his father's death... impressed upon Jakob this notion that he too was not going to have a long lifespan."

• Clemens Brentano (as referenced by Ellie) [10:32]: "They were described as a double hook... you just couldn't possibly think of one without the other."

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Conclusion

This episode of the History Extra Podcast offers a comprehensive exploration of the Brothers Grimm, shedding light on their personal lives, scholarly pursuits, and the broader cultural and political contexts that shaped their work. Through Anne Schmeesing's insights, listeners gain a nuanced understanding of how the Grimms' dedication to preserving German folklore intertwined with their aspirations for national unity and cultural pride. Their legacy, while predominantly anchored in beloved fairy tales, extends into linguistics and the enduring spirit of cultural preservation.

Transcript

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Now available with a Minecraft Movie meal at participating McDonald's for a limited time. A Minecraft movie only in theaters. Hello and welcome to Life of the Week from History Extra, where leading Histor delve into the lives of history's most intriguing and significant figures. From Snow White to Sleeping Beauty, the Brothers Grimm are best known for their volumes of fairy tales. But collecting and curating these tales for posterity was only one of the ambitious projects the brothers undertook in the first half of the 19th century. To find out more, Ellie Cawthorn spoke to the author of a new biography of the Grimms, Anne Schmeesing. Together they chart the lives of Jakob and Wilhelm, exploring their extremely close relationship, love of folklore, political leanings and attempts to create a German dictionary.

[Anne Schmeesing]

Thank you for joining me Anne. To talk about the Brothers Grimm today, I think most people might have heard their names and they will associate the name with fairy tales. But as you note in your biography of the Brothers Grimm, people might not even know the individual brothers names and they might not know much about their lives or anything else that they did. So hopefully we're going to rectify that today. But first of all, what interested you in the Brothers Grimm?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

So I have long taught a course on fairy tales of Germany with a large emphasis on the works of the Brothers Grimm. And I've also given a lot of public lectures over the years on the Grimms. And I've always been struck by how interested audiences have been in the Grimms. And to find out that so many of the conceptions that they had about the Grimms and their fairy tales are myths, some of them myths that originated even as far back as the 19th century, and especially since so many of us grew up thinking of fairy tales with respect to Disney, to find out that the Grimm's fairy tales are actually very different. So I was really inspired to learn more about the Grimm's and delve into not only their fairy tale collection, but so many of their other amazing achievements in the fascinating time at which they lived.

[Anne Schmeesing]

And we will definitely come into the fairy tale collection, so people don't need to worry about that. But let's talk a bit about their lives first. What do we know about the early.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Lives of the two brothers, Jakob and Wilhelm? Those are their names, and as you mentioned, we think of the Brothers Grimm, but so many people don't even know them in terms of their individual personalities. We think of them as this collective personage, almost. Jakob was the elder of the two. He was actually the oldest of his many siblings who survived infancy at least, and he was born in 1785. His brother Wilhelm was born just over a year later, in 1786. And at the time that they are born, Germany was not a unified political state. It was a patchwork of principalities. And they were born in the principality known as Hessenkassel. It was not particularly prosperous. They're born in the town of Hanau, which is near Frankfurt. But when they're around five or six years old, their family moves to a smaller town called Steinau, which is in the mountains. And it's there that their father becomes a district magistrate. And they have an idyllic childhood in Steinau until their father dies at the age of 44.

