Christine Shojaei Kawan
The Princess on the Pea : Andersen, Grimm and the Orient
In its first part, this article traces several strands of narrative traditions underlying Andersen’s Princess on the Pea(AaTh 704). A documentation of the texts listed in international tale-type indices and similar works shows that most if not all so-called ‘variants’ of AaTh 704 depend on Andersen – if they do not belong to the strands of tradition discussed earlier. The problematic relationship between Andersen’s tale and the Grimm variant cannot be entirely clarified; however, a closer look at the Grimm and the Andersen texts which have often been considered to be the ‘same’ reveals that they differ from each other in many respects. As for Andersen, he seems to narrate, tongue in cheek, a quite distinct story than he purports to tell us – a ‘real’ story about a ‘true’ princess which is a blatant lie.
Fabula, Walter de Gruyter
Print ISSN: 0014-6242
Volume: 46, 04/2005
Pages: 89 - 115
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