Flowers, Women, and Work in the Socialist Fairy Tale
Toward a Feminist, Materialist, and Ecocritical Approach
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21322113 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Melissa Sheedy (University of Wisconsin–Madison, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 94 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 219-228 |
| Publication date | 2021-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The German Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-8831 • E-ISSN: 1756-1183 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/gequ.12178 |
| OpenAlex | W3166947857 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 6 |
Hedwig Dohm's 1870 fairy tale “Blumenduft,” a tale of a princess who finds fulfillment in work, illustrates the merits of industry alongside the failings of royalty. A century later, East German production company DEFA released Dornröschen (1971), echoing similar discourses through the traditionally feminine craft of spinning. Unlike the Grimm paradigm of passive princesses, diligence in these tales is not associated with marriage or domesticity. Rather, labor is tied to broader social structures, and the conventional nature‐culture binary is divided along class‐based lines. Both narratives evoke the Grimm tradition to suit new sociocultural contexts and showcase female empowerment enacted via “natural” interventions. Through the framework of feminist material ecocriticism, this article examines the connections between nature, women, and the working classes in these tales. A close analysis of these texts reveals the critical and political dimensions of nature and narrative as well as the enduring relevance of German fairy tales
Aesthetics · Art · Binary opposition · Ecocriticism · Epistemology · German · Literature · Marxist philosophy · Materialism · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociocultural evolution · Sociology · Anthropology · Ecology, Conservation, and Geographical Studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · Media, Gender, and Advertising · Philosophy
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |