Slavíci, mořské víly a bolavé zuby - Interpretace pohádek Hanse Christiana Andersena – Březinová Helena (2018)

Why are Andersen's fairy tales so unsettling? A month before his death, Andersen noted: "No sculptor knows me, has not seen me read, does not know that I have no children behind me, on my lap, or on my knee; that my fairy tales are just as much for an older audience as for children. That my tales are only partly naive, that their salt is humor." Humor is indeed found here, but as is well known, salt can be quite pungent. The first Czech monograph on Andersen's fairy tales focuses precisely on their adult dimension, having arisen from the need to bring the sophistication of these well-known tales closer to the Czech reader and to move them, at least in the minds of readers, from the shelves of children's libraries to adult reading. There, they would boldly stand comparison with the works of Andersen's compatriot and another famous representative of the golden age of Danish literature, Søren Kierkegaard. In a bitterly entertaining chapter about Czech translations of Andersen's fairy tales, the reader will also become acquainted with both successful and downright obscure Czech versions of the famous stories.