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Grimm Thoughts: Episode 7

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Episode 7

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Grimm Thoughts, Episode 7

Marina Warner uses psychoanalysis to explain meanings behind the Grimm Brothers' tales.

Marina Warner puts the insight of psychoanalysis on the couch in her exploration of selected Grimm brothers' tales. From December 2012.

When the Grimm brothers first published their Children's and Household Tales in 1812, in a scholarly effort to collate a national identity of the people, it was the beginning of an obsessive project of two intricately interwoven lifetimes. 

To mark the bicentenary of the first edition, writer and mythographer Marina Warner explores the many compelling and often controversial aspects of the tales in a 10-part series, revealing new insights into the stories we think we know so well, and introducing us to the charms and challenges of those that we don't. 

Alongside beautifully narrated extracts from the tales themselves, renowned academics and artists who work closely with the Grimm's rich heritage add to our understanding of these deceptively complex stories. 

Oedipal struggle in Cinderella; oral fixation in Hansel and Gretel; Little Red Riding Hood and attachment complex! Writers, psychologists and therapists have read deeper meanings into the Grimms' fairy tales. They have long been the subject of Freudian and Jungian interpretations and continue to be used by therapists and self-help authors today. In today's seventh episode of the series, we put the tales on the couch and discuss with psychoanalyst Susie Orbach their primal capacity to take on the unreal form of a dream.


Producer: Kevin Dawson
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.

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Marina Warner explores the the Grimm brothers' stories from a new angle

To mark the bicentenary of the Grimm brothers' tales, Marina Warner explores the stories from a new angle

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