Folk and Fairy Tales

Over the course of this semester I have learned so much in all of my classes, and though it has been difficult some of the things that I have learned will follow me for the rest of my life. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t taken as many intensive classes during this semester so that I could have focused more on this class, because it was one of the more interesting classes I took this semester. I thought the multicultural approach to the class was particularly interesting, and I wish we had learned more about culture and the zeitgeist of each of the stories, being one who loves history and learning how cultural ideas and stories are created and developed. I think this class has both tied in a lot to what I have learned in English but also taught me something new. I never knew there was this whole realm of research done on fairy tales and psychology applied to it. I think I learned a lot about other cultures and how their tales influence culture. I also learned how fairy tales infl...

I think Professor Zaru’s lecture was my favorite we’ve had so far. I loved how she tied in her own life, her experiences, and personal bits to make the stories more interesting. I think that learning about the origin of the stories before is a really interesting aspect that we haven’t experienced to such an extent before. These stories are similar to the ones we have encountered before in the fact that they were first oral tradition and were later written down, but different in that they have their own lore behind them and are all connected into one bigger story. This is different from the Grimm's fairy tales since they came from all different parts of Germany and aren't connected in any way. The fact that people still tell stories orally, and are treated as artists for doing so is also very interesting. In Western culture, their is a tendency to believe that fairy tales are only for children, while in Arab cultures these oral stories are taken seriously. The idea of the su...