When
Did Little Red Riding Hood
Get
Her Red Hood?
In this text, Sandra Beckett pays
homage to the fluid nature of this omnipresent character in reference
to Charles Perrault’s origination. Sandra discusses the malleable
characteristics of Little Red Riding Hood and how authors and
illustrators are able to confidently place her in urban or rural
settings and change her age and social status, representing her as
peasant or aristocrat.
Investigating contemporary children's
literature from across the world she also examines the often
neglected illustrators and how they have reinterpreted the story in
contemporary media and often reveal a different story from the text
reflecting many subtle aspects of the society at the time that they
are made within the loose frame of the story.
This
essay plots the history of Charles Perrault's manuscript of 1695,
which is well illustrated with rare illustrations from the 17th
and 18th
Centuries. The article discusses how most renditions of the story
kept faithful to Perrault's until the first half of the Twentieth
Century when children’s literature became over sentimental and the
stories developed into tales with contrived happy endings.
A
study of the main female protagonists of Little Red Riding Hood
through different renderings of the story throughout history and an
interesting investigation into their initial appearance and role in
illustrations throughout the century's.
This
article also touches upon the inclusion of further characters and
elements as more sections of the story became visual as
illustrations, with illustrations becoming more frequent, as printing
became cheaper and books became more widely available. It also
discusses the demographics of the readership changing with the
audience becoming children.
Alan Dundes casebook tries to unpick
the oral and literary versions of the story to extract the symbolism
and meaning drawing together the academic analysis from a wide range
of international scholars and philosophers. This study endeavours to
get a clear interpretation of the story through time and across the
cultural boundaries.
The book highlights the amazing
diversity of interpretation, which has led to the evolution of this
story as a fable of humanity across the centuries
Hartigan
Shea, Rachel. (2013) 'What Wide Origins You
Have, Little Red Riding Hood!' A
transcript of an interview between Rachael Hartican Shea and Jamshid
Tehrani, National Geographic.
An
insightful interview with Jamshim Tehrani, that gave me evidence that
other scholars supported Jan Ziolkowski's claim that the verses from
Egbert of Liege’s poem is a predecessor of Red Riding Hood. Every
article and interview adds to my depth of understanding, just as I
come to appreciate that every scrap of evidence printed, illustrated
and oral adds to our understanding of the story, its evolution and
interpretation.
Catherine Orenstien's work focuses
particularly on the sexuality and morality of Red Riding Hood and how
this is constantly re-written and adapted by cultures through time.
This work contains many more cultural illustrations including film,
advertisement and cartoons and shows that through the constant
reinvention and reinterpretation of the story and its main
protagonists the story remains relevant and acts as a barometer of
morality, sexuality and female emancipation.
For my own study and practical
interpretation of this folk tale, this study overemphasises the
sexual politics and content. I prefer both the text and illustration
to not have these elements so obvious, although I am aware of the
connotations and content within interpretations of this tale.
This study
offers an investigation into trends of authorship in terms of their
gender, race and nationality. Showing the number of books published
across the century’s including a basic history of the story and
discussion about bibliometrics.
It has some
interesting findings from this library, which would be even more
interesting if applied beyond the collection of this children's
library.
However it did
make me consider now how readily available books have been for the
last 40 years and how they have been increasing in production.
Though I fear
we have crested the wave of publishing books made of paper and may
now be pushed more to virtual publishing, something I already mourn.
A broader book of Grimm’s Fairy
Tales but one where author Philip Pullman has reinterpreted and
reworked Grimm’s tales for a contemporary audience, while dipping
into the history of this genre and citing the importance for the
reworking of these stories to continue.
It is a book that shows a genuine
love of these stories and is homage to the history of this genre by a
great contemporary storyteller.
I am really interested in the choice
of head wear and its colour that Charles Perrault made in the first
transcribed version of the Grandmother story. I have been researching
its possible link with the French revolution and why so many
revolutions are associated with the colour red.
I cannot believe that there has not
been more academic interest in this particular detail of Red Riding
Hood.
