From Folklore to Literature: The Märchen and the German Romantic Movement
Charles Haddox

When the early German Romantic writers and critics, a group that included Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel, Friedrich von Hardenberg (known by the pen name Novalis), and Ludwig Tieck, began taking stock of the new literary approach they were creating, it is little wonder that they saw themselves at the forefront of a movement which had the potential to change not only literature, … Read entire article »

The third and final part of Fantastic Voyages… (don’t forget Part I and Part II)

MEDIEVAL MYSTERY MAPS

Notions of an isolated, blissful, sacred refuge continued to beguile dreamers as well as religious mystics long after the fall of Rome and the descent of the so-called Dark Ages. The proselytizing monks of Ireland during the epoch of the fabled King Arthur created a rich literature of the Irish seafaring preachers. The so-called Irish Immrama (literally “rowings about”) were first recorded as early as the 7th century by monks and scholars who fled Continental Europe before the barbarian invaders of the fifth century. These monks carried the learning of Western Europe and became the vanguard of the Christianizing of Europe. On this account it is expected that Immrama have their origins … Read entire article »

Part one of Fantastic Voyages: By Ship to Nowhereland and Back continues…

THE CRUISE SHIP: MARITIME FAIRYLAND

We can associate many of these fantasies of a temperate, peaceful and luxuriant neverland in the midst of the watery deep to the present-day middle-class desire to holiday at secluded tropical paradisiacal isles. Stressed individuals crave vacation escapes to ostensibly exotic, albeit artificially enhanced, places in the Caribbean or a Pacific Ocean getaway to supposedly remote, enchanting Bora-Bora, Tahiti or Nuku-Hiva in the Marquesas. This tropical getaway fantasy can be labeled as “primitive chic”. Although they are of course on the map, the supposed primordial unspoiled aura of these island retreats is carefully nurtured by travel agencies and tourist industry developers as serene voyages to unsullied seascapes. Like Florida’s Disney World, they … Read entire article »

Hans Christian Andersen may be best known for writing “The Little Mermaid,” “The Ugly Duckling,” and the “Emperor’s New Clothes,” but his lesser-known stories may reveal more about the author than the well-established classics. At least that’s what many of the students in my fairy tale class at Indiana University South Bend think.

One of Andersen’s most intriguing, but long-neglected stories is “The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf.” It’s a tale that fairly writhes with cruel descriptions of the travails a girl named Inger suffers as a statue in Hell. The story begins by letting us know that Inger was vain and cruel. She pulled wings off of flies; she was ashamed of her poor old mother. Andersen even laments that Inger has beauty, because “otherwise, she’d have … Read entire article »

By Jim Bloom

THE IMAGINARY VOYAGE AS FAIRYTALE

O the poor lover of imaginary lands!
Must he be put in irons, thrown into the sea,
That drunken tar, inventor of Americas,
Whose mirage makes the abyss more bitter?

Charles Baudelaire, Le Voyage

“No phones, no lights, no motor cars,
Not a single luxury.
Like Robinson Crusoe, it’s primitive as can be.
So join us here each week my friend,
You’re sure to get a smile.
From seven stranded Castaways,
Here on Gilligan’s Isle.” (TV sitcom theme song, 1964)

TO THE PUBLIC

Having heard, for the first time, that my adventures have been doubted, and looked upon as jokes, I feel bound to come forward and vindicate my character /for veracity/, by paying three shillings at the Mansion House of this great city for the affidavits … Read entire article »

One thing into another and a picture of us.
by Peter Hollinghurst

Cabinet des Fées would like to introduce you to Peter Hollinghurst, a UK artist and digital alchemist whose latest series, Memory and Muchness, is inspired by Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, stories with which we are all familiar. To the left is the Queen of Hearts: “though she appeared frivolous in her anger, she held a tragic love … Read entire article »

by Rosemary Moore
Department of English
University of Adelaide

Carter repeatedly declared her interest in the myth of woman and the construction of sexuality. In 1979 her interests coincided in the publication of two different but related works, The Bloody Chamber and The Sadeian Woman. Sade’s attempt to demythologize motherhood and femininity was therefore in her mind as she was revising Perrault’s classic fairy tales and he became the model for Bluebeard. … Read entire article »

By Julie Sinn

The 1990s in the United States witnessed a resurgence of the fairy tale in literary and film form as well as in feminist and cultural criticism. From 1993 to 2000, editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling published Snow White, Blood Red; Black Thorn, White Rose; Ruby Slippers,Golden Tears; Silver Birch, Blood Moon; and Black Heart, Ivory Bones, five anthologies of short stories drawn from authors such as Tanith Lee, Patricia Wrede, and … Read entire article »

A personal viewpoint by Tala Bar

I.

There is one mythological character which is so complex, mystifying and enigmatic that, although much has been written about him (or, rarely, her), especially on the Internet, it is surprising to realize that among all that has been said, one thing is missing, and that is the basic meaning and actual function of that character. This character is known by various names, but its main appellation is Trickster; … Read entire article »