Review of “Twelve Dancing Princesses” by Manuela Stănescu
Manuela Stănescu, Twelve Dancing Princesses: A Short Analysis of Four Variants, afterword Adrian Oțoiu, Ceconi, 2017.
Fairy tales may well be considered to be some of “the best-known stories in the history of literature and culture” (Stănescu, 5). Even though at first sight, these stories appear to be designated for children, beyond the surface, their meaning seems to initiate multiple interpretations among adults, many of these being worth expanding to a full-blown critical study. These are the grounds that the present book was developed on.
Started as a dissertation paper for the KidLit masters programme at CUNBM, Manuela Stănescu’s study The Twelve Dancing Princesses or The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces (Montessori, 2017) is, a comparative analysis of four variants of the well-known fairy tales.
We may say that the present book represents not only a
comparative folklore analysis, but at the same time, a study that helps the
readers to better understand the cultural differences and the historical periods
that form the backgrounds of these fairy tales. Therefore, the four variants of
the fairy tales that Manuela Stănescu have chosen for her research have roots
in ethnic differences and historical context, within both Eastern and Western European
cultures. Two of the fairy tales come from different regions of Romania and they were
collected by Petre Ispirescu and Ovidiu Bârlea; and the other two come from
Western Europe –namely Denmark and Germany – their collectors being Marie-Luise
von Franz and the Grimm Brothers.
Manuela Stănescu brings to the reader’s attention the several elements of similarity among the fairy tales. Some of these are identified as functions in V. Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale such as the basic plot – the Call, the helpers as elderly figures, the journey, the trials of the hero which represent the hero’s initiation or the Goal. Others pertain to the symbolism of numbers, such as the presence of number 12 or 7. Even their titles are similar in that each title “does not refer to the main character [as] the main character of the fairytale is in fact a man, and not the princesses.” (Stănescu, 24).
At the same time, the other elements discussed by the author like the music and the magical dance, both important features of traditional cultures, acquire a symbolic meaning in the fairy tales.
In the chapter called “Encoded Messages in the Fairy Tale”, Ms Stănescu performs a deeper analysis of the fairy tales in order to reveal their hidden message. According to the author, the fairy tales consist of layers (Stănescu, 47) in terms of understanding language, symbols, psychological meaning, and the archetypal pattern. For instance, when analysing the psychological meaning of the fairy tales, Ms Stănescuprivileges their hidden meaning. Thus, the double lives that the princesses had, as well as their frenzy of movement at the dancing ball, are both allusions to the sexual experience.
At the same time, the author demonstrates the influence of the two different backgrounds, the Eastern and the Western one, in the form of the fairy tales.
Manuela Stănescu’s book rests upon various studies from the fields of ethnography, anthropology, psychoanalysis, and especially archetypal criticism – Archetypal Patterns in Fairy Tales by Marie-Louise von Franz plays here a prominent role – and all of them contribute significantly to the development of the present book. For all the ”heavy artillery” of critical studies on which the book was based, the author manages to find her own critical voice, and addresses her readers with short, yet clear sentences in order to attempt on her own to decode the goal meaning of the fairy tales and their variations across time and space.
Mariana Oros
Reference List
Stănescu, Manuela. The Twelve Dancing Princesses : A Short Analysis of the Four Variants. Ceconi, 2017.