This article is a more general
article about the colour red and it's psychological effects and
implications. Which I think is vital to studying the main character
of this folk story and must also play a part in making this story one
of the most illustrated if not the most illustrated in history.
Realising that folk stories like
little Red Riding Hood give us valuable insights into changing human
values and societal constraints, anthropologist Tehrani Jamshid has
formulated a way of tracing the oral footfall of folk tales and has
applied his techniques to tracing the map (Parsimonious Trees) of
origin for the story we now know as Little Red Riding Hood.
Tehrani's techniques are extremely
complex, based on systems used by biologists, but his findings are
fascinating as they plot how a story has travelled from people to
people and land mass to land mass.
In tracing the variants across
continents Tehrani has made a family tree for this ancient folk tale.
“Over Time these folk Tales have
been subtly changed and have evolved like a biological organism (…)
By looking at how these folk tales have spread and changed it tells
us something about human psychology and what sort of things we find
memorable.” Dr Jamshid Tehrani.
Personally I question how much these
techniques divining the origination of an oral tale are able to prove
the map of anthropological, historical and geographical paths that
this tale has journeyed, but beyond the amazing claims about these
possibilities, this study does offer insights into storytelling and
humanity.
Tippett,
Krista, (2013) Transcript for Maria Tatar,
The Great Cauldron of Story: Why Fairy Tales are for Adults Again.
A transcript of an interview between Krista Tippett and Maria Tatar,
On Being, American Public Media
Maria Tatar is
an expert on fairy tales and legends and professor of German
languages and literature at Harvard University, who fell in love with
Grimm’s Fairy tales by being drawn into their illustrations.
The discussion
highlights the different eras in terms of sound and how oral story
telling was so important before we all became so accustomed to
electronic devices radios, televisions, computers etc. It also
highlights the purpose of storytelling in society for the teaching of
moral instruction and social control.
The discussion
touches on how these stories are the founding pillars of modern
fables and tales like Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Game of
Thrones. It also focuses on how in their brutality these contemporary
tales are returning to the Pre-Victorian dark savagery of the
original oral fairy tales.
Ziolkowski, Jan (1992) Fairy
Tale from before Fairy Tales; Egbert of Liège's
“De puella a lupellis seruata” and the Medieval Background of
“Little Red Riding Hood”. Medieval Academy of America,
Speculum,Vol.
67, No. 3, P 549-575.
This text
discusses the problems of tracing the origins of this story and the
arguments between anthropological and literary scholars. The
segregation between to two is generally defined by the difference
between written forms and oral forms of the tale, and the importance
attributed to both.
The written /
printed version was of course only available, until the last century,
to the elite educated classes and the oral by the illiterate under
classes. This differentiation would result in distinctive variations
of the story, its meaning and purpose.
The article
also explores at length the arrival of the colour 'red' in Red Riding
Hood and discusses this in terms of religion, biology (menstruation,
blood and maturity) and its apotropaic qualities.
This is a beautifully illustrated
book, with easily comparable sections on related stories, where Zipes
studies the particular time period of 1812-1912. In the section
‘Dangerous Wolves and Naïve Girls’ he offers a brief history of
the genre and discusses the general characteristics that the story
has it terms of rape, paedophilia and manners. One of the stories
included by Jean-François
Bladé of 1886
has the child is a boy and the wolf a priest. I find every story has
its subtle differences and all of these help to feed my imagination
with more possibilities for illustration and my sense of wonder at
the ceaseless reinterpretation.
Jack Zipes provides a chronological
study of the literary narrative of Little Red Riding Hood complete
with some historic printed illustrations from his own important
personal collection.
It is a comprehensive study of the
subject in terms of social history that amplifies the meaning and
context of the iconography of this story.
The book strives to link the
evolution of this story in terms of its role in society.
In studying the subtle mutations of
the tale over time the book captures societies shifting attitudes to
power, sexuality and gender.
This is a story that everyone knows
but this book reveals the subtle mutation of the tale even since it
appeared in print, leaving us to ponder the Chinese whispers of its
oral evolution through time and across continents.
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