GER10 FINAL: Anderson/ The Little Mermaid

What are some Danish versions of mermaid tales?

Creatures of the Sea and Oehlenschläger (by author Ingemann)

How did people describe Anderson

--Compulsive autobiographer, wrote his first memoir in 1832, published a new autobiography for every decade of his adult life --Rags to riches: son of a washerwoman --He was vain, excessively conceited, self-absorbed, and an egotist --ugly and gauche: --Man of secrets: homosexual

Anderson's Denmark

--Denmark was an ally of Napoleon in 1807, a British ship bombarded Copenhagen in 1807, the English towed away the Danish fleet, commerce suffered, a lot of merchants went bankrupt --in 1813, the state was declared bankrupt and had to hand over Norway to Sweden in 1814 (Denmark was the senior partner in a union with Norway; Sweden was part of this union early on but had broken away; Norway was Sweden's reward for being against Napoleon, union lasted until 1905) --Denmark remained an absolute monarchy until 1848: censorship of the press, no real political debate; golden age of culture: because there was no political freedom for the middle and upper classes, much energy went into art, Bertel Thorvaldsen, Kierkegaard

Describe Anderson's family members

--Father a cobbler and freethinker, an intelligent man who was denied opportunities; once said Christ was a man like us, the mother believed that Satan was speaking, spoiled his son, read Arabian Nights to him --mother near illiterate, liked schnapps, but loving (when he was beaten at school, she sent him to a Jewish school), she was an illegitimate child who never knew her father, two more illegitimate children, one of them, Andersen's aunt, ran a brothel; the mother had an illegitimate daughter before she had Hans Christian, this half-sister haunted him --paternal grandfather was insane, grandmother worked in the asylum and young Christian spent some time there, later he feared the legacy of madness; in the spinning room in the asylum, he heard stories about ice maidens, water spirits and trolls

What was The Little Mermaid originally going to be called?

--Had planned to call it "Daughters of the Air"

Important literacy influences on Anderson

--He read widely: Byron, Schiller, Shakespeare, Walter Scott --Influenced by German Romanticism, by literary fairy tales by authors such as Tieck; influenced by E.T.A. Hoffmann, author of the Nutcracker, known for motif of doppelganger

What lead Anderson to writing The Little Mermaid

--Little Mermaid: the fact that this is a fantastic world creates a distance from reality that allows him to express his feelings, as a social outsider and as a forbidden lover --He began writing the tale the day after Jonas Collin's son Edvard married --Mermaid published together with Emperor's New Clothes:

Little Mermaid Publication date

--Was completed on January 23, 1837

Anderson Timeline

--born on April 2, 1805, shotgun wedding two months before he was born --born in the town of Odensen, 8.000 inhabitants, medieval feeling, there were allied soldiers in town when Andersen was little --Proletarian background, never felt at home in the middle class, never bought a house --after father died (when he was eleven), mother washed clothes, up to six hours in icy water, she became addicted to gin --seldom played with others, dreamy child, bullied --he worked in factories, was teased so much that he stopped (he was different, played with a puppet theater, made dresses for dolls) --he had a high soprano voice, started to perform as actor and singer in wealthier households in Odense, made enough money to pay for a coach to Copenhagen --Was fourteen when he left Odense in 1819 to go to Copenhagen and seek his fame in the Danish Royal Theatre --Copenhagen was still like a fortress, had four town gates that were locked at night, one of the most overcrowded cities in Europe (because people could not settle beyond the fortress walls), important trading center in the Baltic, two nights before he arrived, there were pogroms against Jews (pupils given the day off to attend a public execution, epileptic attended to drink the blood of the executed man which was supposed to have curative powers) --Andersen went to the Royal Theater, was turned down, went to the director of the Royal Choir School, who took him on --He received singing lessons, went back and forth between rich house where the lessons were and the poor neighborhood where he lived; when his voice broke, he lost his sponsor but managed to find new ones --He was accepted into the Royal Theater Ballet School, but they soon decided that he lacked both talent and appearance necessary for a career on the stage, he got a position in the Choir and appeared on stage in minor roles --Andersen was fired from the stage, finds support in aristocratic circles, found a patron, Jonas Collin, who paid for his schooling; Collin = Minister of Finance, founder of the Copenhagen Savings Bank, theatre director, schools and prisons inspector, founder of the Danish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Andersen went back to school in the provincial backwater of Slagelse; he was 17, other students in his class were 11; --principal Simon Meisling made Andersen's life hell, Meisling was an acclaimed translator of Virgil and Andersen came to dread Latin, Meisling forbade him to write creatively; used him as babysitter for his children (Andersen made paper cut-outs for children) --He moved into Meisling's home, a filthy house, wife was having affairs with officers, tried to seduce Andersen --Moves with Meisling to the port city Elsinore, situation got so bad that a friend of Andersen talked to his patron Collin and convinced him that Andersen needs to leave Meisling; he received permission to move back to Copenhagen and study with a private tutor; until the end of his life, Andersen had bad dreams about Meisling --Triangular relationship: courts Riborg Voigt, who was engaged to another man, friendship with her brother Christian, --falls in love with Ludvig Müller, then turns his attention to Louise Collin, who becomes engaged to another; triangular relationship with Edvard Collin with whom he remained infatuated --Edvard too is engaged, and the Collin family is eager to see Andersen out of the country; he received a travel grant and they see him off; Edvard's good-bye letter --in May of 1831, he set out for Germany, walking tour, visits with Tieck and Chamisso; in Germany, he learns about mermaid myths died of liver cancer in 1875

What were the important details in the Little Mermaid

--exquisite details --very witty; ironic comment on socially stratified world: --colors of Italy: golden fruits (gold as glittering surface beauty), blue gleam of the sea (blue = sea world); red: sunlight, passion, suffering, blood

Undine Who is the author and what it it about?

AUTHOR: Friedrich de la Motte Fouque: STORY: the Sea King sends his daughter to land so she can gain a soul; she is the changeling child of a poor fisherman (changeling = secretly substituted for the real child, often by fairies); she is wild and impetuous, but has to give up the joys of her amoral existence to gain a soul; a knight Huldebrand falls in love with her and marries her (there is no great difference between wedding and weeping); Huldebrand betrays her with the princess Bertalda, who is the real daughter of the fisherman, he got uneasy once she reveals her superhuman origins; she goes back to the waterworld, but is unwittingly released when a stone is removed from a fountain, Huldbrand drowns in her embrace although she did not intend to kill him; Andersen knew this story; Hoffmann opera based on this tale; it also inspired Swan Lake

Bournonville's ballet La Sylphide,

performed in Copenhagen in 1836; James is about to get married when he falls in love with a sylph; at the altar, the sylph snatches the ring from James who runs after her into the forest; the witch Madge gives him a scarf that would make it impossible for the sylph to run away, but it kills her; James dies

Mermaid myths: origin, symbolism

· Andersen described as a water fanatic who loved to swim · Many stories about mermaids; they are called Undines, selkies, sea-nymphs; appear on earth and marry mortals (but can remain on land only under certain conditions); they sit on rocks, ledges and reefs, have comb or mirror (mirror they hold was originally a symbol of the sea rather than their vanity), scaly tail, blue eyes, blond, · Mermaids sometimes possess powers of prophecy and wish-granting, vengeance when betrayed or thwarted · Mermaids are impenetrable, inaccessible, live in dark and magical underworld, completely removed from the human world; to Jung, water is the symbol of the unconscious, irrational · water: as the source of life in all creation myths; source of death: site of drowning, engulfing · World of pleasure: creatures in the water world don't work, sing and dance; no tears in this world (since life is sweet here, we got the beat here) · Mermaid figures: seductive/sexual; ocean = associated with sexuality, pleasure · But also associated with death; Sea Witch embodies strangulation, destruction and death; her house is made of bones; in the tale, she does not attempt to double-cross her like Ursula · Atlantis-like beauty, home of beauty, sisters sing more beautifully than any human · "They had more beautiful voices than any human being could have; and before the approach of a storm, and when they expected a ship would be lost, they swam before the vessel, and sang sweetly of the delights to be found in the depths of the sea, and begging the sailors not to fear if they sank to the bottom. But the sailors could not understand the song, they took it for the howling of the storm. And these things were never to be beautiful for them; for if the ship sank, the men were drowned, and their dead bodies alone reached the palace of the Sea King." · gap between humans and sea people: humans cannot hear the mermaids sing, sounds like storm to them; what is beautiful to the little mermaid (the storm) is terrifying and deathly to the sailors · Narrator: Human (we) and dedicated to salvation ·No queen, just a king (Poseidon)

