Abstract

[The Legal Roots of Folktale] The analysis of normative representations in literary texts is one of the main lines of the studies in the context of the relationship between Law and Literature. In this area of research, the folktale is certainly one of the richest narrative forms for the original legal motifs, precisely because of its historical origins in the oral tradition. Over the centuries the folktale has consequently become a pedagogical model of legal communication, assuming the social function of transmitting to the new generations the founding rules of civil living. In this sense, the possible legal canons in the folktales are not just fantastic elements, but also real folkloric rules and, specifically, a historical legacy of realistic normative phenomena (both substantive and procedural). The purpose of this paper is therefore to show how the folktales collected by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm can be interpreted as a hermeneutic guide to modern Law.