Andersen's Fairy Tales Research Articles

Travels with BERT: Surfacing the intertextuality in Hans Christian Andersen's travel writing and fairy tales through the network lens of large language model‐based topic modeling

AbstractHans Christian Andersen's fairy tales have garnered the greatest popular and scholarly attention despite the interdependence of works across the broad range of his artistic production. We read Andersen's fairy tales in concert with his travel writing to highlight the intertextual aspects that cross these seemingly distinct genres. We leverage recent advances in large language models (LLM) and network theory to generate representations that facilitate user exploration of these intertextual interdependencies across genres and across time. In the first part of our study, we use BERTopic and an LLM model fine‐tuned for nineteenth‐century Danish literary language to present independent and combined topic models of the two corpuses. This approach supports multi‐scalar analysis of intertextual elements within and across these corpuses, thereby implementing a method for macroscopic reading. In the second part of the study, we develop a series of networked representations of the dependencies between fairy tales, where these dependencies are generated on the basis of the shared intertextual topic space of the fairy tales and the travel writing.

Derivational Suffixes Forming Adjectives and Their Syntactic Functions in reference to Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales

Derivational Suffixes Forming Adjectives and Their Syntactic Functions in reference to Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales

Artificial intelligence - the emperor's new clothes?

There is a massive hype of artificial intelligence (AI) allegedly revolutionizing medicine. However, algorithms have been at the core of medicine for centuries and have been implemented in technologies such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging machines for decades. They have given decision support in electrocardiogram machines without much attention. So, what is new with AI? To withstand the massive hype of AI, we should learn from the little child in H.C. Andersen's fairytale "The emperor's new clothes" revealing the collective figment of the emperor having new clothes. While AI certainly accelerates algorithmic medicine, we must learn from history and avoid implementing AI because it allegedly is new - we must implement it because we can demonstrate that it is useful.

Hemodynamics of the left cerebral hemisphere during silent reading:analysis using near-infrared spectroscopy.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the hemodynamic activity in the left cerebral hemisphere during silent reading in college students with typical development using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Sixty college students with typical development participated in this study. In the silent reading task, participants were asked to read a text from Andersen's fairy tale. Then, the change in oxygenated hemoglobin (oxy-Hb) concentration during silent reading of the text was calculated. The number of letters read during the silent reading task was also measured to calculate the silent reading speed. The average trend graph of 60 college students revealed increased oxy-Hb concentration in both the left inferior frontal gyrus (Broca's area) and the left inferior occipitotemporal gyrus during silent reading. A negative correlation was found between the change in oxy-Hb concentration in Broca's area and silent reading speed. A positive correlation was found between oxy-Hb concentration change in the left inferior occipitotemporal gyrus and silent reading speed. The increase in oxy-Hb concentration in Broca's area observed during silent reading may reflect effortful reading in students with reading difficulty. The increase in oxy-Hb concentration in the left inferior occipitotemporal gyrus observed during silent reading may reflect proficiency in reading. Our findings suggest the usefulness of NIRS in assessing reading function and its potential use in the diagnosis of developmental dyslexia. J. Med. Invest. 71 : 267-272, August, 2024.

An Analysis of Disability in The Little Mermaid: Examining Disparities and Similarities in the Fairytale and Its Movie Adaptation

Differences and disabilities have always been a part of oral tradition and folklore. These differences greatly influenced story-telling that eventually stemmed from oral tradition. The western canon has included disability in their literature for some time now, but their portrayal of disability from the beginning to the twentieth century has drastically improved. Fairytales and folktales were historically associated with values and morals, and the moral system during the olden times was completely patriarchal and abelistic. The tales never offered any space for disability to exist as a simple part of an individual's life. This paper aims to investigate the representation of disability in Disney's version of Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale, "The Little Mermaid", and attempts to understand disability in the light of fairytales. There are some major and vital differences between the original story by Hans Christian and the movie by Disney, but do they accommodate positive signals that counteract the ableist society? Does the movie reflect the truth about a disabled person's life? Or is it still a profusion of negative elements that reinforce oppression and discrimination? This paper examines the narratives employed in the movie and the original fairy tale and attempts to address the issues of identity, stigma, and stereotypes based on the representation of disability in both genres.

