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The Brothers Grimm (Brüder Grimm) are Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm.
The collection of children's tales
The Brothers Grimm are well known for publishing collections of German fairy tales, as Kinder- und Hausmärchen ("Children's and Household Tales"), in 1812, with a second volume in 1814 ("1815" on the title page), and many further editions during their lifetimes. English translations of the 7th edition (1857) remain popular, and they exist now predominantly as highly expurgated and saccharine versions intended for children, even though the folk tales that the Grimms had collected had not been previously considered stories for children. Witches, goblins, trolls and wolves prowl the dark forests of the Grimms' ancient villages, as well as the deeper psyche of the insular German city-states of the time. Modern psychologists and cultural anthropologists read in quite a bit of emotional angst, fear of abandonment, parental abuse, and sexual development in the stories that are often read at bed-time in the West. The child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim in his book The Uses of Enchantment read familiar Grimms' fairy tales as Freudian myths. A modern editor of the Brother Grimm and interpreter of the fairy tales tradition is Jack Zipes.
Linguistics In the very early 19th century, the time in which the Brothers Grimm lived, Germany as we know it today did not yet exist; it was basically a loose collection of principalities and small countries. The major unifying factor for the German people of the time was a common language. There was as yet no significant German literary history. So part of what motivated the brothers in their writings and in their lives was the desire to help create a German identity.
Less well known to the general public outside Germany is the Brothers Grimms' work on a German dictionary, the Deutsches Wörterbuch. Indeed, the Deutsches Wörterbuch was the first major step in creating a standardized "modern" German language since Martin Luther's translation of the Bible from Latin to German. Being very extensive (more than 20 volumes) it is still considered as the standard reference for German etymology.
The brother Jakob is recognized for enunciating Grimm's law, Germanic Sound Shift, that was first observed by the Danish philologist Rasmus Christian Rask. Grimm's law was the first non-trivial systematic sound change ever to be discovered.
Biography The Grimms were educated at the Friedrichsgymnasium in Kassel and later both read law at the University of Marburg. From 1837 until 1841, the Brothers Grimm joined five of their colleague professors at the University of Göttingen. This group came to be known as Die Göttinger Sieben (The Göttingen Seven). They protested against King Ernest Augustus I of Hanover, whom they accused of violating the constitution of that state. For this, they were all fired from their university posts by the king. Wilhelm died in 1859; his elder brother Jakob died in 1863. They are buried in the St Matthäus Kirchhof Cemetary in Schöneberg, a district of Berlin.
Miscellaneous Between 1990 and the 2002 introduction of the euro currency in Germany, the Grimms were depicted on the 1000 Deutsche Mark note - the largest available denomination.
Selection of fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm
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