Who is Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Fairy Tales for Adults
Although the fairy tale is conventionally regarded as one of the most influential socio-cultural formative (ie. didactic, moralizing, disciplinary) factors on children’s developing psyches, folklore research has revealed that the genre originally intended for an audience of adults as well as children, is indeed an “art of subversion,” “a powerful discourse” as Jack Zipes says, apt to destabilize normative scenarios and to release repressed desires’ and anxieties’ energies. No wonder the fairy tale has become a key influence on postmodern fiction preoccupied with adding an adult, meta-touch to well-known infantile themes. The aim of the course is to study rewritten, contemporary bedtime stories for grown-ups, which use fantastic creatures – faeries, mermaids, werewolves, headless horsemen, vampires, and oysterboys – to embody postmodern dilemmas ranging from the reliability of urban legends, traumatic memories, meaningful nonsense, and impossible, queer desires to issues of ecocriticism, psychogeography, affective narratology and image-text dynamics. Magic resides in the very act of storytelling, emotional ties, and self-reflective insights. Readings include short-stories by Garcia Marquez, Angela Carter, Robert Coover, AS Byatt, Jeanette Winterson, Oscar Wilde, Neil Gaiman, Salman Rushdie. We shall discuss classics as well as immediately contemporary marvels like Tim Burton’s poems, the graphic novel Fables, and blockbuster movies as Stardust, Avatar, Oz, Mirror Mirror, The Brothers Grimm, The Fall, TV saga Once Upon a Time, or the animation series Disenchanted.
Syllabus
1. (Feb 5) Orientation
2. (Feb 12) MYTHMAKING, STORYTELLING
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. “The handsomest drowned man in the world.”
Franz Kafka. “A Hunger Artist”
3. (Feb 19) LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD
Angela Carter. “The Company of Wolves” and “The Werewolf”
(Charles Perrault. “Little Red Riding Hood”,
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm “Little Red Cap”,
French folk tale “The Grandmother”)
Little Red Riding Hood, animation, Van Beuren Studios, 1931
Red Hot Riding Hood, animation, Tex Avery, 1943.
Company of Wolves, dir Neil Jordan, 1984.
Little Red Riding Hood, dir. David Kaplan, 1997
Hard Candy, dir David Slade, 2005
4. (Feb 26) QUEERING THE FAIRY TALE
Jeanette Winterson. “The twelve dancing princesses” from Sexing the Cherry
Oscar Wilde “The Happy Prince”
5. (Mar 4) SNOW WHITE
Neil Gaiman. “Snow, Glass, Apple”
Tanith Lee “Snow Drop”
6. (Mar 11) HUMANIMAL METAMORPHOSIS
Claire Massey. “The_Raven”
Jackie Kay “My Daughter, The Fox”
video. Extract from “Princes and Princesses”, dir Michel Ocelot
SPRING BREAK
7. (Mar 25) WEIRD, NEW WEIRD
Howard P Lovecraft. “The statement of Randolph Carter”
China Miéville. “The Ballroom.”
video short: Alma, dir. Rodrigo Blaas, 2009.
MIDTERM DUE: Analysis of Neil Gaiman’s poems: “Locks”, “Mushroom hunters”, “Instructions” & Analysis of Fairy-tale adaptation of your choice (film, PC game, music video, commercial, manga/anime, comics, TV series, reality show, etc)
8. (Apr 1) THINGS WITHOUT A NAME, TRAUMA
A.S. Byatt. “The Thing in the Forest”
Angela Carter. “The Erl King.”
video short: Monster, dir Deborah Burns, 2012.
9. (Apr 8) GROTESQUE/ GOTHIC
Tim Burton. “The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories.”
Washington Irving. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”
video short: The World of Stainboy, dir Tim Burton, 2000.
10. (Apr 15) QUEST FOR A NAME WITHOUT A THING
Lewis Carroll. “The Hunting of the Snark.”
11. (Apr 22 ) BLOODSUCKERS and LYCANTHROPES
Angela Carter. “The Lady of the House of Love.”
Suzy McKee Charnas “Boobs.”
video short: Suckablood, dir Jake Hendriks, 2012.
12. (Apr 29) POSTMODERN
Salman Rushdie: “At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers”
Margaret Atwood: “There was once.”