On Subtitle Translation of “Frozen” from the Perspective of Halliday’s Register Theory

As a Disney 3D animated film, “Frozen”, based on Andersen's fairy tale “Snow Queen”, was produced to commemorate the 90th anniversary of Disney’s founding. The film tells the story of the small country Arendale, which is permanently covered by ice and snow due to a magic spell. In order to retrieve the summer, Princess Anna, the mountain people Christopher and his reindeer partner set out in a team to embark on an adventure to save the kingdom. The research object of this thesis is the Chinese version of subtitle translation of “Frozen”. Register theory is an important content of the Systemic Functional School represented by Halliday. This paper extracts several paragraphs from the subtitle translation of “Frozen” as research materials, and analyzes them from the perspectives of field, mode and tenor. This paper includes four parts. The first part is a background introduction, the second part is an introduction to register theory, the third part analyzes the subtitle translation of the movie “Frozen” from the perspective of register theory, and the fourth part is a summary. Keywords: Frozen, Register theory, Translation strategy DOI: 10.7176/JLLL/97-04 Publication date : April 30 t h 2023

The translation of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales and his intertextual world in China1

AbstractThe retranslations of Andersen's fairy tales in the twentieth century have promoted the canonization of Andersen in the modern Chinese literary system. Today, Chinese readers of different ages are fascinated by Andersen's works and the images created by him. However, the literary and cultural significance of Andersen to China lies in his influence. In this paper, the authors will first review the history of translating Andersen's fairy tales in China and then analyze some cases from Chinese literature and culture within the theoretical framework of intertextuality, in an attempt to specify the influence of Andersen on modern Chinese literature and culture. It is argued that Andersen's fairy tales have been cross‐culturally woven into Chinese children's as well as adult literature when the intertextual devices are applied by writers in their own literary creations; meanwhile the fictional elements of the tales are intertextually merged, as symbols, into other forms of cultural products where they are involved in a critical construction of modern Chinese culture.

Pristup Andersenovoj bajci Mala sirena preko aktancijalnog modela An Ibersfeld

In the light of Propp's analysis of the structure of fairy tales and the linguisticsemantic research of Anne Ubersfeld, this paper deals with the interpretation of the H. K. Andersen's fairy tale The Little Mermaid through The Actantial Model of Anne Ubersfeld, revealing the meaning richness of this fairy tale on the one hand and showing how The Actantial Model is equally applicable and useful in in-depth analyzes of non-dramatic texts. In the paper, The Little Mermaid is analyzed through several different actantial models, which will allow us to show how the very understanding of the fairy tale is directly conditioned by the choice of actantial model we use (e.g. if we have in mind the Christian subtext or the model of secular satisfaction. In the first case, we will see why the fairy tale has "happy ending" and in the second case we interpret it in the light of its tragic ending). This paper is an example of the extent to which Anne Ubersfeld's Actantial Model allows for different interpretations, in-depth analysis and diverse approaches to the dramatic processing of the text.

Fractal Sentiments and Fairy Tales - Fractal scaling of narrative arcs as predictor of the perceived quality of Andersen's fairy tales

This article explores the sentiment dynamics present in narratives and their contribution to literary appreciation. Specifically, we investigate whether a certain type of sentiment development in a literary narrative correlates with its quality as perceived by a large number of readers. While we do not expect a story's sentiment arc to relate directly to readers' appreciation, we focus on its internal coherence as measured by its sentiment arc's level of fractality as a potential predictor of literary quality. To measure the arcs' fractality we use the Hurst exponent, a popular measure of fractal patterns that reflects the predictability or self-similarity of a time series. We apply this measure to the fairy tales of H.C. Andersen, using GoodReads' scores to approximate their level of appreciation. Based on our results we suggest that there might be an optimal balance between predictability and surprise in a sentiment arcs' structure that contributes to the perceived quality of a narrative text.

Kelly Sinnapah Mary’s Quarantine

Working with multiple mediums (oil painting, pastels, watercolour, textiles, mixed-media sculpture, photography, mixed-media installation, video), Indo-Caribbean artist Kelly Sinnapah Mary deploys a range of visual references that represent a fuller breadth of processes of creolisation than is sometimes recognisable in contemporary Caribbean art. Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales, Walt Disney characters, and Hindu gods and goddesses reside in each other and together on Sinnapah Mary’s canvases. This article argues that in her latest series, Quarantine (2020), these figures are not simply interlocutors in the artist’s explorations, but signifiers of interlocution as a mode of analysis and expression. Assembled over Covid-19 lockdown in her native Guadeloupe, Sinnipah Mary’s Quarantine artworks are tasked with storying her present and advancing analysis of her self.

