Fairy tales and the art of subversion : the classical genre for children and the process of civilization. / Jack Zipes.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-237) and index.

1 Fairy-tale discourse: towards a social history of the genre. -- 2 The origins of the fairy tale in Italy: Straparola and Basile. -- 3 Setting standards for civilization through fairy tales: Charles Perrault and the subversive role of women writers. -- 4 Who's afraid of the Brothers Grimm? Socialization and politicization through fairy tales. -- 5 Hans Christian Andersen and the discourse of the dominated. -- 6 Inverting and subverting the world with hope: the fairy tales of George MacDonald, Oscar Wilde and L. Frank Baum. -- 7 The battle over fairy-tale discourse: family, friction, and socialization in the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. -- 8 The liberating potential of the fantastic in contemporary fairy tales for children. -- 9 Walt Disney's civilizing mission: from revolution to restoration

'Even though the fairy tale may be one of the most important cultural and social influences on most children's lives, critics and scholars have failed to study its historocal development as genre. Jack Zipes now makes one of the first attempts to develop a social history of the fairy tale. He shows how educated writers porposely appropriated the oral folk tale in the 18th century and made it into a discourse about mores, values and manners so that children would become civilized according to the social code of that time....'

Hardcover