Rapunzel

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Rapunzel (illustration by Johnny Gruelle, 1922)

Rapunzel is a fairy tale ( ATU 310). It is in the children's and house fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm at position 12 (KHM 12) and goes back indirectly to Petrosinella in Basile's Pentameron II, 1.

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Photo of the tower in Amönau Drawing by Ubbelohde
A tower of Castle Amönau served Otto Ubbelohde as a template for a storybook illustration

During her pregnancy, Rapunzel's mother fails to curb her pregnancy-related cravings and appetite for the Rapunzel growing in the neighbor's garden. This is either lamb's lettuce or the Rapunzel bellflower , which was also grown as a lettuce plant in the past. However, her husband is not strong enough to resist her. When he tries to steal the salad for his wife again from a sorceress' garden, he is caught by the latter and has to promise her his child as a punishment (and out of fear and to avoid her magic or exposure as a thief). Immediately after the birth, she fetches the newborn, gives it the name Rapunzel, and when the girl is twelve years old (at the beginning of puberty before “developing into a woman”), she locks it in a remote, doorless tower. The only way to get inside is for Rapunzel to let her long hair down from the skylight when called out so that the sorceress can climb it and provide her with food.

A prince, attracted by Rapunzel's beautiful singing, overhears her, imitates the sorceress' call formula ("Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let me down your hair!"), Pulls himself up to the beautiful girl and wins her love. When Rapunzel chatted to the sorceress she called "Frau Gothel", the witch cut her hair and banished her to a desert. Then the sorceress hides in the tower, waits for the king's son, lets him climb up Rapunzel's braid and scares and mocks the prince to such an extent that in his desperation he jumps from the tower, injures his eyes in a thorn thicket and becomes blind. He now wanders through the world mournfully until he arrives at Rapunzel's prison by chance and recognizes the girl by her singing. When her tears wet his eyes, he is healed of his blindness and leads Rapunzel happily home to his kingdom.

Text history

Rapunzel (Illustration from The Red Fairy Book by Andrew Lang , 1890)

The fairy tale goes back indirectly to Petrosinella in Basile's Pentameron II, 1. Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Forces Persinette from 1697 apparently relocated it to the courtly aristocratic milieu. Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy wrote La Chatte Blanche in New Fairy Tales or The Contemporary Fairies (1698). Such collections of French fairy tales became known in Germany in the 18th century. Friedrich Immanuel Bierling's first German translation of the Persinette ( Das Cabinet der Feen. Or collected fairy tales in nine parts, translated from the French , Nuremberg, 1761–1766) hardly had any effect. Joachim Christoph Friedrich Schulz translated the fifth volume of his Little Novels (Leipzig 1790) more freely and more lively , without citing the source. Parsley now becomes Rapunzel, La Forces descriptions are expanded. Jacob Grimm now adopted Schulz's Rapunzel text in the first edition of Children's and Household Tales from 1812. Schulz's descriptions, especially the end, have been shortened, so Rapunzel's second place of exile by the sea becomes a "desert egg". "Frau Gothel" is Hessian for godmother. Also new is the rhythmic formula "Rapunzel, Rapunzel / let (me) your hair down" instead of La Forces "Persinette, descendez vos cheveux que je monte." ( French : "Persinette, let your hair down so that I may go up ." . "). In the second edition Wilhelm Grimm erased Rapunzel's pregnancy - possibly in response to complaints from readers. Instead of clothes that have become too tight, it now reveals itself to Ms. Gothel rather rashly. Further revisions will be made in the 3rd and 5th editions. In addition to verbatim speeches, linguistic superlatives were added and the motif of the wall was taken up again. Only in the 7th edition is the king's son stabbed blind with thorns. While Jacob Grimm assumed an origin "without a doubt from oral legend", his brother now increasingly developed his romantic fairytale tone. To what extent Basile and La Force somehow had popular sources is unclear, however.

Grimm's comment mentions another introduction: the girl opens a forbidden door (cf. KHM 3 ), there sits the witch with two horns and banishes her to the tower. The promise of the unborn child is often claused as what the mother wears under the belt (cf. KHM 181 ), they call it: The Old Norse Alfkongssage ( Chapter 1), Danish folk songs "From the wild night", Salebad Firdusi Schack p. 191, Büschings Volkssagen p. 287, in Basiles Pentameron II, 1 Petrosinella . Compare with Basile also II, 7 Die Taube , II, 8 Die kleine Sklavin . The motif of the virgin in the tower corresponds to the Greek myth of Danaë and the Christian legend of St. Barbara .

