If there is one genre that has captured the
imagination of people in all walks of life throughout
the world, it is the fairy tale. Yet we still have great
difficulty understanding how it originated, evolved, and
spread--or why so many people cannot resist its appeal,
no matter how it changes or what form it takes. In this
book, renowned fairy-tale expert Jack Zipes presents a
provocative new theory about why fairy tales were
created and retold--and why they became such an
indelible and infinitely adaptable part of cultures
around the world. Drawing on cognitive science,
evolutionary theory, anthropology, psychology, literary
theory, and other fields, Zipes presents a nuanced
argument about how fairy tales originated in ancient
oral cultures, how they evolved through the rise of
literary culture and print, and how, in our own time,
they continue to change through their adaptation in an
ever-growing variety of media. In making his case, Zipes
considers a wide range of fascinating examples,
including fairy tales told, collected, and written by
women in the nineteenth century; Catherine Breillat's
film adaptation of Perrault's "Bluebeard"; and
contemporary fairy-tale drawings, paintings, sculptures,
and photographs that critique canonical print
versions. While we may never be able to fully explain
fairy tales, The Irresistible Fairy Tale provides
a powerful theory of how and why they evolved--and why
we still use them to make meaning of our
lives.
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