Reading the Brothers Grimm to Jenny (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Lisel Mueller
- First Published: 1967
- Type of Work: Meditation
- Genres: Poetry, Meditation
- Subjects: Girls, Children, Parents and children, Death or dying, Fairy tales
The Poem
“Reading the Brothers Grimm to Jenny” is a forty-six-line poem arranged in four stanzas. Jacob Grimm and his brother Wilhelm were well-known nineteenth century German collectors of fairy tales. As the title indicates, the poet is reading these fairy tales to her daughter Jenny. In later collections, the poem includes the subtitle “Dead means somebody has to kiss you,” which shows that Jenny is young enough to form her image of death from a fairy tale, specifically from the story of Snow White, who was awakened from deathlike sleep by a kiss. Although the poet...
[The entire page is 1364 words long]
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