The Witch in the Closet: Disney's Frozen as Adaptation and Its Potential for Queer and Feminist Readings

The Witch in the Closet: Disney's <i>Frozen</i> as Adaptation and Its Potential for Queer and Feminist Readings

Translation of Andersen's fairy tales in China during the New Culture Movement

Translation of Andersen's fairy tales in China during the New Culture Movement

Voicing the Subaltern? The Sámi Child Enters Zacharias Topelius's Mid-nineteenth-Century Fairy Tales

Voicing the Subaltern?The Sámi Child Enters Zacharias Topelius's Mid-nineteenth-Century Fairy Tales Olle Widhe (bio) Tales of Lapland The Sámi have constituted an important motif in Nordic children's literature since Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "Snedronningen" ("The Snow Queen," 1845). Andersen's fairy tale unfolds in Lapland, and recently won renewed fame in the Walt Disney Pictures film Frozen (2013). This article, however, is not about Andersen's famous fairy tale. Instead I want to focus on fairy tales portraying the Sámi written and published by the Fenno-Swedish author Zacharias Topelius in the mid-nineteenth century. Besides Andersen, Topelius is the most important writer for children in the Nordic countries during the romantic period. Even though he is seldom read by young people today, his importance to the history of Nordic children's literature is nonetheless comparable to that of Astrid Lindgren's in the second half of the twentieth century (Svensson 76). Topelius is considerably less known internationally than Andersen; however, he is often said to be the creator of Swedish-language children's literature, and his first collection of stories was published in 1847 (Westin; Zipes; Kümmerling-Meibauer). Topelius belonged to the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland and thus contributed to the genre in both Sweden and Finland. In addition to a variety of texts for adults that feature the Sámi, he published a wide range of Sámi stories for children (Widhe, "Trollkarlar och små barn"; Conrad). Portrayals of the Sámi are already present in "Skeppet Rephanut" ("The Ship Rephanut," 1847), which was included in Topelius's first book for children. A Sámi wizard has a crucial function, helping a greedy rich merchant become even richer, before his luck [End Page 302] runs out and he ends up a poor beggar. Another of Topelius's fairy tales for children in which the Sámi play a significant role is "Prinsessan Lindagull" (1848), which recalls the One Thousand and One Nights. These two early fairy tales are followed by a range of others, among which "Sampo Lappelill: En saga från Lappland" ("Sampo Lappelill: A fairy tale from Lapland," 1860) and "Stjernöga" ("Stareye,"1873) are the most distinguished. In both tales, probably for the first time in the history of children's literature, the hero of the story is a Sámi child. The Sámi are one of the largest indigenous groups in Europe, and their ancestral land, Sápmi, or Lapland, spans an area the size of Sweden in the Nordic countries. The Sámi were up till recently known as "Lapps" or "Fenni." In nineteenth-century Finland, the Sámi were largely a repressed people who occupied a silenced, marginalized, and subaltern subject position (Junka-Aikio). The term "subaltern" was promoted by Gayatri Spivak (1988) in her seminal article, "Can the Subaltern Speak?," in which she maintained that the subaltern cannot speak if there is no opportunity for authentic exchange between speaker and listener. The term subaltern is not just another word for the oppressed or the discriminated. The subalterns are refused a space where they can express themselves, and they are silenced through a discursive and structural exclusion from communication. In the case of children's literature, however, it seems like Topelius's romantic appraisal and elevation of the child during the mid-nineteenth century involves, at least to some degree, a countering of the inferior status ascribed to the Sámi. Elaborating on the role of the Sámi in Topelius's thinking and writing, Jens Grandell convincingly argues that he upholds a Eurocentric discourse that regards them as a cultural other. According to this view the Sámi people were important to Topelius only because they helped him to define the Finns, in contrast, as superior, and thus Sámi were vital for his efforts to build a Finnish identity and establish Finland as a nation. In this essay, however, I want to point to a certain ambivalence in the attitude toward the Sámi people in Topelius's writing for children that has yet to be properly discussed. In his fairy tale about the Sámi boy...

Notas ecocríticas sobre A Dríade e outros contos arbóreos de Andersen

O ensaio apresenta o conto Dryaden / The Dryad de H. C. Andersen junto com referências a outros contos de fadas andersenianos, onde uma árvore tem um papel central dentro da narrativa. A partir de uma abordagem ecocrítica destaca-se a postura crítica do conto em relação ao triunfo da modernidade na Europa do século XIX.

