In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle enjoys the comic verse by one of the most ‘miserable’ poets in English literature
‘The Crocodile or, Public Decency’ is not one of the best-known poems of A. E. Housman (1859-1936), the classical scholar and poet who failed his Finals at Oxford but went on to become Professor of Latin at Cambridge (and to inspire the character of Inspector Morse, I might add).
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 our psyches. Others are better-known under other titles now, at least in the English-speaking world: Little Red-Cap as Little Red Riding-Hood, Ashypet as Cinderella, Briar-Rose as Sleeping Beauty. But the stories are as familiar.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Hans Christian Andersen’s influence on the fairy tale genre was profound. Although ‘The Snow Queen’, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, ‘The Little Mermaid’, and ‘The Ugly Duckling’ have the ring of timeless fairy stories, they were all original tales written by the Danish storyteller in the mid-nineteenth century.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Everyone in England knows of the story of Dick Whittington and his cat. The tale of the poor boy who becomes Lord Mayor of London has been a staple of British pantomimes since at least the nineteenth century. But where did this classic home-grown English fairy tale come from? And what basis did the Dick Whittington story have in reality? In this post, we’ll offer a brief plot summary of the story and then discuss its origins and meaning, with some notes towards an analysis of the Dick Whittington ‘legend’.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The anonymous fable or fairy tale of the Three Little Pigs is one of those classic anonymous tales which we hear, and have read to us, when we are very young. The fable contains many common features associated with the fairy tale, but there are some surprises when we delve into the history of this well-known story. Let us begin with a summary of the Three Little Pigs tale before proceeding to an analysis of its meaning and origins.