Fairy tales continue to nourish artistic invention because their characters embrace continual metamorphosis, discovering yet another possibility within an old story.
Articles on Fairy tales
Displaying 1 - 20 of 28 articles
Some critics have bemoaned the flattening of a complex character. But Nolan’s film echoes a literary tradition of reimagining Circe as a survivor, a truth-teller and a figure of female empowerment.
Hans Christian Andersen published The Emperor’s New Clothes in 1837. How did his life as an outsider shape the meaning of this darkly prescient story?
The Andersen tales to read this Christmas, according to the Danish experts who know him best.
These stories address the needs and assert the agency of women.
Fairy Tales focuses on how artists, designers and filmmakers have taken inspiration from fantasy motifs, adapting the fairy tale vocabulary of extremes to their own artistic needs.
Half-wild Lyra from Northern Lights was the first female character who felt real to Jane Gleeson-White. Then she met Elena Ferrante’s ‘ferocious, filthy, quicksilver’ Lila, a more complex version.
Like all members of the category of ‘fey’, or the beings of the preternatural world, including fairies, elves, and pixies, goblins are renowned for being tricksy. In other words, best avoided.
A bear eats a teenager, and inherits his memories. An ageing woman writer buys a tower of her own – where she reimagines the crone from Rapunzel. Two inventive new books resonate with our reviewer.
From mythical Moth people, who kidnapped children, to threatening desert fairies in loincloths, early Australian fairy tales helped sanitise white settlement, expressing colonial fears.
The Russian army has fared poorly and the Ukrainian military has fared well, defying experts’ predictions about the war in Ukraine. Can children’s fairy tales help explain the difference?
Today’s stories embrace the monster — and explain how she was created.
Released in 2001, it was the first film to really give Pixar a run for its money.
Produced during a crisis, an emerging collection of books talk to kids about coronavirus.
During this unsettling time, global leaders have assured children and adults alike that the tooth fairy, free from the risk of infection, is indeed an essential worker.
The latest fairy tale movie from Disney has a dark twist, so it’s right on trend.
Fairy stories come alive in the telling — and the retelling.
Why grown-ups still need fairy tales
The Conversation, CC BY22.8 MB (download)
We consciously and unconsciously tell fairy tales today, despite advances in logic and science. It’s as if there is something ingrained in us that compels us to see the world through this lens.
BBC’s Call the Midwife is a celebration of working class women’s labour. In its frank, but sweet, discussion of childbirth, it has much in common with fairy tales.
The row over Sleeping Beauty is just the latest in a long history of controversy surrounding fairy tales for children.
Top contributors
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Associate Professor in Literary Studies, Monash University
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Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland
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Director, Gender and Women's History Research Centre, Australian Catholic University
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Adjunct Research Fellow, Monash University
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Reader Department of Media Arts, Royal Holloway, University of London
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PhD candidate, The University of Melbourne
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Visiting Researcher in Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University
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Senior Lecturer in Film and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
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Researcher, The University of Western Australia
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Lecturer in Romantic and Victorian Literature, Northumbria University, Newcastle
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Associate Professor, Creative Writing, University of Wollongong
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Associate Professor at The Hans Christian Andersen Centre, University of Southern Denmark
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Associate Professor at The Hans Christian Andersen Centre, Principal Investigator of "Fairy Tales and Stories – The Digital Manuscript Edition", University of Southern Denmark
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Postdoctoral Researcher at The Hans Christian Andersen Centre, University of Southern Denmark
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Special Consultant at The Hans Christian Andersen Centre, University of Southern Denmark