The shock of The Red Shoes

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1948 film The Red Shoes, weaves an adaptation of a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale into a story about contemporary dance, in the process pioneering the representation of ballet in cinema. It is a masterpiece of Technicolor film-making, deploying the creativity of cinematographer Jack Cardiff and Production Designer Hein Heckroth with award-winning results. The film's eponymous colour is central to its complex meditation on artistry, femininity and women's choices, most acutely focused on the divided character of Vicki (performed by prima ballerina Moira Shearer in her first film role).

Inside Back Cover: An Elemental Phosphorus Photocatalyst with a Record High Hydrogen Evolution Efficiency (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 33/2016)

The little match girl a character in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, curiously stares at the bubbles popping up from the match head. In the Communication on page 9580 ff., Z. R. Shen, J. C. Yu et al. unveil the mystery of the magical scene: phosphorus (match head) in water can generate hydrogen (bubbles) under illumination. The image (designed by Z. F. Hu) depicts the process of hydrogen evolution on fibrous-phase phosphorus, a record-breaking photocatalyst.

The Constant Muse: Copyright and Creative Agency

In 1873, ailing Hans Christian Andersen traveled to Switzerland, where he sought treatment at a spa in Glion, high above Lake Geneva, drinking daily doses of whey-a cure that brought affluent people from all over Europe to Swiss resorts. The whey did nothing for him. This is no surprise considering that two years later he died of a cancer from which he was in all likelihood already suffering. A family from Hamburg stayed in the room directly above him, a Mr. Mai, his wife, and their young daughter. Andersen kept company with them, among other guests in the spa, and on Thursday, May 29, he recorded in his diary:The weather doesn't look promising today either. I slept with many interruptions, but slept nonetheless. My ringworm itches constantly and I have many small liver spots on my legs, what does that mean? A letter from Mrs. Melchior and from Simon Henriques. A visit from Mr. Mai, who maintained that the about What the Old Man was taken from Grimm. I told him it was a Danish folktale and that Grimm had never composed a fairy tale, he was only a collector. . . . I am not in a good mood.(Andersen, H. C. Andersens dagboger vol. 10, 93; my translation)What the Old Man Does Is Always Right appeared in 1861 in the second series of Andersen's New Fairy Tales and Stories. In introductory remarks to a complete collection of his tales published in 1874, a year after Mr. Mai's visit, Andersen notes that 'What the Old Man Does Is Always Right' is one of the Danish folktales I heard as a child and I have here retold in my own (Andersen, H. C. Andersens eventyr vol. 6, 19; my translation).Ten recordings of the tale are found in the Danish Folklore Archives, according to head archivist Else Marie Kofod, most of them recorded from 1854 to 1902 and the earliest from 1756 (Kofod 41-42 and 168-70). Andersen was correct, then, in explaining to Mr. Mai that What the Old Man Does Is Always Right is a tradi- tional folktale and that it was well known in Denmark, though he overreached in claiming that it was a Danish folktale. As Mr. Mai pointed out, the Brothers Grimm published a version of the same tale forty-nine years earlier in the first volume of the very first edition of their folktale collection, the Kinder- und Hausmarchen. The Grimms call it Hans-im-Gluck, or Lucky Hans, and it is a traditional numskull tale with broad international distribution.1A review published in Berlingske Tidende, the Danish equivalent of The Times, praises What the Old Man Does Is Always Right as excellent example of Andersen's storytelling, distinguished by such a freshness . . . that even when he tells old we all . . . he tells it in such a way that it seems to us a wholly new story, which we are encountering for the first time (qtd. in Topsoe-Jensen 220; my translation). A dissenting review published in Dansk Maanedsskrift, a monthly cultural magazine, found however that What the Old Man Does Is Always Right was absolutely the best story in the collection, precisely because through the magnificence of its subject and its parable-like conciseness it gives the of a true folk fiction (Rosenberg 450; my translation). The measure of Andersen's authorship in an old we all know is thus, on the one hand, the degree of originality (freshness) that he breathes into it through his peculiar manner of telling it, but on the other hand, ironically, the degree to which it captures and conveys the impression of a true folk fiction.It seems fair to say that the international success of Andersen's fairy tales owes much to how deftly they resolve this paradox. At the same time, it is worth recalling that this dynamic tension between tradition and creativity is not peculiar to Andersen, nor even to literary fairy tales; it is the heart of the storyteller's art and characteristic of folklore in general, not only of its literary adaptations. In this essay I propose a genealogy of this dynamic tension. …

Denmark's Ugly Ducklings: Georg Brandes and Asta Nielsen's Metacultural Contributions to Constructions of Danish National Identity

