Undergraduate Course: Fairy Tales (ENLI10274)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course is intended to introduce students to significant exponents of the literary fairy tale in Britain and Europe from the Renaissance to the contemporary period, enabling them to explore the evolution and development of the genre across time with regard to its changing aesthetic form and the different range of cultural, social, and symbolic meanings which the genre invokes. |
| Course description |
Fairy tales take us far away from the everyday to places of fantasy, enchantment and, sometimes, terror. They encode our deepest desires and darkest fears. They traverse borders, languages and centuries. They respond to social, political and historical changes not through direct representation but phantasmagorical imagery and settings: wicked witches, generous godmothers, overgrown castles, murderous husbands.
This course will introduce you to the diverse and surprising literary history of the fairy tale, from its emergence in early modern Europe through to the contemporary moment. We will explore the birth of the fairy tale in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy and France, the proto-feminist tales that were shared in Parisian salons by women writers, and its transformation into a literature for children under the brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen in the nineteenth century. We will also pay attention to the genre¿s changing fortunes in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, exploring what happens to the fairy tale when it makes the transition to the big screen and what happens when it is reclaimed by feminist writers. Each week, you¿ll read a range of different tales, as well as key works of fairy tale theory and scholarship that will introduce you to the critical study of the genre and its history. Learning how to read fairy tales with a close attention to form, context and theme, you will come to see how fairy tales, although perhaps seemingly innocent, explore issues including sexuality, gender, capitalism, class, religion and psychology.
Each year the selection of tales and writers varies, but in recent years we have studied writers such as Giambattista Basile, Charle Perrault, Marie Catherine d'Aulnoy, Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Walt Disney, Angela Carter Nalo Hopkinson, Helen Oyeyemi and Sarah Maitland.
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Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
196 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
2 x 2,500 word coursework comparative essays, each worth 50% |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of the historical development of the fairy tale genre in a transnational context from the early modern period to the present.
- Draw on close reading skills to compare and contrast tales from different fairy tale writers.
- Engage with key works of fairy tale scholarship, demonstrating a knowledge of critical and theoretical frameworks that have been developed to read the fairy tale form.
- Take a historically sophisticated approach to fairy tales, showing an awareness of how social and political contexts shape the production and transmission of the genre.a historically sophisticated approach to fairy tales, showing an awareness of how social and political contexts shape the production and transmission of the genre.
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Additional Information
| Course URL |
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/literatures-languages-cultures/english-literature/undergraduate/current/honours |
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Special Arrangements |
Numbers are limited, with priority given to students taking degrees involving English or Scottish Literature and Visiting Students placed by the Admissions Office. Students not in these categories need the written approval of the Head of English Literature before enrolling. In the case of excess applications places will be decided by ballot. |
| Additional Class Delivery Information |
Seminar: 2 hour(s) per week for 10 week(s); plus attendance for one hour a week at Autonomous Learning Group - at time to be arranged. |
| Keywords | ENLI10274 Fairy Tales |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Peter Adkins
Tel: (0131 6)51 7112
Email: Peter.Adkins@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Hope Hamilton
Tel: (0131 6)50 4167
Email: hope.hamilton@ed.ac.uk |
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