[Anne Schmeesing]

I mean, it sounds a bit like one of the grim fairy tales in itself. So their father's death is often quoted as this pivotal moment in their life. Why was it so significant?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

It's significant in a couple ways, and you're right to point to almost this fairy tale trajectory, because what we see in many German fairy tales, it's not Just a rags to riches trajectory. It's riches to rags to riches. And you can almost trace this in their life story. It wasn't as if they were really well off or anything like that, but they had modest comfort. And this changes overnight for them the family's financial circumstances. And not only that, but it really changes their mindset. So Jakob Grim, throughout his life, he talks a lot in his correspondence about how his father's death in his 40s really impressed upon Jakob this notion that he too was not going to have a long lifespan. Actually, he ended up being the one who lived the longest of his siblings, but he thought that he too would die young. And he speaks of this repeatedly as well. This is why I have to work so hard to. Because I might not be around long like my father. I might die young. And so we really see his studiousness, his real diligence to his work is in part because of that experience. So overnight, things really change. And his family has to move a couple times in the months after the father's death, they have to move out of the spacious magistrate's house in which they were living in Steinau. Their mother, now she is figuring out where the next steps for her and the Grimm's. They have three younger brothers and a sister. She's the youngest, so the mother is now a widow. She does obtain a pretty small pension. She's also helped by the Grimm's maternal aunts and then also by a grandfather. So, you know, they are helped out a little bit, but it is very difficult for them.

[Anne Schmeesing]

But both of the brothers are able to go on to study at the University of Marburg. What was their time like there? And how influential was it in shaping this work that they would go on to do with folklore and fairy tales?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

So before they were at Marburg, they go to Kassel. And this too was in large part because of the help of their maternal aunt. She was actually first lady and waiting at the court in Kassel, to the Land Gravine there. After they're in Kassel, they go to Marburg, and they're at university there. And they have the good fortune of meeting the brilliant legal scholar Friedrich Karl von Savigny. So they go to Marburg, they're going to study law, following in their father's footsteps. But they meet Savigny. He becomes a friend and mentor. And he is the one who really impresses upon them the cultural underpinnings of German law and associated with that German medieval and early modern literature. And so their eyes are opened. They're quickly more interested in studying these topics than they are law. In turn, Savigny introduces them to the German romantic writer Clemens Plantano. He, in turn, then later introduces them to his friend, the writer Achim von Arning. And through these friendships, the Grimms are really getting interested in. In earlier German literature and in folklore, because Brentano and Arnhem and others, they really saw in German folklore a continuation of this vast German heritage that had really been understudied too long, viewed as inferior, things like that.

[Anne Schmeesing]

Well, can you tell us a bit more about this cultural background to delving into German folklore at this time? So what exactly was going on in Germany culturally at this time? Why was folklore and fairy tales, why were they of interest to people?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

So for so long, folklore and fairy tales had been looked down upon as not worthy of being printed, being published. And to the extent that we see fairy tales as written literature, it's this view that, well, you have to dress this up, you have to stylize it, you know, put all these learned literary allusions into it, things like that, to make it worthy of being printed. And that's not what the Grimm's think at all. They think, hey, there is so much to this that is of value in and of itself, and we have to preserve this because as a result of industrialization, urbanization, the aging storytellers and the waning tradition of oral storytelling, they're really worried that this is just going to die out. So they think, hey, we need to collect this. We need to preserve it now. At the same time, too, of course, the Grimms are living through a time of war occupation, indeed, the French occupy Hessen Castle, and they transform it and other occupied territories into what they call the Kingdom of Westphalia, which is a vassal state. So the Grimms are looking around and they are really seeing a need to preserve and elevate this German heritage, which for so long has been viewed as inferior.

[Anne Schmeesing]

So before we get into the stories and the collections of these stories, the. In more detail, can you just tell us a little bit more about the Grimms themselves? So we have these two brothers. They're very close in age, and their relationship is very close. What were they both like and how did they get along?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Right, so they're extremely close. And Clemens Brentano, the romantic writer that Savigny introduces them to, he actually describes them as a double hook. This image of these two conjoined prongs and other friends too, said, you just couldn't possibly think of one without the other because they were so close. Nevertheless, they did have somewhat different personalities. Wilhelm was more outgoing. Jakob was more introverted. Jakob was more interested in terms of methodology and a scientific approach, whereas Wilhelm was much more attuned to making their texts. The fairy tale collection is a good example, more appealing and accessible to a 19th century audience. And we see that in some of the edits he makes to the tales which we could come back to. Wilhelm tended to work pretty methodically. Jakob worked in these intense bursts of energy, but they got along extremely well. Wilhelm marries Jakob remained a lifelong bachelor, but he lived with Wilhelm and his family throughout his life. So they're always under the same roof when they are apart, at times travels, or when Jakob was serving as part of Hessian legations in France or at the Congress of Vienna. They are always just tortured being apart. They can't bear being apart from each other.

