Кому принадлежала горошина в сказке принцесса на горошине

История создания

«Принцессу на горошине» написал датский писатель Ганс Христиан Андерсен в 1835 году. Для автора она стала одним из первых произведений, в котором он бросает вызов сложившимся представлениям об аристократическом знатном происхождении, утверждая, что по рождению истинное благородство не может быть получено. Особенностью сказки является её сюжет. В нем используется простой текст, а также минимум основных и второстепенных героев.

Андерсен опубликовал «Принцессу на горошине» в тематическом детском литературном журнале и получил прекрасные отзывы критиков. В скором времени был издан сборник его сказок, который включал это произведение.

Писатель утверждал, что сказка является одним из его любимых творений, именно она принесла ему популярность и славу, открыв дверь в мир литераторов-сказочников.

Действующие лица

Главный герой произведения — молодой принц, желающий жениться на настоящей принцессе. Он благороден в своих поступках, но часто разочаровывается из-за неудачной любви. К главным персонажам сказки также относится принцесса — нежная и прекрасная девушка, ставшая парой своему избраннику. Второстепенные герои:

• королева — мудрая женщина и мать принца;
• король — добродушный и справедливый отец принца.

Родители поддержали сына, когда он решил отправиться в дальнее странствие в поисках своей любви, и предложили ему свою помощь.

Ганс Христиан Андерсен специально выбрал лишь четырех действующих персонажей, чтобы упростить и сделать сказку интересной для маленьких детишек. Благодаря доступному изложению сегодня «Принцессу на горошине» кратко читают ученики младших классов. С помощью этой сказки они учатся делать пересказ литературных произведений.

Краткое содержание

Сказка «Принцесса на горошине» — простое и легкое для восприятия произведение. Ее сюжет гласит, что в одном королевстве жил молодой принц, который хотел жениться на настоящей принцессе. Он много поездил по свету, но так и не нашел своей любви. Принцесс было предостаточно, однако их благородство и чистосердечность поступков всегда вызывали сомнение. Принц после нескольких лет странствий вернулся домой и горевал, что не смог найти настоящую любовь.

Однажды поздно вечером во время бури в замок постучались. Старый король открыл дверь и увидел на пороге насквозь промокшую красивую девушку. Каково было его удивление, когда он понял, что в воротах стоит настоящая принцесса. Король проводил гостью в замок, а его супруга решила проверить, действительно ли девушка та, кем себя называет.

Для незнакомки отвели лучшие покои и сделали необычную постель, положив на доски горошину, а сверху — сорок матрасов и мягкие пуховые перины. Это было испытание для принцессы. Утром за завтраком у девушки спросили, как ей спалось на новом месте. Юная красавица ответила, что, несмотря на усталость, сомкнуть глаз не смогла, потому что ей приходилось спать на чем-то твердом, а её тело всё в синяках.

Теперь старый король, его супруга и сын были уверены, что перед ними настоящая принцесса, ведь только человек благородного происхождения мог через сорок перин и подушек почувствовать маленькую горошинку. Принц влюбился в девушку и сделал ей предложение. Они поженились и жили счастливо на протяжении многих лет.

Характеристики героев

Старый добрый король олицетворяет в этой сказке мудрых, честных и благородных правителей, которые заботились о своем народе. Он правит уже много лет, смог завоевать доверие и почет. Старая королева — любящая мать, которая желает своему сыну исключительно добра. Она знает старинный способ проверки настоящих принцесс и смогла определить, что постучавшаяся в их замок гостья имеет благородное происхождение.

Молодой принц олицетворяет образ благородного рыцаря, который ради прекрасной дамы готов совершить невозможное. Он немало постранствовал по свету, надеясь найти принцессу, которую мог бы полюбить всем сердцем. В сказке рассказывается, что он совершил подвиги, достойные храброго и честного рыцаря. Для принца характерны следующие черты:

• благородство;
• отвага;
• доброта;
• честность.

О девушке, постучавшейся в грозу в ворота замка, практически ничего не известно. Она смиренно попросила помощи и разрешения переночевать в грозу, планируя затем продолжить свой путь. Подготовленное королевой испытание позволило установить, что в жилах гостьи течет голубая кровь. Именно ее и искал принц, чтобы взять в жёны.

