Romantic Fairy Tales (Penguin Classics)

The German Romantics' literary fairy tale, Kunstmarchen, evoked their obsession with mystery, medievalism and humanity's inner darkness. Goethe's innovative Fairy Tale helped establish the genre. Ludwig Tieck's Eckbert the Fair presents a pair of outsiders hiding from the world in the dark woods, engaging in incestuous love. Friedrich de la Motte Fouque's Undine describes a water nymph in love that attains a soul and discovers human anguish. Clemens Brentano's Tale of Honest Casper and Fair Annie presents a young couple overwhelmed by a tragedy born of honor and pride. Intriguing and disturbing, Romantic Fairy Tales reveals the German sensibility's development through the Romantic period. 159 pages.