The myth of Loreley

· Andersen knew the German myth of Lorelei, mentions it in his autobiography: Heinrich Heine's Loreley: sits on a rock, fishermen drown when they hear her sing

Little Mermaid Theme: Suffering

· Figure of compassion and self-sacrifice: "So she swam about among the beams and planks which strewed the surface of the sea, forgetting that they could crush her to pieces"; she would rather die than kill the prince (self-sacrifice or heroism?) · Biblical theme: for whosoever will save his life shall lose it; she acts as though she had a soul while the prince who supposedly has one acts like he doesn't · Suffering as a badge of spiritual superiority · Suffering: the reason why she has a story to tell · feminist critique: silence and self-sacrifice as ideals of female behavior (did not use her tongue when she still had it)

Differences in Disney's The Little Mermaid

· Happy ending · irony: excited about finding a fork = dinglehopper / comb; she doesn't speak the language or understand the symbols; to her these are symbols of civilization, but it is a collection of the trash of civilization; "she don't got a lot to say, but there is something about her" · religious context (soul) has disappeared completely; desire for human world as a generational conflict, coming of age story: Ariel = rebellious (doesn't show up for rehearsal), adventurous, likes to explore, desire for knowledge ("wish I could be part of that world"); "it seems ludicrous that Ariel should put so much rebellious energy into becoming the girl next door" · the cost of gaining access (walking feels like a knife) disappears · voice is not permanently lost, poured into a shell; but: her voice is more powerful than her beauty · Opens with Prince Eric who hasn't found the right girl yet, saves the dog Max who was left behind on burning ship; saves the day by killing Ursula · Sebastian: Jamaican accent, "up on the shore, they work all day/ Out in the sun, they slave away/ while we're devoting full time to floating/ under the sea" "since life is sweet here, we got the beat here"; surveillance, craven, vain, hapless lackey, racial caricature · Ursula: trying to overthrow Triton's kingdom, wants to make Triton writhe, tricks prince with Ariel's voice, vilifies the sea witch / female power; an octopus = inverted Medusa; based on the drag performer Divine · Grandmother: positive female figure with some power disappears · King Triton: calls humans barbarians, all humans are the same, incapable of any feelings

How many bubbles were drawn in the film?

Over a million bubbles were drawn for this film

Mermaid Literature: Paracelsus... what did he write about?

Paracelsus (15th century), physician, botanist, occultist, astrologer, On Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders: nymphs, the water people; sylphs, the air people; pygmies, the earth people; and salamanders, the fire people; treatise on nature spirits who marry humans to gain a soul; spirits are like humans in every aspect except one: they do not possess souls; according to Paracelsus these beings wooed men, seeking their souls in order to be baptized and be in union with Christ

What was the original date of release of the film?

There were plans to do a Little Mermaid in the 1930s

Agnes and the Merman Plot

Agnes and the Merman: human woman lives with merman for eight years (wife has to live with husband, i.e., has to live in the sea), bears him seven sons, hears church bells and asks to be allowed to go to church, does not return

Why was Disney sued in the Little Mermaid?