[Anne Schmeesing]

It's interesting because I think a lot of people could not work with their siblings, let alone work with them and live with them for a lifetime. So it's a fascinating relationship. So let's return then to the fairy tale collections, just for anyone who isn't clear, what are some of the most famous stories in them.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

So some of the tales that you'll find in the Grimm's collection are going to be, you know, Snow White, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, to name just a few, Grim and town musicians, Brave little Taylor tend to be some of the ones that people know. Sleeping Beauty, which in German is usually translated as Briar Rose.

[Anne Schmeesing]

How did the Grimm brothers go about collecting and curating these stories? And is that even the right way of thinking of this? Collecting and curating rather than authoring?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Yes, it is the right way to think about it. And there we get into, I think, some of the myths and misconceptions that abound about the Grimm's fairy tale collection. So I think some readers think that the Grimm's authored their fairy tales out of whole cloth, and that's not what happened. They collected them and then often substantively edited them. Kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum, there's also this misconception, and it arose already in the 19th century, that the Grimms went out into the fields, they went into spinning parlors, and they were interviewing the peasants and noting these tales down word for word. And that also did not happen. So as they are collecting tales, particularly, you know, early on, so many of their tales are actually coming to them from middle class, upper class, educated townspeople, many women who were in part in a reading circle that they hosted every week in their apartment in Kassel. So it's not directly from peasants. There are relatively few storytellers that they're engaging with who are directly from the lower classes. When they are introduced, for example, to Dorothea Feeman, who is a storyteller who lived in a village outside of Kassel, she was the daughter of an innkeeper and wife of a tailor. When they get to know her and she gives them so many tales, they're very excited because she corresponds to this image they have of this ideal storyteller. And she ends up being depicted in frontispiece from the second edition of their tales on. And they call her out by name in their preface, whereas they don't do that with the other storytellers from whom they gathered tales.

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[Anne Schmeesing]

They collected would these have been widely known at the time?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

So some of them would have been widely known, others not so. And in terms of where the storytellers they're speaking to have you know themselves gotten these tales. So when we think of the women from whom they collected tales, you know, in this reading circle and, you know, other acquaintances that they had, these are probably tales that they had heard in their childhood. They could also be tales that they had read in the popular chapbooks of the day. It's interesting that several of the women had French Huguenot ancestry, so we do see some French influence on some of the tales. And then I think what's also particularly interesting is that in many cases, as the Grimms are collecting tales, they are receiving a few different versions of the same basic tale. So part of what they're doing at times is, is merging a couple tellings into one, a version that they think is the most complete, or they're choosing one version over the other. And then in their notes, they'll talk about the different versions. So they can be tales that are reasonably well known, and then others that are relatively unknown at their time and still relatively unknown at our time. Their final seventh and standard edition has over 200 tales, so there are lots of tales that folks have probably never heard.

[Anne Schmeesing]

That's really interesting because I wanted to ask you about editing, the idea that you said there of merging two tales together. So this wasn't just a simple case of recording and storing these tales, there was editorialising going on. Is that fair?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Yes, that is correct. And it's principally happening from the first edition to the second edition, although not exclusively. So we tend to see a fair amount of changes in some of the tales between those two first editions. Much of it is being done by Wilhelm, because by this time Jakob is very engrossed in his linguistic work. However, even before that, when we look at a packet of tales that the Grimms had sent to their friend Clemens Brentano, and then compare it with how those tales appear even in the first edition, we're going to see changes. But even that packet of tales, it wasn't necessarily meant to be, oh, this is how the tale would actually have been told. In some cases, it's just thumbnail sketches. The other thing that I think is important is that as Wilhelm Grimm is making edits, and some of these are meant to conform more to 19th century bourgeois norms, things like that. But in some cases he's realizing that when you have a written tale, you don't have the benefit of gestures, facial expressions, things like that. So some of the changes making the tales folksier, introducing idioms, things like that, are in a sense, almost a substitute for what you miss when you don't have an oral telling and who is.