«The Princess and the Pea»
by Hans Christian Andersen
1911 Illustration by Edmund Dulac
Original title	Prinsessen paa Ærten
Translator	Charles Boner
Country	Denmark
Language	Danish
Genre(s)	Literary fairy tale
Published in	Tales, Told for Children. First Collection. First Booklet. 1835.
Publication type	Fairy tale collection
Publisher	C.A. Reitzel
Media type	Print
Publication date	8 May 1835
Published in English	1846 in A Danish Story-Book
Full text
The Princess and the Pea at Wikisource

«The Princess and the Pea» (Danish: «Prinsessen paa Ærten»; direct translation: «The Princess on the Pea»)^[1] is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a young woman whose royal ancestry is established by a test of her sensitivity. The tale was first published with three others by Andersen in an inexpensive booklet on 8 May 1835 in Copenhagen by C. A. Reitzel.

Andersen had heard the story as a child, and it likely has its source in folk material, possibly originating from Sweden, as it is unknown in the Danish oral tradition.^[1] Neither «The Princess and the Pea» nor Andersen’s other tales of 1835 were well received by Danish critics, who disliked their casual, chatty style and their lack of morals.^[2]

The tale is classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as ATU 704, «The Princess and the Pea».^[3]

Plot[edit]

The story tells of a prince who wants to marry a princess but is having difficulty finding a suitable wife. Something is always wrong with those he meets and he cannot be certain they are real princesses because they have bad table manners or they are not his type. One stormy night, a young woman drenched with rain seeks shelter in the prince’s castle. She claims to be a princess, but no one believes her because of the way she looks. The prince’s mother decides to test their unexpected guest by placing a pea in the bed she is offered for the night, covered by twenty mattresses and twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses.

In the morning, the princess tells her hosts that she endured a sleepless night, kept awake by something hard in the bed that she is certain has bruised her. With the proof of her bruised back, the princess passes the test and the prince rejoices happily, for only a real princess would have the sensitivity to feel a pea through such a quantity of bedding. The two are happily married, and the story ends with the pea being placed in a museum, where, according to the story, it can still be seen today unless someone has stolen it.

Sources[edit]

In his preface to the second volume of Tales and Stories (1863), Andersen claims to have heard the story in his childhood,^[4][5] but the tale has never been a traditional one in Denmark.^[6] He may as a child have heard a Swedish version, «Princess Who Lay on Seven Peas» («Princessa’ som lå’ på sju ärter»), which tells of an orphan girl who establishes her identity after a sympathetic helper (a cat or a dog) informs her that an object (a bean, a pea or a straw) had been placed under her mattress.^[1]

Composition[edit]

Andersen deliberately cultivated a funny and colloquial style in the tales of 1835, reminiscent of oral storytelling techniques rather than the sophisticated literary devices of the fairy tales written by les précieuses, E. T. A. Hoffmann and other precursors. The earliest reviews criticized Andersen for not following such models. In the second volume of the 1863 edition of his collected works, Andersen remarked in the preface: «The style should be such that one hears the narrator. Therefore, the language had to be similar to the spoken word; the stories are for children but adults too should be able to listen in.»^[4] Although no materials appear to exist specifically addressing the composition of «The Princess and the Pea», Andersen does speak to the writing of the first four tales of 1835 of which «The Princess on the Pea» is one. On New Year’s Day 1835, Andersen wrote to a friend: «I am now starting on some ‘fairy tales for children.’ I am going to win over future generations, you may want to know» and, in a letter dated February 1835 he wrote to the poet Bernhard Severin Ingemann: «I have started some ‘Fairy Tales Told for Children and believe I have succeeded. I have told a couple of tales which as a child I was happy about and which I do not believe are known and have written them exactly the way I would tell them to a child.» Andersen had finished the tales by March 1835 and told Admiral Wulff’s daughter, Henriette: «I have also written some fairy tales for children; Ørsted says about them that if The Improvisatore makes me famous then these will make me immortal, for they are the most perfect things I have written; but I myself do not think so.»^[7] On 26  March, he observed that «[the fairy tales] will be published in April, and people will say: the work of my immortality! Of course, I shan’t enjoy the experience in this world.»^[7]

Publication[edit]