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let your hair down!” - this is probably one of the most famous sentences from the Brothers Grimm's collection of fairy tales.

interpretation

Rapunzel stamp set from the GDR
Rapunzel quote at the thief tower in Lindau (also at the Mangturm there )

While the unborn being can of course still be offered abstractly and relatively easily to others as a reward, as there is no deep personal bond, these apparently selfish desires of the mother also satisfy the child's well-being: Rapunzel / rocket (Grimm's version) and parsley (French version) are rich in iron and other trace elements that are very important during pregnancy. Further examples of such desires from Grimm's fairy tales are The Mermaid in the Pond , The singing, jumping little lion , The King of the Golden Mountain , Hans my Hedgehog , The Bearskin .

If you summarize Hedwig von Beit's depth psychological interpretation, images of isolation from the longed-for unconscious, which takes back its stolen child, are repeated. Such women develop a dreamy, unrealistic attitude. The high tower, but also the long hair on the head express these spiritually stressed parts of the being, which the animus then also uses to replace the Great Mother . Their severing causes the fall into a more humble posture, where Rapunzel can heal the prince who has also fallen and is blind in the unconscious with her tears (symbol of the water of life ).

According to psychiatrist Wolfdietrich Siegmund , such a fate tale helps with illness through excessive demands on yourself.

According to Eugen Drewermann, the greedy appetite for Rapunzeln anticipates the need for a child who gives meaning to life. Mother and sorceress are the same woman in fearful division . The childlike oral splitting off of sexuality leads to a reduction to an apparently fulfilling mother-daughter symbiosis. Rapunzel's tower resembles her mother's back house, but subjectively inflated, just as the mother's pride grows with the daughter's beauty and independence. Only a clairaudient man who precisely learns their language can overcome the walls of fear of contact. But this creates a split between Rapunzel's love and the continued deep loyalty to the mother, which the prince cannot attack due to the identification. The king's son can not do anything about the outbursts of Rapunzel's superego , but conversely, Mrs. Gothel cannot prevent Rapunzel from becoming really independent after the repudiation. The acquired needlessness now proves to be helpful until the power of the memory of love overcomes the compulsion to be self-sufficient. Even Wilhelm Salber brings Rapunzel , as well as Mary's Child or the singing, springing lark , with the insults ess- and relationship-impaired women in connection that present themselves as happy and keep a low profile to the outside. The tower of 'splendid isolation' turns real sympathy into paradoxical dependencies. The psychotherapist Jobst Finke also sees Rapunzel as a mother-dependent, self-centered child who develops into a lovable woman and learns independence in isolation.

Parodies

Rapunzel lets the prince climb up the hair

At Katrine von Hutten's, a psychotherapist advises an old couple in "youthful-libidinal entanglement": He still calls her Rapunzel, says the sorceress has cooled down, she left her behind for lamb's lettuce. Klaus Stadtmüller composed a short parody. Rapunzel also appears in Kaori Yuki's manga Ludwig Revolution .

In the computer game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood and Wine , based on the Geralt saga by Andrzej Sapkowski , you come across Rapunzel's tower in a fairy tale world. Since her prince fell to his death on this, the lonely Rapunzel hanged herself in the tower by her own hair.

Movies

The inaccessible tower is also encountered in Brothers Grimm (2005).

music

  • Lou Harrison's opera Rapunzel premiered in New York in 1959.
  • Rapunzel meets in Stephen Sondheim's fairytale musical Into the Woods (1987).
  • In 1988 the rock band Erste Allgemeine Verunsicherung released the pause between the actual songs on the CD “ Can nonsense be a sin ...? ”Four episodes each approx. 27 to 38 seconds long, which always began with the words:“ Rapunzel, let your hair down! ”Each time the hair is too short, and the prince rides away again with mounting anger.
  • The Beastie Boys also use this myth, on their 1989 album Paul's Boutique , there is the sentence: "Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your hair, so I can climb up to get into your underwear!" (Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let your hair down so I can climb up and do your laundry).
  • Persinette , children's opera by Albin Fries , world premiere at the Vienna State Opera on December 21, 2019