[Anne Schmeesing]

The audience of these tales? They're often described as children's fairy tales. But then, as you mentioned earlier, some of them are very dark and maybe. We'll talk about this in a bit. Who were these intended for?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Right. So they titled their collection Children's and Household Tales. So definitely they knew that these, you know, these are tales that are told in this, you know, family atmosphere to children. But they did not view fairy tales as being solely for children. On the contrary, they really believed that fairy tales were appealing to all different ages. They also had scholarly aims for their collection, wanting to preserve what they viewed as a really important part of German heritage. And part of the aims there, too, for the collection is that, again, Germany is not politically united at this time. So through their collection of fairy tales and other works, they're really hoping that this reclamation, this elevation of German heritage will give Germans the self confidence to think of themselves on a plane with other countries that they had for so long been viewed as inferior to. So they're hoping that this will help to. To bring about political unification. So a variety of aims. I think it's important, though, that even their circle of friends criticizes them a little bit for some of the violence in the tales. And all of this is, strictly speaking, suitable for children.

[Anne Schmeesing]

Well, I'm sure that listeners at home will be thinking, give us some examples. What are some of the weirdest, darkest, most violent episodes in the tales?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

I remember one of the public lectures I gave a man coming up and telling me that he remembered as a boy having nightmares on the tail that had a horse whose head was cut off. And the horse's head starts talking. It's nailed up and starts talking. And just this gruesomeness of this talking, dead horse's head. So there are things like that. There are references to cannibalism, for example, that we'll find. The thing, though, is that I think some readers, if you've grown up with Disney, might be shocked by the violence in some of the tales. I think other readers, though, have heard of this violence, and they might assume that all the tales are just like curdling. That's not the case either. One important point, though, is that part of the editing that the Grimms are doing, in some cases actually is enhancing the violence of the tales. Not gratuitously so, but to teach a moral lesson. So you have one edit, for example, to Cinderella that they make is doves poking out the stepsister's eyes at the end as punishment for their wickedness. So again, they're doing that to teach a lesson. Don't behave badly, look what happens.

[Anne Schmeesing]

As well as the violence of these stories, are there any other undercurrents to them that today perhaps would seem unsavory or darker, unpalatable?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

I think in addition to that violence, one of the things that really pops out is gender roles in their collection. So what we see in some of their tales is that as they're making edits, in some cases, the female characters in the first edition, for example, actually have more independence than they have in later editions. So as Wilhelm is doing his editing, again, it's principally Wilhelm, not exclusively, but principally, we're seeing female independence going down. So, for example, Cinderella has far more direct speech in the early edition than she does in subsequent ones. As one example that scholars give, there is also both in a couple tales in the collection, also in their collection of legends and in some of their correspondence, we see anti Semitic prejudice as well. And it's only recently that scholars have begun to address that. For a long time, that was swept under the rug and not addressed in scholarship.

[Anne Schmeesing]

And is there a sense with the antisemitism that that is coming from the stories that they're collecting or being imposed by the Grimms?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

It's coming from the stories they're collecting. And of course, they are the ones who are choosing which stories to include in their collections. So, you know, there is a choice here on their part, and we do see scattered throughout their correspondence, anti Semitic comments.

