Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm researched and collected fairy tales. They published them in a book called Children's and Household Tales.
Most people are familiar with the last name Grimm because they have read at least one of the fairy tales from the Grimm’s famous collection. Some might recall that the brothers were named Jacob and Wilhelm. Some might mention that the fairy tales were collected by the brothers and were not of their own invention. However, few know much about these men who studiously collected fairy tales and created a body of work that influenced not only their own culture but the culture of the world as well.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were the children of Dorothea and Philipp Wilhelm Grimm. Philipp was an attorney and the family was comfortable and close knit. The brothers were the first two children of nine births (six of which survived). Jacob was the oldest and was born in 1785, followed by Wilhelm in 1786.
The children spent the earliest part of their formative years in the town of Steinau where their father was the district magistrate. They lived in a large house and had servants to help with the chores. When the children were old enough, they received a classical education at the local school. They were raised as strict Reformed Calvinists.
The children were intelligent, diligent students. Jacob and Wilhelm loved the simple life of the country. These early characteristics would later evolve into the attitudes, talents, and interests that led them to research and record German folklore. However, this path was not the path their lives initially started down.
Like most sons, they were expected to do as their father and lead successful and comfortable in lives. However, their lives took a turn when Phillip Grimm died, unexpectedly, in 1796. He was only 44 years old. Within weeks their mother, Dorothea, had moved the entire family into a smaller house and began a new life with six children and no servants.
Fortunately, the Grimm’s had help. Their grandfather Johannes Hermann Zimmer and their aunt Henriette Zimmer, helped the family financially and gave them necessary emotional support. With the help of their family, Jacob and Wilhelm were enabled to attend a prestigious high school in Kassel.
There the boys received an excellent and rigorous education. Because of their situation, they were often treated as socially inferior at school but they worked hard to prove themselves the best students there. They succeeded. Each graduated at the head of his respective class.
While both boys enjoyed the rigors of study, it had a negative impact on Wilhelm’s fragile health. He had an attack of scarlet fever and also experienced the onset of asthma. The repercussions to his health would affect him for the rest of his life. As a result, he had to postpone university for a year.
At the university, they met Professor Friedrich Carl von Savigny who founded the historical school of law. Savigny believed that to understand something, one must not only understand its current form but one must also understand its origins and trace its development and changing historical context. Savigny’s ideas inspired Jacob and Wilhelm to dedicate themselves to the study of ancient German literature and folklore.
Essentially, the brothers wanted to preserve the ‘natural’ forms of folk literature and to acknowledge the connection between literate culture and the oral tradition. They wanted to “write a history of old German Poesie and to demonstrated how Kunstpoesie (cultivated literature) evolved out of traditional folk...” (Zipes, 11).
The brothers embarked on new careers around the time their mother’s health failed. They understood that when she died, responsibility for their siblings would fall even more completely on them. In 1807, Jacob applied for and acquired the position of private librarian to King Jerome. This position was important for two reasons. It allowed him to have plenty of time to studies of fairy tale and German heritage and allowed him to support his siblings especially Wilhelm who was physically frail. Throughout his life, Wilhelm suffered from a variety of maladies and was on several occasions very close to death.
In 1806, the poet Clemens Brentano enlisted the brothers’ assistance in collecting tales that he intended to publish as part of his series “The Boy’s Wonder Horn.” The brothers were diligent in their work and in 1810, the brothers sent him the 49 tales they had collected. They made copies for themselves so that they could preserve them in their original form because they felt that Brentano would modify them too much. Brentano, never used them. And in 1812, Jacob and Wilhelm published them in their first edition of the now famous Children's and Household Tales.
Some well known fairy tales from the brothers Grimm include: Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, and Hansel and Gretel.
Sources
Zipes, Jack. The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World. Palgrave MacMillan, 2002.
