We at OGOM are fascinated by fairy tales, and there are many posts on the blog about them. My own research has been looking generally at how genres collide and intermingle to create new genres such as Paranormal Romance; in particular, how fairy tales have been reworked (as is well-known) in the fiction of Angela Carter, but also as YA Gothic and Paranormal Romance.
So here are a few links to articles about fairy tales. They vary as to scholarly depth, but should serve to provoke debate and as useful resources to anyone researching the contemporary value of the fairy tale.
On the formal devices of the fairy tale:
Anthony Madrid, ‘“Once Upon a Time” and Other Formulaic Folktale Flourishes’
On language and the Grimm brothers:
Chi Luu, ‘The Fairytale Language of the Brothers Grimm‘
Much contemporary debate about fairy tales concerns their function, rather than their form or aesthetic qualities. And it is very often concerned with gender, particularly the alleged harmful effects tales have on the development of the (female) child. There are questions here about social function and the aesthetic, of determinism and pedagogy, that too often become reductive (and often misrepresent the tales themselves). Here are a few links around this topic:
Lucia Peters, ‘10 Fairy Tale Princesses Whose Stories Are Way More Hardcore Than You Realized‘
Sadie Trombetta, ‘Fairy Tales Might Be Exactly What We Need In The Age Of #MeToo‘
Olivia Petter, ‘Hundreds of Parents Change Plots of Classic Fairytales Because They Are Politically Incorrect‘
Maria Tatar, ‘Then and Now: How Fairy Tales Continue to Invite Us to Think Harder and Smarter‘