[Anne Schmeesing]

Were these tales at the time a big hit? You've mentioned earlier how the Grimms, you know, struggled financially as a family. Was that a motivation in writing these and was it successful?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

So the Grimm's fairy tales were not the bestseller that we think of them today during their lifetimes. So the collection did enjoy seven complete and 10 abridged editions in their lifetimes. So, you know, they worked on it through decades, but it's really the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century where we start to see the tales becoming bestsellers. Now, one of the things that the Grimms do in the 1820s, and the very first volume of the first edition had appeared in 1812. So in the 1820s, they see that in Britain, Edgar Taylor had translated a subset of the tales and that becomes really popular in Britain. So they figure out, wow, this is what we should be doing too, to publish this smaller edition. And that's what they do. They come out with in German, it's called the Kleine Ausgabe small edition, and that has and enjoys 10 editions during their Lifetime. So it has a lot of the really canonical tales, the tales that we really know, so they do that to try to drive up sales, is still even that collection. It's not the runaway bestseller that I think some folks have assumed that it was.

[Anne Schmeesing]

I'm sure that we'll circle back to the fairy tales at the end of this conversation, but I just want to bring in a couple of other things that people might not know about the Brothers Grimm. Obviously, they were incredibly interested in language and the origin of language, and they worked on a German dictionary. Can you tell us about that project?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Yes. So they worked on the German dictionary for many, many years. They started it around 1837, in the aftermath of what is known as the Gottingen seven protest. They had at this point been professors in Gottingen in what was the Kingdom of Hanover. It was not the principality into which they were born. They moved, became professors there. They have a falling out. We can talk about what happened there because they're actually fired along with five other professors. In the aftermath of that, they start work on this monumental German dictionary project, and they work on it till the end of their lives. It takes 14 years just for the first installment of the first volume to appear. And the reviews were not particularly good. They were really sensitive to that because they too, had become really disillusioned at that point. And they knew, we're never going to finish this in our lifetimes. But it was finished. It was finished in 1961. There was a collaboration of East German and West German slave scholars finished so long after the inception of the project. And I think the Grimms would have been surprised and delighted to see that it was actually finished. Jakob Grimm described himself in Berlin as snowed in by slips of paper for the dictionary, 600,000 or so slips of paper that they amassed for this dictionary.

[Anne Schmeesing]

Project, a colossal project. Then you alluded to there the fact that they lost their positions. I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about the Grimm's politics and how that kind of impacted their working life.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Right. So when they are in Kassel, so after they're in Marburg, Jakob Grimm, he's working for the Hessian government. He at one point is working for what was called the war board. And then the French come in and occupy Hessen Castle. He finds himself now working at a commission aimed at provisioning French troops. And he later actually becomes librarian to Jerome Bonaparte. Napoleon had installed his youngest brother, Jerome, as king of this Kingdom of Westphalia. Wilhelm was unemployed for several years. They then, after the French are driven out, they become civil Servants in Kassel, they're working at the museum library there. This is after Jakob has also served as part of legations to France, to the Congress of Vienna. They end up in Gottingen as professors because they were snubbed for some promotions in Kassel and they're fed up and decide to leave. The Gottingen 7 protest happens because the King of the Kingdom of Hanover, who was Ernest Augustus, he was the Duke of Cumberland, fifth son of George iii, he comes in as King. The Hanoverians are very leery of him because he was known as being very anti liberal. He was very unpopular, he revoked the constitution. So the Grimms and five other professors, they're known as the Gottingen seven, they write this protest statement and they are fired. Not only that, Jakob and two others of the Gottingen seven are told that they have three days to leave the Kingdom of Hanover. So Jakob has to quickly flee back to Hessenkassel. This is all to say they were really, really interested through their works and through their engagement on these and other topics, in seeing a united Germany and a Germany that would have a constitution. They didn't think that constitutions would solve all problems, but they really had hoped to see this, and this unification of Germany doesn't happen in their lifetime. It happens, you know, a few years after Jakob's death.

