意地悪な女王様、美しいお姫様、妖精、巨人、毒リンゴ、鏡、ガラスの靴と聞けば大人も子供もすぐにおとぎ話を連想することができるでしょう。世代や文化を越えて語り継がれてきたおとぎ話は一つの文学ジャンルでもあります。民話や神話に端を発したものや、自然、超自然に関連したもの、豊かなイマジネーションとファンタジーの世界など、定番の『シンデレラ』『眠れる森の美女』『ヘンゼルとグレーテル』からディズニーの『白雪姫』まで、さまざまな例を用いて繙きます。
  

• A lively and engaging exploration of fairy tales and their meaning
• Considers fairy tale as both a genre and a literary form
• Explores an array of classic and contemporary examples
• Looks at cultural, social and political influence of fairy tales
• Reveals how fairy tales use the characteristics of fantasy and imagination
• Highlights questions of gender, feminism, and psychoanalysis in the fairy tale tradition
• Considers a number of visual interpretations on stage and screen
• Originally published in hardback and paperback as Once Upon A Time

   
From wicked queens, beautiful princesses, elves, monsters, and goblins, to giants, glass slippers, poisoned apples, magic keys, and mirrors, the characters and images of fairy tales have cast a spell over readers and audiences, both adults and children, for centuries. These fantastic stories have travelled across cultural borders, and been passed on from generation to generation, ever-changing, renewed with each re-telling. Few forms of literature have greater power to enchant us and rekindle our imagination than a fairy tale. 
  
But what is a fairy tale? Where do they come from and what do they mean? What do they try and communicate to us about morality, sexuality, and society? The range of fairy tales stretches across great distances and time; their history is entangled with folklore and myth, and their inspiration draws on ideas about nature and the supernatural, imagination and fantasy, psychoanalysis, and feminism. In this Very Short Introduction, Marina Warner digs into a rich hoard of fairy tales in all their brilliant and fantastical variations, in order to define a genre and evaluate a literary form that keeps shifting through time and history. Drawing on a glittering array of examples, from classics such as Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and The Sleeping Beauty, the Grimm Brothers' Hansel and Gretel, and Hans Andersen's The Little Mermaid, to modern-day realizations including Walt Disney's Snow White, Warner forms a persuasive case for fairy tale as a crucial repository of human understanding and culture. 
  
  
The Very Short Introductions Podcast: Episode 20 Fairy Tale