Lynda Simon, age 8, of Tucson, Ariz., for her question:
WHERE WERE THE BROTHERS GRIMM FROM?
In the 19th century a wave of patriotism swept German literature. Prussia had been smashed by Napoleon's military strength and all of the German states acknowledged his mastery. Two important writers during this period were brothers by the name of Grimm. They wrote books about the old German heroes and German medieval poetry.
Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (1785 1863) and his brother
Wilhelm Karl Grimm (1786 1859) were born in the German town
of Hanau, sons of a lawyer. They were well educated.
When he was 23, Jacob became the librarian to Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia, and five years later became secretary of the legation and then Hessian ambassador at Paris.
By the time he was 31,Jacob became librarian at the Kassel library where his brother Wilhelm was already employed. They then started collaborating on writing and became famous for their work.
Old German folk tales were collected by the brothers, and to this day the stories from " Grimm's Fairy Tales" are enjoyed' by children in every part of the world. The most famous story in the collection, perhaps, is Hansel and Gretel. Another very popular piece is called "Seven at One Blow,' a story of a tailor who killed sever. flies with one swat and eventually went on to marry the princess and win the kingdom.
The brothers Grimm.were professors at Gottingen for many years, but in 1837 Jacob joined in a plea to retain the Hanover constitution and was forced to leave the country.
Friedrich Wilhelm IV in 1841 invited both brothers to become professors at the Royal University, and they settled into these fine positions in Berlin. The work the brothers did was most valuable to study of comparative linguistics.
Brother Jacob, especially, is given credit with transforming philology from an antiquarian diversion. into a real science.
One of Jacob's outstanding contributions is called " Grimm's Law.'' Having to do with the formulation of Germanic languages, the law provided a comparison with other languages. The law was one of the first important contributions of modern philology to the study of the relationship in the Indo European languages.