By Dr Oliver Tearle 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 […]
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 […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle 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 […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle ‘The Little Mermaid’ (1837) is one of the most layered and fascinating fairy tales written by Hans Christian Andersen. At once the quintessential fairy tale and a curious subversion of the fairy-tale form, ‘The Little Mermaid’ requires some careful analysis to unpick its various strands and […]
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. First published in […]