«The Princess and the Pea» was first published in Copenhagen, Denmark by C.A. Reitzel on 8  May 1835 in an unbound 61-page booklet called Tales, Told for Children. First Collection. First Booklet. 1835. (Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. Første Samling. Første Hefte. 1835.). «The Princess and the Pea» was the third tale in the collection, with «The Tinderbox» («Fyrtøiet«), «Little Claus and Big Claus» («Lille Claus og store Claus«) and «Little Ida’s Flowers» («Den Lille Idas Blomster«). The booklet was priced at twenty-four shillings (the equivalent of 25  Dkr. or approximately US$5 as of 2009),^[4] and the publisher paid Andersen 30 rixdollars (US$450 as of 2009).^[7] A second edition was published in 1842 and a third in 1845.^[4] «The Princess and the Pea» was reprinted on 18 December 1849 in Tales. 1850. with illustrations by Vilhelm Pedersen. The story was published again on 15  December 1862, in Tales and Stories. First Volume. 1862.The first Danish reviews of Andersen’s 1835 tales appeared in 1836 and were hostile. Critics disliked the informal, chatty style and the lack of morals,^[2] and offered Andersen no encouragement. One literary journal failed to mention the tales at all, while another advised Andersen not to waste his time writing «wonder stories». He was told he «lacked the usual form of that kind of poetry … and would not study models». Andersen felt he was working against their preconceived notions of what a fairy tale should be and returned to writing novels, believing it to be his true calling.^[8]

English translation[edit]

Charles Boner was the first to translate «The Princess and the Pea» into English, working from a German translation that had increased Andersen’s lone pea to a trio of peas in an attempt to make the story more credible, an embellishment also added by another early English translator, Caroline Peachey.^[9] Boner’s translation was published as «The Princess on the Peas» in A Danish Story-Book in 1846.^[6] Boner has been accused of missing the satire of the tale by ending with the rhetorical question, «Now was not that a lady of exquisite feeling?» rather than Andersen’s joke of the pea being placed in the Royal Museum.^[9] Boner and Peachey’s work established the standard for English translations of the fairy tales, which, for almost a century, as Wullschlager notes, «continued to range from the inadequate to the abysmal».^[10]

An alternate translation to the title was The Princess and the Bean, in The Birch-Tree Fairy Book.^[11]

[edit]

Wullschlager observes that in «The Princess and the Pea» Andersen blended his childhood memories of a primitive world of violence, death and inexorable fate, with his social climber’s private romance about the serene, secure and cultivated Danish bourgeoisie, which did not quite accept him as one of their own. Researcher Jack Zipes said that Andersen, during his lifetime, «was obliged to act as a dominated subject within the dominant social circles despite his fame and recognition as a writer»; Andersen, therefore, developed a feared and loved the view of the aristocracy. Others have said that Andersen constantly felt as though he did not belong, and longed to be a part of the upper class.^[12] The nervousness and humiliations Andersen suffered in the presence of the bourgeoisie were mythologized by the storyteller in the tale of «The Princess and the Pea», with Andersen himself the morbidly sensitive princess who can feel a pea through 20  mattresses.^[13] Maria Tatar notes that, unlike the folk heroine of his source material for the story, Andersen’s princess has no need to resort to deceit to establish her identity; her sensitivity is enough to validate her nobility. For Andersen, she indicates, «true» nobility is derived not from an individual’s birth but from their sensitivity. Andersen’s insistence upon sensitivity as the exclusive privilege of nobility challenges modern notions about character and social worth. The princess’s sensitivity, however, may be a metaphor for her depth of feeling and compassion.^[1]

While a 1905 article in the American Journal of Education recommended the story for children aged 8–10,^[14] «The Princess and the Pea» was not uniformly well received by critics. Toksvig wrote in 1934, «[the story] seems to the reviewer not only indelicate but indefensible, in so far as the child might absorb the false idea that great ladies must always be so terribly thin-skinned.»^[15] Tatar notes that the princess’s sensitivity has been interpreted as poor manners rather than a manifestation of noble birth, a view said to be based on «the cultural association between women’s physical sensitivity and emotional sensitivity, specifically, the link between a woman reporting her physical experience of touch and negative images of women who are hypersensitive to physical conditions, who complain about trivialities, and who demand special treatment».^[1]

Researcher Jack Zipes notes that the tale is told tongue-in-cheek, with Andersen poking fun at the «curious and ridiculous» measures taken by the nobility to establish the value of bloodlines. He also notes that the author makes a case for sensitivity being the decisive factor in determining royal authenticity and that Andersen «never tired of glorifying the sensitive nature of an elite class of people».^[16]

