Professor highlights impact the Brothers Grimm have on German history

Over 40 students, faculty and community members attended the last Athenaeum Series of the spring semester at Southeast Missouri State University. Dr. Fred Poston, professor in the Department of Global Cultures and Languages, presented The Brothers Grimm and Their Mark on World Culture at noon on April 25 in Kent Library.

"The purpose of The Brothers Grimm and Their Mark on World Culture is an explanation of who they were in the time period," Poston said, "I think we have gotten third and fourth [hand] information on the Grimms via the media, films, television and that type of popular entertainment, and don't get the full story of who they were. They were very influential in collecting these fairy tales. Not only were they prolific authors and very influential in collecting these fairy tales, they were intelligent scholars who did a lot of work in many areas, uniting the German language and German Dictionary."

Poston gave the audience a history lesson on the Grimms' work, such as, books of old Danish songs, ballads, fairy tales, children's household fairy tales, volumes of German grammar and a comprehensive German dictionary that was finished in 1960, 98 years after the deaths of the bothers.

Poston gave a 10-question quiz challenging the audience to identify fairy tales written by the Brothers Grimm. Dual-credit high school student Lydia Cameron received a certificate from Poston for naming nine out of 10 fairy tales correctly.

"I grew up watching "Into the Woods," which is a musical combination of Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk and a couple others thrown in there by Stephen Sondheim," Cameron said. "It's a big part of my childhood."