Wow. Just wow.

[sapphire_chan]

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/9/9/...-h/19915-h.htm

The poems are bad enough, but the illustrations make the book a marvel of illogic.

[Dandelionkid]

"the dreadful story of pauline and the matches"? Is this for real? I couldn't find the illustrations...

oh heavens- I just read that poem. How hideous:Puke:Puke

[lorijds]

Well, to be fair, those were written in 1845 in Germany and translated it looks like in 1911. These are typical children's and moral tales reflective of the times. This is actually a very famous book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter

Check out Max and Moritz, written I think a couple decades later:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_and_Moritz

And honestly, ever heard of Grimms' Fairy Tales? Ever read the originals, not the disney versions? They are all moral tales of naughty children getting what they deserve. Same as Struwwelpeter and Max and Moritz. That's just how books were in the 1800s.

[Daffodil]

And then there's the one where the girl cries too much, so her eyeballs fall out! And the one where the girl romps about the way boys do, and breaks her leg - right off!

[HappilyEvrAfter]

I totally agree...have you ever read Grimm's Fairy Tales in their original?

They are...well....grim.

I'm not really surprised. Fear based training for kids has been popular in the past (still is somewhat today) and those "fairy" tales were kind of used to scare children into behaving.



Still....:Puke

[lorijds]

Fear-based training, true, particularly from our current perspective. The Stuwwelpeter stories were actually also seen to be funny. As in, of course no one's eyes fall out when they cry too much. How silly. Kids then were no more stupid than kids today. They recognized that, although these were moral tales to a degree, they were also morbidly funny. These stories were wildly popular and translated into many, many different languages. They were similar to Dr. Suess. There is no Grinch who is coming to spoil Christmas--the entire story is absurd and silly, though it is a moral tale as well.

The Stuwwelpeter stories were actually seen as more child friendly and oriented than previous published stories. Again, take the Grimm fairy tales. Some of them are simply horrible. My "favorite" horrible one is about a mother who loses two little boys to illness and poverty. She cries herself to sleep, and then she has a dream that her boys lived and grew to be men. One was a murder who abused and killed several people. The other was an alcoholic, ne'er do well who laid about, neglecting his mother and family, and causing general grief in the town. The mother then wakes up and goes to church, to praise and thank God that he took her children from her while they were still innocent, and that he did not allow them to grow up and become horrible men. Nice, huh?

In a time when children had no rights, most children were simply free labor in the growing industrial era, where average life expectancy was in the 30s, and poverty, abuse, and hunger were daily realities for most, these stories aren't so bad. Taken in their historical context, the fact that anyone even wanted to write stories for children was pretty progressive.

Sorry to get so, oh I don't know, serious? academic? about it. I have a degree in German lit, and had to take some classes on these exact tales. I don't get to apply that useless degree very often, so I get excited when I can!

[Amaranth]

Originally Posted by lorijds

There is no Grinch who is coming to spoil Christmas--the entire story is absurd and silly, though it is a moral tale as well.

Ha! What about the Krampus?

http://blogs.walkerart.org/offcenter...es-of-krampus/

Those were the good old days, alright.

[Oriole]

Originally Posted by lorijds

The Stuwwelpeter stories were actually seen as more child friendly and oriented than previous published stories. Again, take the Grimm fairy tales. Some of them are simply horrible. My "favorite" horrible one is about a mother who loses two little boys to illness and poverty. She cries herself to sleep, and then she has a dream that her boys lived and grew to be men. One was a murder who abused and killed several people. The other was an alcoholic, ne'er do well who laid about, neglecting his mother and family, and causing general grief in the town. The mother then wakes up and goes to church, to praise and thank God that he took her children from her while they were still innocent, and that he did not allow them to grow up and become horrible men. Nice, huh?

Wow... Is it bad that this completely fascinates me from the literary standpoint?
Now, I really want to take a closer look at these stories... Not for the kids, for myself.

[sapphire_chan]

Oh I get the historical context, although I'll point out that , the book "Understood Betsy" which is a marvel of gentle discipline and understanding that children want to help was written only 5 years after this book was translated, freaky illustrations and all. I was just greatly amused by the literal meanings of the combinations of the poems and pictures.

For instance, the one about the two girls, one who brushed her hair hourly and one who screamed about having a bath. If you look at the illustrations, the one who looks in the mirror all the time is a teenager and the one who doesn't want a bath is like seven. So it's saying that if you don't preen as much as a teen when you're a kid, you'll end up wearing a nightgown your whole life and will never brush your hair. And while this poem seems to extol meticulous attention to one's appearance, there's another poem berating the sins of vanity.

[meemee]

hey what a fascinating thread!!!!! i am really enjoying reading it.

lorijds - i find your perspective FASCINATING!!!!! to me it totally explains the existance of lemony snickets A series of unfortunate events. not of course that horrifying but sorta kinda in that general form. i know a bunch of kids who would actually enjoy these stories - esp. my dd who would find eyeballs falling out hilarious.

i just love, love the cultural aspect of children's stories. and what it says of the times. it so totally reflects the times. i mean grimms and anderson's fairy tales were not created by the authors. they just put together the tales of those times that they heard around them.

however historically i wonder if the main stories told at bedtime were mostly religious tales. like biblical. i wonder how many people had those books except the rich. the illustrations were wood cuts right? pretty awesome. wonder if they used much colour then.

seriously for our times - our popular stories would not be any better off. i mean if a grimms came along now and wrote what was popular - i would cringe.

[sapphire_chan]

Well, I have read that the Grimms modified some of the stories they found to make them provide more of a moral lesson.

[Daffodil]

Originally Posted by lorijds

The Stuwwelpeter stories were actually also seen to be funny. As in, of course no one's eyes fall out when they cry too much. How silly. Kids then were no more stupid than kids today. They recognized that, although these were moral tales to a degree, they were also morbidly funny.

Thanks for pointing that out! I guess it should be obvious that what strikes us as silly now might also have seemed silly to kids of the past, but for some reason, it never occurred to me that the kids who read these might have laughed at them.

[gcgirl]

Adults find this kind of stuff way more horrifying than kids do. Kids generally like a good dark story full of danger.

[sapphire_chan]

Really it was more the morals that were being taught that freaked me out. Like "if you play like a boy, you'll shatter your leg"