The sin-complex: a critical study of English versions of the Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen in the nineteenth century in comparison with the German originals

Abstract

This thesis investigates the English versions of the Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen (= KHM) published between the years 1823 and 1884, i.e. from the first translation by Edgar Taylor and David Jardine, German Popular Stories (1823 and 1826), to the first complete edition of the Grimms’ collection of stories and notes by Margaret Hunt, Grimm’s Household Tales (1884). Each of the first eleven chapters deals with a specific English edition and gives an analysis of one or more stories from that edition together with the texts of the German original. The two versions, German and English, are placed alongside each other in parallel columns to facilitate comparison. The twelfth chapter takes the final paragraph of one story, ‘Sneewittchen’ (KHM 53), and examines the seven different English versions of it in the editions discussed in the previous chapters. The final chapter compares the quality of English translations of the KHM in the nineteenth century with that of the Grimms’ sole venture in translating tales in the English language into German, viz. Wilhelm Grimm’s Irische Elfenmärchen (1826). Included as an appendix is a tabulated concordance of the contents of the twelve major editions discussed in this thesis. The investigation shows that the areas deemed to be sensitive ones by English translators were those which had to do with what Darton (Children’s Books in England, 1982, p.99) has singled out as ‘a deep-rooted sin-complex’ in England. Any story that touched on the issues of religious belief and superstition, the human body and its physical nature, violence and evil, and the intense emotions felt by human beings which prompt them to commit violent and destructive acts, was inevitably viewed with concern and mistrust, especially by purveyors of children’s literature in the nineteenth century. All these issues, as well as the element of fantasy which so readily admits and entertains them, were prone to considerable revision by successive translators of the KHM.