“The Princess and the Pea” spurred on positive criticism, as well. In fact, critic Paul Hazard pointed out the realistic aspects of the fairy tale that make it easily relatable to all people. He believed that «the world Andersen witnessed—which encompassed sorrow, death, evil and man’s follies—is reflected in his tales,» and most evidently in «The Princess and the Pea.» Another scholar, Niels Kofoed, noticed that “since they involve everyday-life themes of love, death, nature, injustice, suffering and poverty, they appeal to all races, ideologies, classes and genders.” Moreover, Celia Catlett Anderson realized that one of the things that makes this story so appealing and relatable is that optimism prevails over pessimism, especially for the main character of the princess. This inspires hope in the readers for their own futures and strength within themselves.^[17]

Adaptations[edit]

In 1927, German composer Ernst Toch published an opera based on «The Princess and the Pea», with a libretto by Benno Elkan.^[18] Reportedly this opera was very popular in the American student repertoires;^[19] the music, as well as the English translation (by Marion Farquhar), were praised in a review in Notes.^[18] The story was adapted to the musical stage in 1959 as Once Upon a Mattress, with comedian Carol Burnett playing the play’s heroine, Princess Winnifred the Woebegone. The musical was revived in 1997 with Sarah Jessica Parker in the role. A television adaptation of «The Princess and the Pea» starred Liza Minnelli in a Faerie Tale Theatre episode in 1984. The story has been adapted into three films, a six-minute IMAX production in 2001, one full-length animation film in 2002 and the 2005 feature-length movie featuring Carol Burnett and Zooey Deschanel.^[1] The tale was the basis for a story in The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka^[20] and Lane Smith, wherein the prince decides to slip a bowling ball underneath one hundred mattresses after three years of unsuccessful attempts with the pea. In the morning, the princess comes downstairs and tells the queen, «This might sound odd but I think you need another mattress. I felt like I was sleeping on a lump as big as a bowling ball.» satisfying the king and the queen. The princess marries the prince and they live happily, though maybe not entirely honestly, ever after.^[21] American poet Jane Shore published a poem, «The Princess and the Pea», in the January 1973 issue of Poetry, in which a close dependency between princess and pea is posited: «I lie in my skin as in an ugly coat: / my body owned by the citizens / who ache and turn whenever I turn / on the pea on which so much depends» (13-16).^[22] Russian writer Evgeny Shvarts incorporates the story, with two other Andersen stories, in his Naked King.^[23] In 2019, Simon Hood published a contemporary version of the story with animated illustrations.^[24] Both the language and the illustrations modernised the story, while the plot itself remained close to traditional versions.

Similar tales[edit]

Tales of extreme sensitivity are infrequent in world culture but a few have been recorded. As early as the 1st century, Seneca the Younger had mentioned a legend about a Sybaris native who slept on a bed of roses and suffered due to one petal folding over.^[25] Also similar is the medieval Perso-Arabic legend of al-Nadirah.^[26] The 11th-century Kathasaritsagara by Somadeva tells of a young man who claims to be especially fastidious about beds. After sleeping in a bed on top of seven mattresses newly made with clean sheets, the young man rises in great pain. A crooked red mark is discovered on his body and upon investigation, a hair is found on the bottom-most mattress of the bed.^[6] An Italian tale called «The Most Sensitive Woman» tells of a woman whose foot is bandaged after a jasmine petal falls upon it. The Brothers Grimm included a «Princess on the Pea» tale in an edition of their Kinder- und Hausmärchen but removed it after they discovered that it belonged to the Danish literary tradition.^[1]

A few folk tales feature a boy discovering a pea or a bean assumed to be of great value. After the boy enters a castle and is given a bed of straw for the night he tosses and turns in his sleep, attempting to guard his treasure. Some observers are persuaded that the boy is restless because he is unaccustomed to sleeping on straw and is therefore of aristocratic blood.^[1] In the more popular versions of the tale, only one pea is used. However, Charles Boner added in two more peas in his translation of the story upon which Andersen based his tale. Other differences amongst versions can be seen in various numbers of mattresses as well as feather beds. Versions of the story differ based on whether or not the character of the helper is included. The helper, in some cases, tells the princess to pretend she slept badly. In other versions, the helper does not appear at all and the princess decides to lie all on her own.^[27]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Bataller Català, Alexandre. (2018). «La princesa i el pèsol» (ATU 704): de les reescriptures escolars a la construcció identitària. Estudis de Literatura Oral Popular / Studies in Oral Folk Literature. 27. 10.17345/elop201827-46.
• Shojaei Kawan, Christine. (2005). The Princess on the Pea: Andersen, Grimm and the Orient. Fabula. 46. 89-115. 10.1515/fabl.2005.46.1-2.89.

