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Mathias Winther was born in 1795, near the town
of Odense. Like H. C. Andersen,
he came from an impoverished background, and his formal
education in Copenhagen as
a surgeon and natural scientist was never satisfactorily
completed. From our sources, it is unclear what, if any,
instruction he received toward the development of his
literary talents. It is clear that his interest in the
surgical art was lukewarm, and that he had definite literary
aspirations. His contacts during his brief study periods
in Copenhagen included J. M. Thiele,who would soon emerge
as the great collector of Danish legends,
and K. L. Rahbek, a co-editor of the remarkable early
ballad edition called Danske Viser fra Middelalderen (Copenhagen,
1813). A letter has been preserved from Winther to Rahbek
which discusses a number of "previously unpublished" ballads
from Odense that Winther had
offered to copy for Rahbek or Thiele.
It would appear, then, that Winther's formal occupation
and his real interests could hardly have been more radically
opposed. Before his publication of the Danish Folk
Tales, he had gotten some original poetry and even
one three-act play into print. And he continued after
1823 with a steady stream of literary, scientific, and
journalistic publications, although he never followed
up his folktale collection
with a second volume, despite his promise to that effect
in the "Preface" of his "volume I." At length, after
numerous difficulties with his superiors, Winther lost
his surgeon's position, and he never again managed to
establish himself either financially or artistically.
Finally charged with slander because of an article in
one of his publications, he died in 1834, an intractable,
bohemian and ill-starred personality.
In spite of his pioneering work in folklore, Winther
has not enjoyed a great deal of respect by some recent
folklorists. It has been pointed out that his volume
includes material found in both German folklore ("The
Pancake House," cf. "Hansel and Gretel") and professional
literature ("The
Man and his Shadow," cf. Chamisso's
Peter Schlemihl), although his note apparatus is said
to show "respectable ambitions." We will attempt to show
that Winther is worthy of more consideration than this.
Not only was Winther taking an important first step
in contacting and trading material with other early collectors,
but he was assembling his material and arranging for
its publication at a time before such material had become
fashionable. The vogue of children's literature designed
to serve an expanding middle class had not yet arrived.
As Winther admits in his own "Preface," it was by no
means certain that the stories, with their odd and at
times violent implications, would be considered appropriate
for children. His pilot collection appears to be an attempt
to test the market response; the lack of a sequel, unfortunately,
tells us only too well what conclusion he drew.
Winther's attempt to trace his stories not only shows
that his intentions were respectable, it shows that he
was not attempting to pass off borrowed materials as
if they were indigenous. We cannot prove that Winther's
oral source for "The
Pancake House" was unaware of the existence of a Grimm tale
with the same basic content. In fact, as Dal points out,
some of the Kinder- und Hausmärschen had even appeared
in Danish translation in 1821. But it is clear from his
notes in this edition that Winther himself was unaware
of the German collection and its contents. Variants of
the tale have also been identified in all of the Nordic
countries, even in non Germanic languages. And the differences
between "The
Pancake House" and "Haensel and Gretel," small though
they are, demonstrate clearly that the story was not
lifted directly from the Grimms'
collection.
Winther's notes at the end of his book are admittedly
cryptic and generally unanalytical. But they do have
their flashes of insight, and show that the editor was
well-read. His use of Straparola for comparative material,
for example, is not an unreasonable idea by modern standards,
although it is clear from his notes that he was more
concerned with motivic resemblances than with "tale types" or
structural elements. No wonder, in an age when no one
had ever deliberated over the matter of tale types or
structures.
In sum, if one excludes the early work of the Grimm brothers,
there was little printed matter of any kind with which
to compare the material Winther found in Denmark,
and even less commentary or analysis. Winther was basically
treading new ground. We may regret that he was less dedicated
a scholar than the Grimm brothers
were.1 But we cannot fault him for accomplishing that
which he managed to do in his own way.
T. Sands
J. Massengale |