[Anne Schmeesing]

And they did dabble a bit more directly in politics as well. Is that correct?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Jakob was a representative at the Frankfurt national assembly in the aftermath of the Revolution in 1848. So he goes there and he does speak his mind on a few subjects, but what he quickly finds is that politics is just not his cup of tea. Again, he's very disillusioned. He really expects that in 1848, 49, that, you know, finally we'll have a united Germany and finally we'll have, you know, a constitution. Finally we'll have. And he grows very disillusioned.

[Anne Schmeesing]

I guess all of this ties into the stories in the sense that a lot of what the Grimms were focusing on was promoting German identity and this idea of German heritage as well. How was their work utilized or perhaps co opted in the centuries and decades since?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Of course, the Grimms are working at a time when they're seeing how German literature and heritage, folklore has been regarded as so inferior. Again, they're living at a time, they've lived through war, occupation, so they're really trying to elevate, amplify this sense of German heritage. But then what happens is that this becomes too easily appropriated by late 19th, early 20th century nationalists and of course by the Nazis as well. The distinction here is that when Jakob talks, for example, about a people, a folk, he's usually doing so in the context of a shared language. So he is defining a people as you have this shared language. It's not what we see later on in the 19th century as this biological category that becomes heavily racialized, things like that. So there's a distinction between even these turgid expressions of patriotism that we sometimes see in the Grimm's writings. It is different from what we are seeing later on. Nevertheless, the Nazis are appropriating the Grimms to the extent that after the World War, the Grimm's fairytales were even briefly banned at one point because they were viewed as having contributed to this Nazification of Germany. Again, very brief ban, but of course.

[Anne Schmeesing]

That wasn't the end of their legacy. And their stories have been enjoyed and given people nightmares across the world since. What do you think that their legacy is today? Like, where can we see it most strongly?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

So it's so interesting to see all the popular culture retellings of the grams across so many different genres. And I think they would have been interested to see this legacy, perhaps surprised that it is so much because of the fairy tales and not their other works. They had hoped, for example, when the German dictionary wasn't as successful as they wanted it to to be, they really had hoped, well, maybe in a hundred years this will be valued for what it is. So certainly the fairy tales dominate our understanding of the Grimms. I mean, they really are still the, you know, the most translated German authors. They're in the top dozen or so most translated authors worldwide. So an incredible legacy indeed. And yet I think as part of this, we tend to forget their other achievements. They did so much in the way of medieval literature, mythology, Jakob's linguistic works, the dictionary, on and on and on, and then just this fascinating experience that they had. It's really interesting life stories.

[Anne Schmeesing]

Finally, Anne, I wanted to ask you, of all the fairy tales that they collected and curated, what is your favorite?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

I'm often asked this, and it's so difficult, but I do have a couple favorites. One of my absolute favorites is a tale that probably no one has heard of. It's called Hans My Hedgehog, and it is fairly violent, so I do have to acknowledge that. But it depicts this boy who is born half human, half hedgehog, and he's treated miserably by his family because of this. And in the tale, you have these fantastic images of this half human, half hedgehog boy. He rides on a rooster, he plays bagpipes I mean, it just really evokes so much of this, just how fantastic, how wonderful fairy tales can be. So that's one of my absolute favorites. And I think the symbolism of the tale also is so striking. Another tale that I like a lot is How Six Made Their Way in the World, which portrays a variety of characters. They all have these really unique characteristics, and they're able to band together and outsmart a king. So those are a couple of the ones. And you see there too in those tales, this underdog aspect of the tales that I think the Grimms, because of their life story too, were really drawn to.

[Ann]

That was an Speaking to Ellie Cawthorn Ann is Professor of German and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and is the author of the Brothers A Biography. Going back to school felt impossible. Then I learned that VA covered tuition, supplies and a housing allowance, so instead of focusing on my bills, I could focus on my books. Get what you earn visit choose.va.gov not all veterans are eligible for the type or amount of benefits mentioned here.