Antoine Faivre and the Study of Fairy Tales

Antoine Faivre’s book about fairy tales (Les Contes de Grimm. Mythe et Initiation) has not been so far sufficiently evaluated in studies of esotericism or in folkloristics, although it contains some of the very important concepts of Faivre. This monograph provides an overview of different schools in the study of folklore (among them psychoanalysis and structuralism, at that time very influential in French academia) but the main interest of Faivre remains the symbolism of the fairy tale. The French scholar believes in the initiatic value of genre and in the profound wisdom hidden in fairy tale. The studies of oral narratives interpret the symbols in ethnographical context, while according to Faivre these, just like initiation, have atemporal value. This attitude, so different from folkloristic point of view, is due to the influence of perennialism, although Faivre is ambivalent about it.