Creative Feature Comparison Of Traditional And Modern Fairy Tales

As a literary form, the fairy tale has a very long history. Roughly speaking, since the beginning of human civilization, the fantasy parts, which is beyond the reality and embodied in various literary forms, can be regarded as the fairy tale thinkings. The early myths and legends can be considered as the forms of expression of fairy tales. That is to say, in the "traditional" stage of the fairy tales, the fairy tales neither have no their own independent thinking, nor have relative mature creation modes. With the development of human civilization and literature forms, the fairy tale begins to grow up in a mature way. In the "modern" stage of fairy tale, the basic creative features of that the fairy tales have the audience of children, have the fantasy as the main characteristic and have the languages suitable for children to read and understand, gradually formed. The process that fairy tales develop in an independent literary form is just the one that fairy tales develop from the "traditional" stage to "modern" stage. This paper tries to analyze two stages in the development process of fairy tales-the "traditional" stage and "modern" stage to explore the development laws of fairy tales, thus to reveal the social values of this literary form.First, we start from the historical context of development of fairy tales, and divide the fairy tale into two stages according to the purposes and creative forms of fairy tales. The first stage is the traditional fairy tales scattered in the myths, legends and other literary forms and spread by listening-and-telling. The second stage is moden fairy tales collected and created specifically for children. Here the distinctions of "traditional " and "modern" are not in the meaning of time or history, but are the differences of creation methods. These two stages can be regarded as fairy tales created by traditional methods and by modern methods respectively. In addition, two concepts of "traditional fairy tale" and "modern fairy tale" are not diametrically opposed. They are two stages in the development of fairy tales, and there must exist a long and extensive intersection of them.Secondly, from the fairy tale's three aspects of the definition, classification and development profile, taking some classic chinese and foreign fairy tales as examples, we identify the creation motivation differences between the tranditional and modern fairy tales on the basis of analyses of fairy tale concept from multiple perspectives. Different definitions and classifications reflect different understandings of the fairy tale from the outside world; while different narrative style, role relationships and themes are the reflections of the fairy tale of outside world. Either from the understanding of fairy tales or from the fairy tales by theirselves, there is a very clear historical evolution process. By analyzing the historical evolution process-from the "traditional" to "modern" process, we further reveal the similarities and differences between traditional and modern fairy tales.Finally, through the analyses of relations between traditional/modern fairy tales and the culture/history/social background, we explore literary values of traditional/modern fairy tales, and further reveal the fairy tale history process, development prospects and social significance.Traditional and modern fairy tales have difference meanings on the deveolpment of fairy tales. The traditional fairy tale is the fairy tale treasure and endless source of resources, which provides the fairy tale creation with a rich fantasy source and broad thinking space. The modern fairy tale is the true carrier of this literary form, which attract more and more attentions because it provides independent thinking spaces and expression forms. The development of fairy tales from the "traditional" stage to "modern" stage is a necessary result. This process is influenced by various aspects:on one hand, the change of audience improves or restricts the development of the fairy tale; on another hand, the fairy tale development is impacted by the laws of social development. To be specifical, the natural science progress enriches form and content for the fairy tale, while the diversification of social ideology promotes the diversification for the fairy tale. Moreover, the progress of human spirit increases humanity and human rights awareness in the fairy tale.You can see, either the traditional or the modern fairy tale has a significant impact on the development of human society. We shall give full attention to the potential impacts of the fairy tale on the futures of society and nation. For example, we can see different culture backgrounds in chinese and west traditional fairy tales; both the conflict and reference could happen during the convergence of chinese and west modern fairy tales; the material creation of modern fairy tales has restricted the development of fairy tales. These problems are not just the literary problem of fairy tale itself. Hence, further mastering the internal development laws of fairy tales and understanding the development direction of the fairy tales could push literary development forward for the whole society.