ON MAY 14, 1914, the newest, largest passenger liner in die world, a German steamship of the Hamburg-America line christened Vaterland [Fatherland], began its maiden voyage across the Atlantic. In a marketing ploy to allay potential customers' fears stemming from the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the company invited celebrities throughout Europe to come along on the voyage. Among the luminaries who made the trans-Atlantic trip were two Danes, the literary critic Georg Brandes (1842-1927) and die silent film diva Asta Nielsen (1881-1972). (1) The elderly but consummately elegant Brandes was the ultra-chic Nielsen's table companion on board; publicity photographs show Nielsen and Brandes promenading on deck often accompanied by Nielsen's then-husband Urban Gad. The maiden voyage of the Vaterland was notable not only for its successful marketing tactics, albeit soon made redundant by the outbreak of World War I, (2) but also as a time capsule for the final years of Europe's belle epoque, during which Brandes and Nielsen, at the height of their respective international reputations, appeared together as die preeminent, fashionable representatives of Danish culture in the European public sphere. Both owed their fame to their skillful and successful participation in processes of cultural production in die emerging mass-media venues of the newspaper and the cinema. In this article, I explore the extent to which Nielsen and Brandes's work and resulting status as world-famous Danes encompassed a concomitant metacultural function: producing cultural artifacts that contributed to shaping contemporary public perceptions of Danish culture both within and outside Denmark. As defined by Benjamin Lee, professor of anthropology at The New School for Social Research, metaculture consists of judgments people make about similarities and differences, [when] they judge token instances of cultural production to be manifestations of the same cultural element (Urban xi). Although the artistic merit of Brandes's and Nielsen's books and films is well-established, the metacultural implications of their work as die basis for public judgments about the nature of Danish culture as a whole are equally significant despite a dearth of scholarly attention to the topic. As a result, their friendship, which lasted from the early 1910s until Brandes's death in 1927, has more than simply personal significance. Their international prominence made them highly visible cultural ambassadors to die rest of the world, particularly Germany. Both Brandes and Nielsen were associated with Scandinavian modernity: Brandes for his impassioned advocacy of a socially-engaged modern literature and Nielsen for her compelling cinematic depictions of strong-willed, sexually emancipated women. Though a generation apart, Nielsen and Brandes shared not only fame, but also a conflicted relationship with the homeland they loved but that failed to encompass their talents or ambitions. Despite the acclaim they received throughout Europe, particularly in Germany, neither enjoyed the same degree of popularity at home in Denmark, where their success abroad branded them as foreign. Much like the ugly duckling of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, an analogy applied to Nielsen by several contemporary critics, they found the Danish farmyard overly confining and subsequently departed into the wider world to develop their talents. However, even after the world recognized them as swans, many Danes still regarded them as ungainly misfits unworthy of recognition or respect. One of the most significant reason for this reaction was that the progressive image of Denmark evoked throughout Europe by the metacultural associations of Nielsen's and Brandes's work did not yet correspond to the self-perception of mainstream Danish society, which was still caught in the throes of a prolonged transition from a provincial, conservative culture into the liberal state Denmark would eventually become. …

Undressing the Emperor? On the ethical dilemmas of hierarchical knowledge

The title refers to Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale “The Emperor's New Clothes”. It indicates how hierarchies of power dominate what we see and how we act – in short, our ethical interaction. The author considers collaboration to be a prerequisite for improving quality in the arenas of health and social work, in persons as well as systems. She argues that a radical change in the direction of understanding knowledge and competence as co-creational is required. This again calls for a redefinition not only of the role of professions, of what it takes to be a professional, but also of the role of the user. Consequently, the author's approach challenges the institutional framework of health and social work, as well as the content and methodology of teaching.

Erinnerung als Konstruktion: August Strindbergs „Ett halvt ark papper“

Research on Strindberg's short story “Ett halvt ark papper” has ascribed a therapeutic effect to the protagonist's memorialization of the past two years of his life. In this view, the story ends happily, as the narrator tells us. In contrast, the aim of this article is to show the narrator's unreliability. He not only fits together the puzzle pieces of the protagonist's life story into a coherent narration, but he also wants to meet the demands of the genre “Fairytale”, which is the title of the book containing “Ett halvt ark papper”. A coherent narration, however, can only be obtained by neglecting the uncertainties of the protagonist's life. Nobody knows what exactly happened to him. What seems to be his memories is in fact the constructed memorialization of the narrator. Additionally, there are strong textual signs indicating an ironic attitude of the narrator towards H.C. Andersen's fairytales and his “fairytale sound”. Does this mean that it is the narrator's goal to make a fairytale out of the protagonist's tragic fate?