ENGL 105W Study Guide - Summer 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Fairy Tale, Fairy, Poetic Justice
12 Oct 2018
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ENGL 105W
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
The Fairy Tale/Folk Tale as a Genre
The Fairy Tale as a Genre
A genre is a classification of texts which we group together because of their similarities in form,
content, and/or style. Some genres depend more on form to distinguish them (e.g. a sonnet is
fourteen lines of iambic pentameter rhymed in specific ways), while some depend more on style
and content (e.g. Gothic uses tension in atmosphere and style plus motifs such as ruined castles
or handsome villains).
The genre of fairy tale contains within it a number of sub-genres, including traditional, literary,
revisionist, and parodic fairy tales (details on revisionist and parodic in the next module).
A traditional fairy tale is one that began as an orally-transmitted story, usually in the Middle
Ages or Renaissance period. Thus, no traditional fairy tale has an “original” or “authentic”
version. All we have contact with are recorded versions and adaptations of old oral tales, so there
are always variants within a group of related tales (the Aarne-Thompson classification system
groups related tales together).
A literary fairy tale is one written by a particular author, using the typical form, style, and
content of traditional fairy tales. In this case there is an original version. For example, Hans
Christian Andersen both collected traditional Danish fairy tales and wrote his own literary fairy
tales, including the ones we know in English translation as “The Little Mermaid” and “The Ugly
Duckling.”
Characteristics common/frequent in traditional and literary fairy tales
• a short linear narrative, most often in prose rather than poetry
• a small number of type characters; protagonist usually young adult or child; antagonist
usually adult
• patterns of repetition in both motifs and style, especially patterns of threes and sevens
• the setting is or resembles medieval Europe
• the conflict usually involves violence/violation, & frequently involves death,
dismemberment, and/or transformation
• the plots are allegorized ways of dealing with negative or problematic subjects such as
jealousy (“Bluebeard”), sexual maturation (“Little Red Riding Hood,” “Sleeping Beauty,”
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“Rapunzel”), famine (“Hansel and Gretel”), or oppression (“Jack and the Beanstalk,”
“Cinderella”)
• a series of plot episodes (as part of the repetition patterns) involving tests of the
protagonist(s) and/or the recruitment of helpers (often magic animals or objects)
• the resolution of the plot often involves the undoing of a transformation process in the
protagonist(s): protagonist takes his or her rightful place in society, an evil spell is negated,
real birth/worth is discovered, the dead come back to life, etc.
• sometimes the good characters are rewarded in the conclusion, with a “happily ever after”
ending & poetic justice, but not nearly as frequently as most readers today assume (modern
cleaned-up versions often impose this ending)
• life is not presented as fair and justice is not always meted out
• some use of the marvelous, especially in those stories labeled fairy tale
o the supernatural elements are not treated as fantastic (breaking the rules of reality) by the
characters
• some use of humour, especially in those stories labeled folk tale
o deception/embarrassment of stupid people/villains
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