Kimberly J. Lau's Wonderful spectra: race and development of European fairy tale (2024) retraces the historical and cultural concepts of breed among the canonical collections of fairy tale from four European countries, analyzing Giambattista Basil The history of tales (Italy, 1634–36), Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy's Fairy tales (France, 1697), Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's Children's and households (Germany, 1812-1857), and Andrew and Nora Lang Colorful Fairy Books (Great Britain, 1812-1857). The race, supports the book, is an integral part of the evolution of fairy tales since their development, but the discussion of it has been largely ignored.
Wonderful spectra recognizes different manifestations of race in visual interpretations, adaptations and performance of these stories – which were originally oral – but focus on the printed versions. There is a lot to appreciate in this book. The scholarship around fairy tales has traditionally centered whiteness; This book breaks with this by highlighting people of color. This shows us very clearly that from the start, the worlds of these fairy tales have always been centered on the breed. “They are white not by chance,” writes Lau, “but by design”. Whiteness dominates the genre by racily marking people of color as “others”, even in the way they are named. For example, in “Two Little Pizzas”, The history of talesOne of the evil characters is named “Lucia”, which was among the two or three most common names attributed to women in slavery in Italy during the pre -modern period, and had come to serve as a generic term for them during the Basil era.
Racial beliefs suggest the book, not only played a crucial role in the emergence of gender, but affected its adaptations and reshaped over time and in different cultures and languages. The representations of the titular character in the edition by Wilhelm Grimm of the various editions of “Le Jew in the Thornbush” became increasingly anti -Semitic, of the Jew being “old” in his first appearance in 1815 to have a “long goat beard” in 1839, associate the character with evil. By seeing these fundamental texts in a new way and interacting with them in the ways that go beyond the familiar, Spectra Holds her promise to move our perception of gender and our interactions with her, no matter how disconcerting she could be.
A critical factor to disentangle the systematic presence of the breed of making these stories is to pay attention to the socio-political contexts in which they have developed. The book explains how European exploration appears in the cultural imagination of these stories – from Aulnoy, in fact, was a travel writer. In a first edition of Green Fairy BookThe only non -European tales included are from China, which was considered a “civilized” nation in Victorian times. In subsequent editions, tales are added Armenian cultures, Aboriginal Australians and South African Bantu, as well as other places, reflecting missionary and imperial contact. Lau therefore demonstrates how the paradoxical universalization of the European fairy tale – which tries to collapse and assimilate stories from outside Western Europe in its own imaginative perspective – reflects the real building of the Empire. These texts argue Lau, justify and normalize power and privilege systems under the expansion of European imperialism. Declonize the genre means to demonstrate the impossibility of “thinking of fairy tale without thinking of the race”.
Spectra raises a number of important questions concerning gender policy which are beyond its planned scope. An integral part of the circulation of these stories was the exchange of experiences – which told them and where they told them were as important as the intrigue. For example, the book alludes to the fascination to tell folk tales that emerged among Parisian intellectual women in the salons in the middle of the 17th century. SpintubenOr spinning rooms, were also spaces where single women gathered during the winter months to turn for their dowry or engage in other crafts. Rotation is, in fact, a common theme which crosses a certain number of Grimm tales – often called “rotation tales” – symbolizing the aspirations of women to social productivity and the advancement of society. While other studies on the intersection of space, race and sex could come from some of the fundamental work Spectra Set up, this book Open our eyes to the largely invisible but crucial aspect of the race in familiar fables, popular tales and fantasies that unconsciously influenced us for centuries.
Wonderful spectra: race and development of European fairy tale (2024) written by Kimberly J. Lau and published by Wayne State University press is available for online purchase and bookstores.
