This paper uses ecofeminism to analyze the occurrences and different functions of the forest and its magical creatures in Amalia Schoppe’s tale collection. The primary focus is on how the protagonist engages with the natural setting and its inhabitants and how these encounters change their life.
Paper long abstract
The forest is one of the most common and multilayered settings in European fairy tales. Some forests are dark and enchanted or home to wild animals and magical creatures. Others are seen as a symbol of longing, memory, and as a sanctuary. Nearly half of the 200 tales by the Brothers Grimm have scenes set in a wooded location. At the same time as the Brothers Grimm became famous with their Children and Household Tales (1812), Amalia Schoppe and other German women writers published their own fairy tale collections. Their tales were widely popular and often quite different from the shorter, formulaic tales by the Grimms. Schoppe’s outwardly traditional tales frequently disguise more progressive notions, and her forests are often home to earth sprites and angel figures. This paper uses ecofeminism and post-humanism to analyze the occurrences and different functions of the forest and its magical creatures in Schoppe’s tale collection Kleine Mährchenbibliothek (1828) and compares them with select Grimm tales. The primary focus is on how the (female) protagonist engages with the natural setting and its inhabitants and how these encounters change their life.