Flowers for children

Hans Christian Andersen’s early fairy tales and the contemporaneous children’s literature 1835-1844

Abstract

Hans Christian Andersen’s debut as a fairy tale writer coincides with a flowering of literature specifically aimed at children. However, scholarly research has not in any comprehensive way studied or compared Andersen’s early fairy tales with the wealth of children’s literature publications from the 1830s. The main goal of this article is to commence a study of the topic. For example, the German poet Wilhelm Hey’s influential Fablen für Kinder (1833), translated into Danish in 1834 by Christian Winther, seems to play an important role in Andersen’s fairy tale ”The little Ida’s Flowers” (1835). Hey’s religious poetry is also important in a Danish context for the way flowers come to represent children in the children’s literature of the day. In readings of ”The Mayweed” (1838) and ”The Snow Queen” (1844) it is emphasized that Hans Christian Andersen shapes his literary language in such a way that it reflects and addresses his main readers’ extensive knowledge of contemporary children’s literature.