When Did Little Red Riding Hood Get Her Red Hood? Annotated Bibliography

When Did Little Red Riding Hood

Get Her Red Hood?

• Beckett, Sandra (2002) Recycling Red Riding Hood. New York, Routledge.

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.

• Daniels, Morna ( 2006 ) Little Red Riding Hood. The British Library Journal. Article 5, P1-7

http://www.bl.uk/eblj/2006articles/pdf/article5.pdf (visited 24.10.2014)

This essay plots the history of Charles Perrault's manuscript of 1695, which is well illustrated with rare illustrations from the 17^th and 18^th 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.

• Dezutter, Olivier, (2014) Little Red Riding Hood: a Story of Women at the Crossroads. Universite Catholique de Louvain

http://grit.fltr.ucl.ac.be/article.php3?id_article=40& (visited 9.11.2014)

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.

• Dundes, Alan (1989) Little Red Riding Hood. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press.

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.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131129-little-red-riding-hood-folktale-tehrani-anthropology-science/ (Visited 14.11.2014)

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.

• Orenstein, Catherine (2002) Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked. New York: Basic Books.

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.

• Pittman Cheryl (2012) An Analysis of little Red Riding Hood Storybooks in the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection. Volume 1, Issue 2, P1-14, http://aquila.usm.edu/slisconnecting/vol1/iss2/6/ (visited 25.10.2014)

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.

• Pullman Philip (2012) Grimm Tales for Young and Old. London. Penguin

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.

• Robson, David (2014) How The Colour Red Warps The Mind

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140827-how-the-colour-red-warps-the-mind (visited 09.11.2014)

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.

• Tehrani, Jamshid (2013) 'The Phylogeny of Little Red Riding Hood'. Volume 8, Issue 11, P1-11 www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0078871(Visited 2.11.2014)

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

http://www.onbeing.org/program/the-great-cauldron-of-story-maria-tatar-on-why-fairy-tales-are-for-adults-again/transcript/5076 (visited 15.10.2014)

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.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2863656?origin=JSTOR-pdf (visited 28.10.2014)

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.

• Zipes, Jack (2013) The Golden Age of Folk and Fairy Tales: From the Brothers Grimm to Andrew Lang. Indianapolis: Hackett.

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.

• Zipes, Jack (1993) The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood. New York: Routledge.

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.

When Did Little Red Riding Hood Get Her Red Hood? Crirical Analysis

When Did Little Red Riding Hood

Get Her Red Hood?

Critical Analysis

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.

                                             Fig 1. Above: Artist Unknown, Tales of Mother Goose 1695

In my academic enquiry, I shall be looking at the arrival of Little Red Riding Hood in the original printed text by Charles Perrault. For my analysis I am using Jan Ziolkowski's 1992 article the 'Fairy Tale from before Fairy Tales'.

                                     Fig 2. Above: Antoine Clouzier. 'Red Gravure', etching from Charles Perrault's 

                                                 Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités: 1697 Contes de ma mère l'Oye.

Since embarking on my academic research into Red Riding Hood, I have been surprised by just how ancient this tale could be and how it traversed continents.

I also find it incredible how the story is able to evolve and mirror the society that it is current to, whilst still maintaining its integrity. This quality must have aided the story’s longevity, making it as relevant and popular today as it always was.

               Fig 3. Matthew Twombly info-graphics from National Geographic Article, 

               'What Wide Origins You Have, Little Red Riding Hood!'

Despite many characteristics and details subtly evolving and changing, one main constant is the clothing of the child in the story, that has provided the literary tale with its name since 1697. Fairy tales are by nature an oral storytelling form and this story, prior to Perrault's printed version, was generally known as the 'False Grandmother' or 'The Story of the Grandmother'. So it is perplexing as to where this garment came from and how the girl came to take the lead role in the title.

                          Fig 4: Illustration from 'The History of Little Red Riding Hood in Verse', (London, 1808). BL, 12804.a.37.

Interestingly, if you were to remove the little red riding hood out of 'Red Riding Hood' then you lose 64% of the variant tales. Therefore, just under two thirds of the known variations of this story feature this colour and a head covering garment, so it is a very significant characteristic.

Most literary academics state that 'Red Riding Hoods' red hat/ cloak was given to her in Charles Perrault's 'Le Petit Chaperon Rouge', which was published under his ten year old son’s name, P. D'Armancour, in a book called 'Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passe', 1697.

Jeanne Morgan states, “Le Petit Chaperon Rouge has no known sources or parallels whatsoever. We have only Perrault's word for it that they are indeed 'Contes du temps passe,' in the preface's allusion to stories 'que nos aieux ont inventes.” Jeanne Morgan. 1985. P103.(1)

However, Jan Ziolkowski, a professor of Medieval Latin at Harvard University with a particular interest in folk tales, challenges this assumption. His study cites extracts of the epic poem “De puella a lupellis seruata” by Egbert of Liège printed in 1024 as being an example of a medieval Red Riding Hood and uses this poem to illustrate why he believes ancient printed material should not be ignored by folklore students and academics.

