German Folklore: A Handbook

by James R. Dow

Germany is a land of fascinating customs and traditions. Through the work of the Grimms, many of its folk and fairy tales have become widely read around the world. German folklore has also inspired numerous literary, artistic, and musical works. Written especially for high school students and general readers, this volume is an accessible introduction to German folklore.

The volume begins by defining and classifying different types of German folklore. It provides numerous examples of German folkways and presents a wide ranging selection of texts. The book reviews critical and scholarly approaches and discusses the pervasive influence of German folklore on literature and popular culture.

Genres: Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 2006

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This handy reference manuel is not only massively informative, it is also (and thankfully) organised in a decidedly user friendly manner, with five main chapters and detailed bibliographies that actually appear not simply as appendices, but rather and fortunately (appreciatively) at the end of each featured chapter as well. Academic in scope, but still very much readable and approachable even for those with more casual reading and learning interests, I also very gladly do appreciate that with German Folklore: A Handbook, author James R. Dow has not shied away from analysing and presenting how German folklore and folklore studies were both subverted and actually very nearly decimated and destroyed by National Socialism (and that even today, at least in Germany proper, the term folklore still has the tendency to leave individuals uncomfortable and at times overly and hyper critical). And personally, the only minor issue I do tend to have with German Folklore: A Handbook is that for the example texts, it would be much much preferable to have them appear in a dual language (German/English) format than to simply be presented as translations; there are a select few examples of German text, of German language narratives, but most of the examples appear only in English, which is, at least in my humble opinion, a bit of an academic and folkloric lack and shortcoming. Still this handbook is to be highly recommended as an academically solid introduction to German folklore (but with the added caveat that since German Folklore: A Handbook was published in 2006, any and all relevant primary and secondary sources published post 2006, will of course not be included, but that is as always the unfortunate nature of the academic beast).

[Kacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was interested folklore from German Folklore, because my grandparents are German. Some of the folklore in the book was actually in German so I could not understand that, but the folklore I read was written in old English using words such as "hast" and "thee," which creating a more ancient setting. I was suprised at the religious influence in the book because many of the stories featured religious characters. There were also many scary folktales including the Pied Piper folktale. I'm not sure if the story includes the Pied Piper stealing the schildren in all versions, but I had never heard that ending. There were many dark and scary tales that I would not choose to share with the children in my classroom. Many of the talkes in this book were written with detail and include many characters and so I would choose to share it with an older elementary audience. I noticed that the folklore in this book provided many moral lessons. There were also many stories that I was familiar with such as Hansel and Grettel and Little Red Riding Hood.