Fairy tale
The fairy tale is a type of fantasy story. It is closely related to the folktale and parable.
Fairy tales became wildly popular stories for children in the 19th century, when a number of writers either collected popular or local tales (e.g., the Grimm Brothers' collection from a number of women of many stories, which they then wrote down in their own style)), or wrote stories that had fairy tale forms (e.g., Hans Christian Andersen). Many children's illustrators became famous through illustrating fairy tales of various sorts; e.g., Arthur Rackham, Kay Nielsen, etc.
Fairy tales frequently feature anthropomorphic animals or magical beasts, and are thus related to fables, fabulist literature, and to furry stories.
In the 20th century, fairy tales have continued their popularity. They have been frequently adapted for film and television, and media companies have also based new "fairy tale"-like stories on folklore, history, and myth. See, e.g., Disney, Pixar, etc.
In the late 20th century, fairy tales have been the subject of significant feminist inquiry and revisioning. Numerous feminist studies of the archetypal characters within fairy tales have examined gender roles, the ways in which fairy tales draw from or respond to patriarchal cultures, relate to older matriarchal cultural influences, etc. See:
Feminists have also been significantly involved in rewriting fairy tales, e.g., "twisted fairy tales", "feminist fairy tales", etc., that seek to replace images of passive princesses or damsels in distress with active, courageous female characters. See
See also:
- List of fairy tale female characters
- List of fairy tale writers and collectors
- List of feminist fairy tale scholarship
- List of feminist retellings of fairy tales
- List of collections of traditional feminist fairy and folk tales
- List of collections of modern feminist fairy tales
- List of collections of fairy tales by women