Egbert was a teacher at the cathedral school of Liège who used folklore and oral storytelling, intertwining it with his religious, moral teachings to exploit its familiarity and accessibility to his students.

           (2) Above: Egbert of Liège's verse in Latin.

         (3) Above: Jan Ziolkowski's translation of Egbert of Liège's verse in Latin text.

Egbert's transcribed tale is not the same as Perrault's tale, but as this extract from Egbert's poem illustrates, there is a direct correlation with many aspects of 'Red Riding Hood'. This surely demonstrates how ancient printed material should not be dismissed as irrelevant, in plotting the history of this story.

However as Jan Ziolowski points out, many scholars have dismissed these verses as not being a medieval precursor of 'Red Riding Hood'.

Alan Dundes, who was one of the most prominent American folklorists, dismissed any printed material from before Perrault as being irrelevant.

“It is well to keep in mind that fairy tales are first and foremost an oral form. So from that point of view, any written version is suspect” Alan Dundes.1989 P196 (5)

Marianne Rumpf disregards Egbert's poem because it lacks two key events characteristic of the tale; the wolf devouring the girl and the rescue from the wolf.

It seems strange to dismiss such an early version on the basis of what it doesn't include, rather than the intermutual elements that it contains; the girl, the forest, the wolf and the red riding hood, as well as having the underlying message of caution. However, Marianne's opinion is countered by this statement by Alan Dundes:

“Variation is a key concept in folkloristics. It is variation that in part distinguishes folklore from so-called 'high-culture' and 'mass culture'. (… ) folklore, with its characteristics of multiple existence and variation, is ever in a state of flux. There is no one single text in folklore; there are only texts. Folklore once recorded from oral tradition does not cease to be, but rather continues on its often merry way from raconteur to raconteur, from generation to generation.” Alan Dundes 1989. P 193 (6)

Jan Ziolkowski's paper discusses the failings of academic folklorists in that their methodology is exclusionary, adhering to dominance of either the oral or literary forms. This leads to shortfalls in the comprehensiveness of their analysis.

“ Despite a century of struggles towards a scientific narratology of folktales, folktale analysts have not attained a universally applicable diagnostics for fixing the absolute minimum of constituents that endue a story of a given type with its distinctive imprint. The complex of features that lends a story its essence will vary from tale to tale, cultural milieu to cultural milieu. This variability does not render the process of analysis futile but it does recommend that analysts be flexible.” Jan Ziolkowski. 1992. P564 (7)

In the ever changing oratory of folklore, literary adaptations have simply anchored a version to a particular era, providing us with a tiny finger print in time. They do not give us the whole picture; the subtle nuances of culture and language, but at least provide us with a piece of this giant, scattered jigsaw puzzle of oral history.

“In many ways the problem of reconstructing folklore tradition is very similar to the problem of reconstructing the evolutionary relationship of species. We have little evidence about the evolution of species because the fossil record is so patchy. Similarly, folktales are only very occasionally written down. We need to use some kind of method for reconstructing that history in the absence of physical evidence. (…) My analysis confirmed that the 11th-century poem is indeed an early ancestor of the modern fairy tale. ” Jamshid Tehrani, 2013 (8)

What is fascinating is that the 'fossils' are there, lining up to be included in the family tree. But we need flexible inclusive analysis of all sources not a hierarchy, so that important evidence is not dismissed or overlooked.

Bibliography

Illustrations

Fig 1. Artist unknown, Tales of Mother Goose, 1695,

http://sites.univ-provence.fr/pictura/GenerateurNotice.php

Fig 2. Antoine Clouzier. Illustrative etching in Charles Perrault Le Petit Chaperon Rouge Paris 1697.

Fig 3. Hartigan Shea, Rachel. (2013) 'What Wide Origins You Have, Little Red Riding Hood!', A transcript of an interview between Rachael Shae Hartican and Jamshi Tehrani. National Geographic.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131129-little-red-riding

-hood-folktale-tehrani-anthropology-science/ (Visited 14.11.2014)

Fig 4. The History of Little Red Riding Hood in Verse (London, 1808). BL, 12804.a.37.

Text

1. Morgan, Jean. Perrault's Morals for Moderns, American University Series II, Romance Languages and Literatures 28 P103, New York, 1985

2. Fecunda ratis, ed. Voigt, p.1.

3. Fecunda ratis, ed. Voigt, p.1. (Translated by Jan. M. Ziolkowski)

4. Foucault, The civilizing Process: The History of Manners, 1, trans. Edmund Jephcott, (New York) 1978. P.36

5. Dundes, Alan (1989) Little Red Riding Hood. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press. P196

6. Dundes, Alan (1989) Little Red Riding Hood. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press. P193

7. 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. P564

8. Hartigan Shea, Rachel. (2013) 'What Wide Origins You Have, Little Red Riding Hood!', A transcript of an interview between Rachael Shae Hartican and Jamshi Tehrani. National Geographic.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131129-little-red-riding-

hood-folktale-tehrani-anthropology-science/ (Visited 14.11.2014)