Between the Prototype and the Adaptation: A Plot Analysis of the Contemporary Editions of Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales - Transformations of the Religious Content

Abstract

Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, for years regarded as children’s literature classics,
remain unknown even among the most committed readers. This is indicated by the results
of a survey I conducted on the knowledge of the content of Andersen’s most popular works.
The answers of the parents of preschool children have prompted me to analyze the latest
publications including the writer’s stories. The article presents my conclusions drawn from
the comparison of contemporary editions of fairy tales for children with their prototypes in
terms of the occurrence of differences in the plot, especially the presence of the religious
content, often overlooked today. The criterion for the selection of the sources, which include
32 Polish books by 14 different publishers, was the date of publication (after 2000) and the
requirement to include at least one of the following stories: “The Snow Queen” (22 texts),
“The Little Mermaid” (18 texts) or “The Wild Swans” (9 texts). The analysis has enabled
indicating certain tendencies in the way changes were introduced to the stories in the editions
of the fairy tales for 4-, 5- and 6-year-olds. It has also highlighted the problem of open
paraphrasing. The second part of the article contains reflections on simplifying fairy tales
for children’s use and methods of removing content considered too difficult and abstract
or sad and traumatic. The article concludes with an evaluation of this phenomenon from
a pedagogical-psychological and publishing perspective.