SOURCE: "A Literary Approach to the Brothers Grimm," in Journal of the Folklore Institute, Vol. 1, No. 3, December, 1964, pp. 180-96.

In the following essay, the Davids advocate approaching the tales as imaginative literature rather than as folklore. Examining the Grimms' approach to nature and art, the critics consider the tales in the context of the Romantic movement of the nineteenth century.

Upon the hundredth anniversary of the death of Jacob Grimm, folklorists the world over have united to pay tribute to the memory of the Brothers Grimm. The Institute for Central European Folklife Research at Marburg has brought out a memorial volume of essays entitled Brüder Grimm Gedenken 1963¹—a reminder not simply of the closeness of the brothers but of the ideals of brotherhood that their lives represent and that their works have done much to promote. The astonishing thing about Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm is the sweep...