Illustrations

The visually interesting combination of golden hair and high tower inspired numerous Rapunzel illustrations: those by Arthur Rackham , Lizzie Hosaeus with two versions, Paul Hey , the fairy tale picture program by Ernst Liebermann and the painting by Emma Florence Harrison and Heinrich Lefler are particularly important . In 1969 David Hockney deals with the Rapunzel theme in four drawings: 1. The Rapunzel salad garden, 2. Rapunzel as a baby, 3. Rapunzel with a train of hair and 4. Hair and tower in front of the prince.

literature

  • Grimm, Brothers: Children's and Household Tales. Last hand edition with the original notes by the Brothers Grimm. With an appendix of all fairy tales and certificates of origin, not published in all editions, published by Heinz Rölleke. Volume 3: Original Notes, Guarantees of Origin, Afterword. S. 34, 447. Revised and bibliographically supplemented edition, Stuttgart 1994. (Reclam-Verlag; ISBN 3-15-003193-1 ).
  • Bernhard Lauer (Ed.): Rapunzel. Traditions of European fairy tales in poetry and art (= exhibitions in the Brothers Grimm Museum, large series. Volume II). Kassel 1993, ISBN 3-929633-10-8 .

Web links

Commons : Rapunzel  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Children and Household Tales - Rapunzel  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernhard Lauer (Ed.): Rapunzel. Traditions of European fairy tales in poetry and art (= exhibitions in the Brothers Grimm Museum, large series. Volume II). Kassel 1993, ISBN 3-929633-10-8 , pp. 7-33.
  2. ^ Röhrich, Lutz: Fairy tale - myth - legend. In: Siegmund, Wolfdietrich (ed.): Ancient myth in our fairy tales. Kassel 1984. p. 26. (Publications of the European Fairy Tale Society Vol. 6; ISBN 3-87680-335-7 )
  3. ↑ Hedwig von Beit: Symbolism of the fairy tale . Bern 1952, pp. 715-722.
  4. ↑ Frederik Hetmann: dream face and magic trace. Fairy tale research, fairy tale studies, fairy tale discussion. With contributions by Marie-Louise von Franz, Sigrid Früh and Wolfdietrich Siegmund. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-596-22850-6 , p. 122.
  5. ↑ Drewermann, Eugen: Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let your hair down. Grimm's fairy tales interpreted in terms of depth psychology. 8th edition 2004, Munich, pp. 165-219. (dtv-Verlag; ISBN 3-423-35056-3 )
  6. ^ Wilhelm Salber: fairy tale analysis (= work edition Wilhelm Salber. Volume 12). 2nd Edition. Bouvier, Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-416-02899-6 , pp. 110-112.
  7. ^ Jobst Finke: Dreams, Fairy Tales, Imaginations. Person-centered psychotherapy and counseling with images and symbols. Reinhardt, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-497-02371-4 , pp. 158, 163-167, 203-204, 208.
  8. ^ Katrine von Hutten: Rapunzel. In: Wolfgang Mieder (Ed.): Grim fairy tales. Prose texts from Ilse Aichinger to Martin Walser. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt (Main) 1986, ISBN 3-88323-608-X , pp. 88–90 (1974; first published in: Jochen Jung (Hrsg.): Bilderbogengeschichten. Fairy tales, sagas, adventure. Newly told by our authors Zeit. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1976, pp. 129-131.).
  9. ↑ Klaus Stadtmüller: Hairy. In: Die Horen . Vol. 1/52, No. 225, 2007, ISSN  0018-4942 , p. 217.
  10. ↑ Rapunzel's Curse. Retrieved July 7, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Preview "Rapunzel's Curse": Exorcism from Germany. In: klatsch-tratsch.de. June 28, 2020, accessed July 7, 2020 .
  12. ↑ "Persinette": Hairy premiere at the Staatsoper. In: ORF.at . December 20, 2019, accessed December 20, 2019 .
  13. ^ A. Rackham: Rapunzel
  14. ↑ childillustration.blogspot.com: Ernst Liebermann: Rapunzel ( Memento from May 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ↑ childillustration.blogspot.com: Rapunzel picture by EF Harrison ( Memento from May 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  16. ↑ childillustration.blogspot.com: H. Lefler: Rapunzel ( Memento from May 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ↑ Rapunzel illustrations by David Hockney ( Memento of the original from June 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / collection.britishcouncil.org