Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales
Encyclopedia
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
reference work
Reference work
A reference work is a compendium of information, usually of a specific type, compiled in a book for ease of reference. That is, the information is intended to be quickly found when needed. Reference works are usually referred to for particular pieces of information, rather than read beginning to end...
on international Folkloristics
Folkloristics
Folkloristics is the formal academic study of folklore. The term derives from a nineteenth century German designation of folkloristik to distinguish between folklore as the content and folkloristics as its study, much as language is distinguished from linguistics...
, which is anticipated to run to 14 volumes. It examines over two centuries of research into the folk narrative tradition. It was begun by Kurt Ranke
Kurt Ranke
Kurt Ranke was a German ethnologist, Germanist, and folklorist. He helped introduce functional psychological dimensions to folklore genre theory. He also started the work on the Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales.- References :...
in the 1960s and is continued by chief editor Rolf Wilhelm Brednich
Rolf Wilhelm Brednich
Rolf Wilhelm Brednich is a German Europeanist ethnologist and ethnographer [Volkskundler] and folklorist.- Biography :...
, both of the Göttingen
Göttingen
Göttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...
Academy of Sciences (Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen).
Like the technical periodical Fabula it is published by the Verlag Walter de Gruyter publishing house
Publishing
Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...
with working premises at the Georg-August University of Göttingen
Georg-August University of Göttingen
The University of Göttingen , known informally as Georgia Augusta, is a university in the city of Göttingen, Germany.Founded in 1734 by King George II of Great Britain and the Elector of Hanover, it opened for classes in 1737. The University of Göttingen soon grew in size and popularity...
and as a project of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences. The forerunner of this work was the Handbuch des deutschen Märchens (Handbook of German Fairy Tales), of which only two volumes were published.
The first article Aarne, Antti Amatus appeared in slip in 1975, and the first volume in 1977. By 2008, twelve volumes had been published through the article on the "Theogony". In all there will be approximately 3600 articles, alphabetically arranged, from over 800 authors from over 60 countries.
The Encyclopedia of Fairytales provides an overview in the following areas, as relevant to folk narrative research:
- Theories and methodologies,
- Genre questions, problems of style and structure, issues of context and performance
- Important tale-types and motifs
- Biographies of scholars, collectors, and authors
- National and regional surveys
External links
- Homepage of the project Enzyklopädie des Märchens in German
- “Was die Zwerge nicht wussten” Die Zeit 26 December 2005, an article about work on the Enzyklopädie des Märchens, in German