This course introduces students to the multiple, varied, and unstable understandings of the “fairy tale” – the history of the term in the English language; the various ways in which the genre’s form, function, and meaning have been defined and debated over the past three centuries; the range of forms (oral, written, theatrical, cinematic, etc.) that have been considered part of the genre’s intertextual web (sometimes retrospectively).

Over the course of the semester we will examine the lengthy history of fairy tales as a popular genre, from the early modern period to the present day, but we will give some special attention to literary tales and field-based collections of orally-told tales that were enormously popular in 19^th-century Britain. Our study of texts from fairy-tale history will inform discussions of the genre in popular culture today.