context of a socio-cultural development, and even in Dégh's book, not enough attention is paid to the politics of the tales. This is true of most of the work of folklorists who have developed approaches connected to performance theory which focuses on the interaction between performer and audience within a particular social context.

With the exception of critics like Michele Rak, Rudolf Schenda, Lutz Röhrich, and some other European folklorists, very few critics have been concerned with explaining the socio-political connection between the folk and fairy tale. Most of the research has been conducted in the area of the folk tale with heavy emphasis on anthropological, sociologi

languages during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to indicate the ideological separation of “high” and “low” culture and discrimination against fantasy.

is not by chance that the terms fairy tale and conte de fée enter the English and French

Indeed, all power in their tales—and also in the tales of many male writers of that period—resides in the arbitrary and somewhat eccentric fairies. Thus the term fairy tale was very apropos for their literary production, and it gradually eclipsed the more general term folk tale that covered a wide variety of oral tales—unusual anecdotes, initiation

and fairy tales stems from the fact that they do not pretend to be anything but folk and fairy tales, that is, they make no claims to be anything but artistic projections of fantasy.

Paradoxically the magic power of folk

The end result is not an explosion or revolution. Literature and art have never been capable of doing this and never will be.

sometimes assumes totalitarian shapes and hues because the narrative voice is no longer responsive to an active audience but seeks to manipulate it according to the vested interests of the state and private industry.