More. Than. True chapter. By. Rabindranath. Tagore Summary
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More Than True: The Wisdom of Fairy Tales is a detailed look at six fairytales. Bly is an American poet, essayist, activist, and leader of the mythopoetic men's movement. His most commercially successful book to date was Iron John: A Book About Men a key text of the mythopoetic men's movement, which spent 62 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. He won the 1968 National Book Award for Poetry for his book The Light Around the Body.
Throughout history, stories have been used as entertainment, to keep history alive, and to embellish praise on leaders and heroes. Stories were set to rhythm by use of meter or beat. Later stories were told by bards and set to music. Religions used oral traditions to carry on the beliefs. No one recorded the actual words of deities or even the actual teachings of Buddha. Word of mouth and oral traditions were how stories were kept alive.
We look at fairy tales and even nursery rhymes and find out there is much more to them. Baa Baa Black Sheep was about a wool tariff. Sleeping Beauty is a tale of rape in the 17th Century Italian version of the story. The original versions of Little Red Riding Hood did not have a happy ending for Red. So many of our favorite tales are actually pretty violent and not the happy endings we know. These tales were more for adults than children. What if there is a deeper meaning in fairy tales and their symbolism.
Bly looks at six fairy tales in this books and examines their meaning and symbolism. Of the five stories used I was only familiar with The Frog Prince. The examination of the tales ties them to earlier versions and earlier symbolism, sometimes going back to ancient Egypt. Since stories are oral traditions they mixed and intermingled with other similar stories that carried more meaning. What may seem like a stretch at times is actually researched and well connected to other stories. Very well done, but perhaps a much deeper look at fairy tales than one would expect. Enjoyable, but be warned it is a scholarly work and not light reading.
which river is mentioned in the chapter more than true