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Fairy Tales and Forests: The Grimms and Caspar David Friedrich

Neil MacGregor examines how the tales of the Grimms and the art of Caspar David Friedrich re-established an identity for the German-speaking people after their defeat by Napoleon.

Continuing a week of programmes with a focus on the things which bind Germans together, Neil MacGregor reveals how the fairy tales collected by the Grimms and the landscape art of Caspar David Friedrich played a vital role in re-establishing an identity for German-speaking people who had been defeated by Napoleon.

While the Grimms were studying the German language and the inner German-ness present in the folk-tales they collected, Friedrich used landscape as the external vision of being German.

Producer Paul Kobrak.

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15 minutes

Last on

Wed 8 Oct 2014 00:30
BBC Radio 4

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Luther and a Language for All Germans

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One Nation Under Goethe

See all episodes from Germany: Memories of a Nation

Broadcasts

  • Tue 7 Oct 2014 09:45
    BBC Radio 4 FM
  • Tue 7 Oct 2014 19:45
    BBC Radio 4
  • Wed 8 Oct 2014 00:30
    BBC Radio 4

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