In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle enjoys a new translation of the classic fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm Snow White, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, and Rumpelstiltskin: these names are among those we meet during our earliest years, with the stories they summon never leaving […]
The meaning of a classic story – analysed by Dr Oliver Tearle ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ was, Charles Dickens said, his first love. It is one of the most universally known fairy tales: if you were to ask 100 people to name a fairy tale, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ would […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle Blood wishes, talking mirrors, and poisoned fruit: it’s all here in ‘Snow White’, one of the most enduringly popular and recognisable fairy tales in western literature. Yet what is the story of Snow White and the seven dwarfs really about? Does it have a moral? And […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle One central feature of the story of ‘Rapunzel’ is well-known: the beautiful blonde woman, imprisoned in a tower, who lets down her long hair for her lover. But what does the story of ‘Rapunzel’ mean? And how does the meaning of the very name ‘Rapunzel’ offer […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle Child abandonment, poverty, gingerbread houses, and an enterprising hero: the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel has it all. It arguably has one of the most satisfying plot structures of all the fairy tales.