Arkansas woman sued Disney because of "penis" on VHS cover

Little Mermaid Theme: Desire to gain a sound

· Religious dimension introduced in the beginning: distance to the bottom of the sea measured in church steeples · "Death itself has in it something interesting to me—something glorious, because a new world will then be opened to me" · immortality as a consolation prize for sexual disappointment; unhappiness in love as precondition for a soul: she acquires a soul precisely when she is no longer looking to the prince for salvation · Andersen: "I have not let the mermaid's acquisition of an immortal soul depend on an alien creature, upon the love of a human being. I'm sure that would be wrong" · deleted ending: "I myself shall strive to win an immortal soul" by being reunited with her lover in the world beyond; deleted because he could not bear the thought that salvation could depend on the love of another person · two plotlines = love and transcendence; from the beginning, she is portrayed as a character who wants to transcend her world; intellectually curious, upwardly mobile: "she cared for nothing but her pretty red flowers, like the sun, excepting a beautiful marble statue. It was the representation of a handsome boy, carved out of pure white stone, which had fallen to the bottom of the sea from a wreck. She planted by the statue a rose-colored weeping willow"; her garden with its sun motifs = transcendence; boy who is unfeeling, made of stone; hint at a bad ending/the weeping willow · What she really wants is a soul, not the prince: "We sometimes live to three hundred years, but when we cease to exist here we only become the foam on the surface of the water, and we have not even a grave down here of those we love. We have not immortal souls, we shall never live again; but, like the green sea-weed, when once it has been cut off, we can never flourish more. Human beings, on the contrary, have a soul which lives forever, lives after the body has been turned to dust. It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars. As we rise out of the water, and behold all the land of the earth, so do they rise to unknown and glorious regions which we shall never see." ·She wins a soul but loses her capacity to create beauty

Little Mermaid Theme: Silence

· Silence: typical test of fairy tales heroines, Twelve Brothers: sister has to knit and remain silent for seven years; in fairy tales, villainy is loquacious, virtue doesn't talk; · propaganda prints from the Reformation have a wife with a padlock on her lips · She must give up her voice to acquire love, loss of voice is a loss of self, her incapacity to explain or defend herself, vulnerable and disempowered, loss of tongue as symbolic castration, fairy tales show how problematic it is when you cannot speak for yourself · Loss of voice = silence of being in the closet · Loss of voice symbolizes the inability to tell stories ·congratulates a friend who got married: "Happiness came to me in another form, came as my muse that gave me a wealth of adventure and songs" (not marriage)

Sirens definition

· Sirens who lure humans to their death: bird-like appearance, Odysseu; later on, portrayed as nymphs

Melusine Who is the author and what is it about?

· Tieck's Melusine: woman who is sometimes part snake, sometimes has fishtail; she marries a knight on the condition that there is one day a year when he is not allowed to see her; she is the origin of his wealth and fortune in the world but he transgresses against the taboo, finds her in the bath, sees her fishtail, she leaves him and returns to the sea

Little Mermaid Theme: Forbidden Love

· portrays Andersen's invisibility as a lover: "He had a page's dress made for her, that she might accompany him on horseback"; she is cross-dressed, he does not perceive her as a potential lover because he does not perceive her as a woman; expression of the writer's anguish that his friend loved a woman with whom he could never compete; like the mermaid, he is existentially different from the other woman · Marrying beyond one's station and yet, mermaid is a noblewoman in her own world ·Hint that they are meant to be together: Shares a birthday with the prince

Selkies definition

·Selkies = mythological creatures in Scottish, Irish and Islandic folklore; Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland: Selkies are said to live as seals in the sea, bask seductively in the sun and can shed their skin to become human on land

Little Mermaid Theme: Separation of Tail into Legs

• entry into sexuality, pain of sexual initiation • walking as symbol of independence: the double-edged sword: pain of growth and independence (feet and footwear feature prominently in fairy tales) • maturation: transition from child to woman; one sister sees swans = symbols of mutability, transformation •cost of pretending to be something you are not