Tag: Children’s Literature

Literature

A Summary and Analysis of Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier’ is an 1838 fairy tale by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. One of the shortest among Andersen’s well-known tales, ‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier’ is about a toy soldier who falls in love with a paper ballerina, and who undergoes […]

Literature

A Summary and Analysis of Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Red Shoes’ Fairy Tale

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Red Shoes’ (1845) is perhaps the strangest of all of Hans Christian Andersen’s well-known fairy tales. Divining the meaning of some of Andersen’s other stories for children is relatively easy, but a number of aspects of the meaning and symbolism of ‘The Red […]

Literature

The Best Fables by Aesop Everyone Should Know

Aesop wasn’t the first person to write animal fables. Several centuries earlier, Hesiod had written one about a hawk and a nightingale, while a poet named Archilochus penned several, including one about an eagle and a vixen, and one about a fox and a monkey. But Aesop, a writer about […]