1812
Click here for the 1812 pdf file.
The creation of Kinder und Hausmärchen (Children and Household Tales) cannot be tied to a specific event with a precise date; it was a long and multifaceted process. The compendium originated in the early 1800s, however analyses of the stories contained within this website continue to this day. Initially, the Brothers grew up in an idyllic countryside; however, that would be destroyed when their father passed away while they were still young. This led to the Brothers, especially the eldest Jacob, to take up the mantle as head of the household and provide for the family. In spite of this, with the generous financial support from their aunt and grandfather, the Brothers were able to attend school in Marburg (as shown on the Story Map.). The Brothers hoped to discover an idealized version of the German people that transcended time and communities in their research on linguistics, language, and heritage. This was a lofty goal, for in the early nineteenth century, the German-speaking populace was not a unified country but was divided into over 200 principalities which were constantly at war with each other. Furthermore, during the Brothers' life time, Napoleon Bonaparte was building his French empire, setting out to conquer all of Europe. While individuals such as Napoleon, Goethe, and Beethoven were torn between earlier Enlightenment ideals and the new Romantic nationalism, the Brothers Grimm longed for an idealized, unified Germany, a Germany that could stand against France, conquering all its petty tyrants. This desire was voiced by many, especially in the Brothers' circle of friends and professors. Thus, the search for folk tales began as a way to "reconstitute German culture in its oral and written forms so that it would not fade from the memory of the German people." (Zipes, 12.) The Brothers viewed their works, including Kinder und Hausmärchen and their German dictionary, "as part of a social effort to foster a sense of justice among the German people and to create pride in the folk tradition." (Zipes, 23.)
The following images, graphs, and charts will look at the original version of the Brothers Grimms' Children and Household Tales and discusses the textual analysis of some of the most well-known stories by the Grimms. Since more stories were added each edition, each tab will analyze and look at three different stories and have at least one that is in common with the 1882 edition. The 1853 edition of the Brothers Grimm will look at "The Two Brothers," "The Seven Crows," and "The Town Musicians of Bremen" (shared with the 1882 version.). The 1882 version will look at "The Town Musicians of Bremen" (shared with the 1853 version.), "Cat & Mouse Partnership," and "The Wolf and the Seven Goslings" (shared with the 1812 version). The stories being examine for this page include "Little Snow White," "King Thrushbeard," and "The Wolf and the Seven Goslings" (shared with the 1882 version.).
"If only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the window frame!" (Grimm, 170)
The first story that will be examined is one of the most famous stories by the Brothers Grimm, "Little Snow White". Since this tale was first collected in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm it has been adapated and revised by a multitude of different entites. Most notably, the adapatation in Walt Disney's 1937 film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." This story tells the tale of beautiful girl and her jealous and evil step-mother. According to Aarne–Thompson folklore classification, tales of this kind are grouped together as type 709 (Tales of Magic).
The Bubblelines tool from Voyant shows the distinction of words along a granulated medium. By tabbing over to the right and clicking on the Separate Lines for Terms box you are able to see clusters of that terms usage, when it was mentioned in the text, and the count of each term. When the box is not clicked it shows the the usage of terms in a concentrated continuum. I think it is easier to understand the relationship of words when they are separated though, so I recommend separating the lines. Furthermore, by looking at the word usage and placement in the text it is possible to see the correlation of the two. For instance, logically it would make sense that little and snow are almost equal in usage, but with closer inspection we also see that dwarf and coffin correlate strongly also. What can this information tell us about the story then? Possibly that the dwarfs are using the coffin? Why is this important? Utilizing tools such as Bubblelines makes it possible to look into these questions and possibly find different ones too.
The Word Cloud tools below show the most frequently used words in the "Little Snow White". The number of terms displayed can be edited by the sliding bar on the bottom left of each box. Hovering the mouse over each word shows how many times the word is utilized in the text. Furthermore, the more used the word is in the text the larger it appears in the Word Cloud. As can be seen, the words snow, white, and mirror are all important to the text, but so is beautiful, woman, and dwarf. Without knowing the story we are able to detect what can be expected in the corpus simply by looking at this word cloud. Similiar to Bubblelines, it provides an insight to the antecdote and even by taking a look at what the smaller words say can be useful for finding some of the lesser, yet still important, trends.
TermBerry allows you to not only see the important words but also to see them in relation to others and how many times the terms appear in the document. By hovering over the mouse over the term it highlights the word and words that are associated with it. With the darker color being more strongly related to it. For instance, king and thrushbeard are closely related, but a few other words are associated with king such as, owns and city. Obviously it would make sense for these words to be related, but what about others? What is the relationship between beggar and husband? With the word beggar being one of the most represented word in the text, is this story meant as a warning concerning the king, or is there more to it?
While this may seem like a simple visualization similair to TermBerry, in my opinion Links is actually easier to to use and looks cleaner. The links that Voyant creates between high frequency terms and those close in proximity provides a network visualization that shows each word and associated terms. Hovering over the word highlights the line in association to the correlated word, and it highlights the words affiliated with the interested word. This provides immediate insight to the words inside the corpus, how many times they appear in the text, and shows relations.
This story (a similiar story is also found in the 1882 Edition.) tells the story of a mother who leaves her seven children at home while she ventures into the forest to find food. Before she leaves, she warns her young about the Big Bad Wolf who will try to sneak into the house and gobble them up. The wolf will pretend to be their mother and convince the kids to open the door. The young children will be able to recognize their true mother by her white feet and sweet voice.
The Trends tool application from voyant was utilized to show the most popular words within the corpus. This image shows the ten most trending words in the text. As can be seen from this tool, the word WOLF is significant throughout the story and only dips in importance during a smaller percentage of the tale. Whereas, the terms mother and children and kids dip during the sixth segment of story and wolf is dominant. Without reading the story this tool allows one to see what is happening in the story and begs the question of why does the wolf dominate in this part of the tale? What is his place in the story? Is their a vegenence or redemption arc after that?
Below is the MicroSearch tool, a great app if you want to make a quick comparison within documents regarding certain terms. In the bottom left corner there is a search bar that allows the user to pick and choose what terms appear. The only term presented currently in the documents is wolf. This is a tool that is helpful for looking at the larger picture and then being able to pinpoint certain aspects that may warrant further exploration. While this story is a short tale, I wanted to utilize this tool to show the location of terms within the story. Furthermore, it is a great tool for anyone interested in comparing different texts. For instance, this is a side-by-side comparison of the 1812 edition of the story and the 1882 version. It shows that the 1882 version is comparably longer, but also that the beginning of the 1812 version emphasizes the term wolf stronger than the Victorian edition does. Side-by-side comparions (i.e. like the side-by-side comparison of three verisions of "Little Red Riding Hood") makes it possible to ask questions such as, why are they different? What happened in 70 years to require these stories to change? Are the characters and animal portrayals still relevant to the more modern versions? Or, are different things stressed because the stories are no longer important? These tools can ask these questions, but it is up to us to analyze the information given and see if we can find out.
All sources utilized can be found on the Sources Page.
