Fabulism In Fairy Tales

F_# _fn @ cfm fairy tales.

With this essay, I’d like to convey what fairy tales mean to me as an artist, which is everything. (Ever since I was a child I have been happiest living in the sphere of a story. That in itself is a fairy tale.)

I’d also like to demystify the idea that fairy tales are of use only to writers of fantasy or fabulism. I’d like to celebrate their lucid form. And I’d like to reveal how specific techniques in fairy tales cross stylistic boundaries. For while the interpretation of fairy tales is a well-traveled path among writers, fairy-tale techniques remain little identified and appreciated.

“The pleasure of fairy tales,” writes Swiss scholar Max Lüthi,

“residesin theirform.” I find myself more and more devoted to the

pleasure

I study the interpretation of meaning in fairy tales—there is a pile of scholarly books on my desk in which are buried my worn-out fairy-tale books—and

I apply what I’ve learned to my editing, teaching, and writing in intricate ways. To learn the history of fairy tales is to learn the history of myth, printing, childhood, literacy, violence, loss, psychology, class, illustration, authorship, ecology, gender, and more. My first three novels—scarce of word though they may k a t e b

e r n h e i m e r

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