Fairytale in the Ancient World by Graham Anderson (review)

Steve Nimis

Mouseion: Journal of the Classical Association of Canada, Volume 2, Number

3, 2002, XLVI—Series III, pp. 404-406 (Review)

Published by University of Toronto Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/mou.2002.0005

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/591195/summary

Access provided at 12 Jan 2020 21:49 GMT from University of Nebraska - Lincoln
4°4 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS

GRAHAM ANDERSON. Fairytale in the Ancient World. New

York: Routledge. 2000. Pp. xi + 240. $39.99. ISBN 0-4 15-
23703-3 (pb); $120.00. ISBW 0-415-23702-5 (hb).

Anderson sets out in this book to assess the prevalence and provenance
of fairytales in antiquity. Does our fairytale tradition extend in time to
the classical period of literature? What manifestations of that tradition
are discernible in classical literature? As in his 1984 book on the origin
of the ancient novels (Ancient Fiction: The Novel in the Greco-Roman
World), which identified patterns of action similar to those of the Greek
and Roman novels in near-eastern avatars, Anderson is interested in
tracing the influences and paths of diffusion of widely dispersed stories.
He rejects the idea that fairytales have multiple origins and insists on
the more difficult hypothesis that parallels and analogs of various kinds
in widely distributed cultures are better accounted for by tracking more
original forms of the stories and identifying their transitions and trans-
formations through time and space. Among those who find this the less
likely scenario, Anderson's book will not change many minds. Although
he has read very widely and surveyed an astonishing number of tradi-
tions, the author does not provide many examples that clinch his argu-
ment, but rather collects a large number of possibilities that could be
explained either way.
Tracing parallels and identifying possible sources is a tricky business
and Anderson is a witty and ingenious practitioner of this subtle art. It
is frequently the case that he suggests a rather tenuous similarity as
evidence for a source or parallel and on the basis of that connection con-
tinues to add more and more tenuous possibilities, until an amazing
web of connections emerges, no single element of which would be con-
vincing on its own. The overall impression of the many examples 'An-
derson discusses is that the argument is over-ingenious, or over zeal-
ous, since there is something of the missionary zeal in Anderson's pro-
ject to give fairytale its proper place in classical literature. Anderson is
determined to correct the "prejudice" against fairytale by arguing that
"myth, folktale and novel are different presentations of the same mate-
rial" (57). I cannot say whether it is true that classicists consider fairy-
tale to be beneath them or that classical literature cannot possibly be
tainted with folktale-I can think of some important examples of the
opposite-but this claim seems to be the driving force behind Ander-
son's work. What Anderson is best at is finding connections among sto-
ries; what to do with those connections or why we are interested in
them is a further question for which this book provides less guidance.
He seems to suggest that these tales are told and retold not because they
respond to some basic human need (which would equally justify the
 BOOK I?EVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 4°5

polygenesis theory) but simply because they were there already. The
history of narrative is for him a continuous expansion and diffusion of a
limited number of tale types. and once he has discovered some basis for
influence or parallelism. his work is done. It is thus the theoretical parts
of the book. the methodological introduction and the concluding re-
marks on folktale and society and on folktale and literature. where An-
derson is least satisfactory.
For example. in noting the resilience of folktale materiaL an impor-
tant theme in his book. Anderson states that" a genuine folktale. or
fairytale will maintain most of its structure. intrinsic logic and basic
identity for centuries or millennia on end" (19). Most of the ideas in this
sentence are very problematic. What makes folktale or fairy tale
"genuine" and to what are such genuine tales opposed? literary elabora-
tions? Hollywood revisions? propaganda? The statement seems to take
for granted the existence of some kind of authentic storytelling that has
a certain "structure. intrinsic logic and basic identity." However. the
majority of the examples discussed display a dizzying diversity. and it is
very difficult to see any structure or intrinsic logic that could be speci-
fied to exist in all of the Cinderella or Snow White versions that Ander-
son discusses. Elsewhere the author uses expressions like "naturally
stable" (IS). "authentic" (16). "same basic material" (57). "original Ur-
form" (79). "skeleton of a story" (96). "basic framework" (101) in ways
that gloss over important issues of definition. In addition. Anderson
throughout the book refers to "elements" and "fragments" that are
symptomatic of a tale type. despite the loss of essential features. Moreo-
ver. the idea that "genuine" narrative traditions are "stable" for millen-
nia seems to imply-although this is never stated-a basic human na-
ture that is also stable for millennia. These are not issues that can simply
be avoided in a discussion of narrative traditions. Most symptomatic of
Anderson's interests is his dismissal of Propp's "morphology" of folk-
tale in favor of the more ample Aarne-Thompson classification system.
Whereas the former tends toward greater and greater abstraction. the
latter is more encyclopedic and allows for many connections and asso-
ciations to be made. In concluding that "the picture begins to emerge of
a shrinking and increasingly incestuous fairytale community where
everyone knows or is related to everybody else" (170). Anderson is
simply rehearsing his own assumption for the whole work.
When it comes to particular analyses. there are certainly some con-
nections that are more convincing than others. To see Chariton's Callir-
hoe as a version of the "Innocent Slandered Maid " (AT Type 883) is not
too controversial: this is certainly a parallel to part of the story. But this
portion of the novel has been linked to specific examples of New Com-
edy. a well-attested genre from which this and other novels often draw
406 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS

elements of plot and character-in fact, Chariton several times quotes

Menander directly. It seems perverse to foreground a general connec-
tion with a story "type" when a specific literary precedent exists that is
attested by direct citation. In the case of Xenophon of Ephesus, we might
expect that the explanation that he is adapting a Snow White folktale in
his Epheisan Tale would lead to a more sympathetic treatment of this
much-maligned novelist's plot structure; yet it turns out that he is just
as incompetent at this as everything else. The "elements" are there, but
irrationally distributed among the characters of the story. More un-
helpful yet, to my mind, is the association between Cinderella and the
novels of Longus and Heliodorus. In these two novels, in particular, it is
the literary texture that is so distinctive, something that can't simply be
attributed to an "expansion" or "elaboration" of a simpler story. The
three-sentence summary of Heliodorus' Ethiopian Tale on 147 makes it
sound like a Cinderella story, but no one who has read the novel will
recognize this summary as capturing anything essential about the
novel.
The work reads a little like a detective novel in which more and more
pieces of evidence are accumulated to reveal a massive plot. The gist of
that plot is that fairytales similar to the ones that have been told in
Europe since at least the Renaissance-Snow White, Cinderella, Little
Red Riding Hood-may have a much longer history going back beyond
classical antiquity. And indeed they may. It is reasonable that folk nar-
rative traditions are as old as language itself, although how "stable"
those traditions are is difficult to assess with the evidence that Ander-
son adduces. It is not clear whether reading ancient literary narratives
in the light of modern folktale constructions will tell us much about
those old stories. Anderson's attempt to do so is a bold foray into an
enormous field. Despite the objections I have raised to his approach and
emphasis, I am impressed by the range of his reading and thinking on
this topic. Anderson is currently working on an anthology of ancient
fairytales which may provide a better basis for answering the questions
that this first effort raises.

STEVE NIMIS
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS
MIAMI UNIVERSITY
OXFORD, OH 45056