Donald Barthelme. “The School.”
video short: Room 8, dir. James W Griffiths
13. (May 6) HANSEL & GRETEL, CAUTIONARY TALES OF CONSUMPTION, EAT OR BE EATEN
Robert Coover “Gingerbread House”
Anne Sexton “Transformations.”
14. (May 13) FINAL PAPER, SHORT FINAL TEST
Grading policy:
*classroom activity + prepare one question in connection with each reading and upload it weekly to Coospace prior to the class. These ideas will serve as starting points for in-class discussions, so think about potential answers (15%)
*midterm homework assignment, requirements above, Times New Roman 12, 1.5 space, deadline:March 25 (15%)
*presentation: 10 minutes long introductory analysis of a story to be discussed in class + handout in 15 printed copies including the main ideas of your presentation. You can use a PPT or Prezi but you still need the handout (15%)
*quizzes (15%)
*3 pages-long brief argumentative seminar paper on a topic of your choice related to the theme of the seminar. You are encouraged to prepare a part of your thesis if it is related to the theme. Negotiate your topic with the teacher. Have at least 1 pc. of secondary literature in your bibliography. Format: Times New Roman, 12, 1.5 space, consult the online Institute Style Sheet. http://www.ieas-szeged.hu/documents/ Plagiarism is punishable by failure. Deadline: May 6. If you fail to submit this, you fail the class. No deadline extension. (20%)
*brief final test on May 8 (20%)
NOTE: Max 3 absences allowed. More than 3 absences will automatically result in failure.
Please come to the text prepared. Read the short texts before the class and think about them. Upload your questions to Coospace. Make sure to bring the readings with you in class in a printed or an electronic copy.
Recommended secondary readings
Bacchilega, Cristina. 1999. Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania Press.
Bacchilega, Cristina. Fairy Tales Transformed? 21st-Century Adaptations and the Politics of Wonder. Wayne State UP, 2013.
Beckett, Sandra L. Red Riding Hood for All Ages: A Fairy-Tale Icon in Cross-Cultural Contexts. Wayne State UP, 2008.
Benson, Stephen, ed. Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2008.
Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. Vintage, 1976.
Daniel, Carolyn. Voracious Children. Who Eats Whom in Children’s Literature. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Dutheil De la Rochere, Martine Hennard, Gillian Lathey, Monika Wozniak, eds. Cinderella Across Cultures. New Directions and Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2016.
Greenhill, Pauline & Sidney Eve Matrix, eds. Fairy Tale Film. Visions of Ambiguity. Logan: Utah State UP2010.
Greenhill, Pauline and Kay Turner. Transgressive Tales: Queering the Grimms. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2012.
Haase, Donald, ed. Fairy Tales and Feminism. New Approaches. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2004.
Joosen, Vanessa. Critical and Creative Perspectives on Fairy Tales. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011.
Kérchy, Anna, ed. Postmodern Reinterpretations of Fairy Tales. Lewiston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2011. 17-33
McAra, Catriona Fay and David Calvin, eds. Anti-Tales. The Uses of Disenchantment. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011.
Propp, Vladimir. The Morphology of the Folktale. Trans. Laurence Scott. University of Texas Press, 1968.
Redington Bobby, Susan, ed. Fairy Tales Reimagined. Essays on New Retellings. Jefferson: McFarland, 2009.
Schanoes, Veronica. Fairy Tales, Myth, and Psychoanalytic Theory. Feminism and Retelling the Tale. Routledge, 2014.
SurlaLune Fairy Tales: http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/index.html
Tatar, Maria. The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1987.
The Endicott Studio for Mythic Arts: http://www.endicott-studio.com/
Tiffin, Jessica. Marvelous Geometry. Narrative and Metafiction in Modern Fairy Tale. Wayne State UP, 2009.
Warner, Marina. From the Beast to the Blonde. On Fairy Tales and their Tellers. Vintage, 1994.
Warner, Marina. Once Upon a Time. A Short History of Fairy Tale. Oxford UP, 2014.
Zipes, Jack. Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales. London: Heinemann, 1979.
Zipes, Jack. The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood. Taylor & Frances, 1983.
Zipes, Jack. The Enchanted Screen. The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films. New York: Routledge, 2011.
Zipes. “Spells of Enchantment.” Folk and Fairy Tales. Eds, Martin Hallett and Barbara Karsek. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1996. 370-392.
