Hans Christian Andersen’s “Fairy Tales” for Adults
by normberd (Dr. Norman Berdichevsky)
2005 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Denmark’s greatest writer, whose works have been translated into more languages than any author (second only to the Bible). The event was marked not only in Denmark but throughout Europe with many festivities, exhibitions, seminars, exhibits and tours of his home town of Odense and where he lived in Copenhagen for many years.
Most Americans have basic misconceptions about Andersen and his work based on having seen the romanticized film about his life starring Danny Kaye and use of the term “fairy tales”, usually considered appropriate only for children Almost all of his 156 short stories or “adventures” (a better meaning of the Danish word “eventyr” usually translated as “fairy tales”) can be appreciated on two levels – one for adults and one for children.
The subjects of many of these stories also come as a surprise for those who have always regarded him as a kindly old grandfather telling his fairy tales to adoring grandchildren, the theme of a sculpture in New York’s Central Park that portrays Andersen reading to children perched on his knee. The themes of his lesser known short tales include time travel, adultery, murder by decapitation, death, grim poverty and social inequality, child psychology, intense drama, split personality, husband-wife relations, snobbery, social climbing, Jewish identity, and a deep abiding love for his Danish homeland.
Your children may have enjoyed the colorful characters, wizards and creatures of the Harry Potter series or The Wizard of Oz but what have they learned of any value for later life? Most Andersen short stories have left a moral legacy about life, its struggles, human nature and the beautiful innocence of childhood. It is ironic that his work is much better known and appreciated to tens of millions of children in China or Russia who continue to love Andersen, than in America or Britain.
When Leningrad was under siege in World War II and the city surrounded and starving, the production of all consumer goods was reduced to the absolute minimum. People were eating sawdust and paper could not be spared to publish literature. The publication of only one book was allowed in 1942 – The Tales of Hans Christian Andersen.
Andersen as Social Critic
It strikes most contemporary Americans as amazing or unbelievable when told that after the Bible, Andersen’s most popular “fairy tales” are the most translated work in all of literature. Close to two-thirds of them have been translated into more than sixty languages (more than Shakespeare‘s most popular plays). The Andersen Museum in Odense, his birthplace, boasts a display of several Andersen short stories in more than 120 languages including Esperanto, Basque, Khmer, Estonian, Maltese, Korean, Albanian, Gaelic, Catalan, Icelandic, Yiddish, and Volapük. The Nightingale” in Chinese translation is a favorite Andersen tale read in Chinese elementary schools today.
Many of Andersen’s tales feature talking animals, inanimate objects and fantastic creatures with their distinctive personalities but they all teach us something about human nature and relations or the innocence of childhood. As a teacher of a course for “senior citizens” on Andersen’s “Fairy Tales” at Central Florida Community College last Spring, I was not surprised that the turnout was comprised almost entirely of women (85%). They all claimed that men would hardly be interested in “simple children’s stories” yet at the end of the last class, in summing up what they got out of the course, attitudes had changed profoundly. Several women spoke with tears in their eyes about how the stories had struck a powerful chord with them and even the men (who should properly be called “gentlemen”) spoke about how they had been totally surprised by the range of Andersen’s interests.
Most of his stories have indeed stood the test of time. Andersen, at the time of his death, ranked with Charles Dickens as the world’s most popular author and like Dickens, he stood clearly on the side of those at the bottom of society, the socially weak, dispossessed and persecuted. Many Andersen stories defended children, women (Story of a Mother), the disabled (The Steadfast Tin Soldier) the poor (She Was No Good, The Little Matchgirl), the humble (The Gardener and the Aristocrat), social outcasts and “climbers” who live by their wits (Little Claus and Big Claus, The Ice Maiden, The Tinderbox) and the Jews (The Jewish Girl, Only a Fiddler). He delighted in ridiculing the ostentatious, the wealthy, nobility (The Emperor’s New Clothes), snobs (There is A Difference, Kid’sTalk), bureaucracy and the press (Clumsy Hans) and church hierarchy and also expanded his themes to time travel (The Galoshes of Fortune) and psychological relations (The Shadow) and even husband-wife relations (Father’s Always Right).
Andersen was also faced with a dilemma by world events by the growing power and aggressive designs of German nationalism. He had to reconcile his Danish patriotism with his gratitude to wealthy patrons and publishing houses in Germany that had responded favorably to his work when he was still an unknown in Denmark. This was doubly difficult for he had been ridiculed and harshly criticized by Danes at home in positions of power and influence in the literary world who argued that his humble background and use of the common ordinary “spoken language” fell far short of what was expected from a great writer. Like Mark Twain, his characters spoke the language of the street and not of the academy. He had to overcome all this, as well as insulting personal remarks about himself as ugly, ungainly, uneducated, unmanly in appearance and overly sentimental.
His dilemma was heightened by the attack on Denmark launched by Prussia and Austria in 1864 that tore away the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein and then by Prussia’s assault on its Austrian ally two years later in 1866 (The Seven Weeks War) and followed by the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. The three examples of Prussian militarism and expansionism were painful for Andersen.
He had achieved his early most notable successes that established his reputation as a great writer in Germany and been wined and dined by the nobility of many of the small principalities and was always welcomed as an honored guest at the home of the Prince of Weimar. Andersen returned this love and respect with a deep admiration for high German culture and was shocked by the Prussian path under Bismarck to world power status and the unification of the small German states into a powerful and militaristic empire.
The Schleswig Wars
In the disastrous war of 1864 Andersen confided to his diary that his heart had been broken by the events and that he would turn his back on those Germans who had launched or supported this aggressive war of conquest against his beloved homeland. In a letter to his close friend, Edvard Collin, Andersen questioned whether the Danish language would still be spoken and his works read in their original language in a hundred years’ time, so fearful was he at the threat of Denmark’s total submergence by a united Germany. Many Danes with snobbish pretensions made an effort at using both German and French loan words in their speech and writing, a habit that Andersen satirized in his story “The Goblin and the Woman”.
The Danes had defended their historic territories before in 1848-51 and had been encouraged that either (or both) England and Sweden would not let the country’s territorial integrity be violated by a major European power bent on expansion. Neither lifted a finger. Only Schleswig was defended by the Danish armed forces as Denmark had already declared it had no interest in preserving the allegiance of Holstein, an area populated wholly by German speakers who had indicated their desire to become part of a larger German Confederation.
See my recent book An introduction to Danish culture (McFarland, 2012)
normberd 