External links[edit]

• «Prinsessen på Ærten» Original Danish text
• «The Princess and the Pea» English translation by Jean Hersholt
• Archived audio version of the story
• The Princess and the Pea public domain audiobook at LibriVox

«The Princess and the Pea»
by Hans Christian Andersen
1911 Illustration by Edmund Dulac
Original title	Prinsessen paa Ærten
Translator	Charles Boner
Country	Denmark
Language	Danish
Genre(s)	Literary fairy tale
Published in	Tales, Told for Children. First Collection. First Booklet. 1835.
Publication type	Fairy tale collection
Publisher	C.A. Reitzel
Media type	Print
Publication date	8 May 1835
Published in English	1846 in A Danish Story-Book
Full text
The Princess and the Pea at Wikisource

«The Princess and the Pea» (Danish: «Prinsessen paa Ærten»; direct translation: «The Princess on the Pea»)^[1] is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a young woman whose royal ancestry is established by a test of her sensitivity. The tale was first published with three others by Andersen in an inexpensive booklet on 8 May 1835 in Copenhagen by C. A. Reitzel.

Andersen had heard the story as a child, and it likely has its source in folk material, possibly originating from Sweden, as it is unknown in the Danish oral tradition.^[1] Neither «The Princess and the Pea» nor Andersen’s other tales of 1835 were well received by Danish critics, who disliked their casual, chatty style and their lack of morals.^[2]

The tale is classified in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index as ATU 704, «The Princess and the Pea».^[3]

Plot[edit]

The story tells of a prince who wants to marry a princess but is having difficulty finding a suitable wife. Something is always wrong with those he meets and he cannot be certain they are real princesses because they have bad table manners or they are not his type. One stormy night, a young woman drenched with rain seeks shelter in the prince’s castle. She claims to be a princess, but no one believes her because of the way she looks. The prince’s mother decides to test their unexpected guest by placing a pea in the bed she is offered for the night, covered by twenty mattresses and twenty eider-down beds on top of the mattresses.

In the morning, the princess tells her hosts that she endured a sleepless night, kept awake by something hard in the bed that she is certain has bruised her. With the proof of her bruised back, the princess passes the test and the prince rejoices happily, for only a real princess would have the sensitivity to feel a pea through such a quantity of bedding. The two are happily married, and the story ends with the pea being placed in a museum, where, according to the story, it can still be seen today unless someone has stolen it.

Sources[edit]

In his preface to the second volume of Tales and Stories (1863), Andersen claims to have heard the story in his childhood,^[4][5] but the tale has never been a traditional one in Denmark.^[6] He may as a child have heard a Swedish version, «Princess Who Lay on Seven Peas» («Princessa’ som lå’ på sju ärter»), which tells of an orphan girl who establishes her identity after a sympathetic helper (a cat or a dog) informs her that an object (a bean, a pea or a straw) had been placed under her mattress.^[1]

Composition[edit]

Andersen deliberately cultivated a funny and colloquial style in the tales of 1835, reminiscent of oral storytelling techniques rather than the sophisticated literary devices of the fairy tales written by les précieuses, E. T. A. Hoffmann and other precursors. The earliest reviews criticized Andersen for not following such models. In the second volume of the 1863 edition of his collected works, Andersen remarked in the preface: «The style should be such that one hears the narrator. Therefore, the language had to be similar to the spoken word; the stories are for children but adults too should be able to listen in.»^[4] Although no materials appear to exist specifically addressing the composition of «The Princess and the Pea», Andersen does speak to the writing of the first four tales of 1835 of which «The Princess on the Pea» is one. On New Year’s Day 1835, Andersen wrote to a friend: «I am now starting on some ‘fairy tales for children.’ I am going to win over future generations, you may want to know» and, in a letter dated February 1835 he wrote to the poet Bernhard Severin Ingemann: «I have started some ‘Fairy Tales Told for Children and believe I have succeeded. I have told a couple of tales which as a child I was happy about and which I do not believe are known and have written them exactly the way I would tell them to a child.» Andersen had finished the tales by March 1835 and told Admiral Wulff’s daughter, Henriette: «I have also written some fairy tales for children; Ørsted says about them that if The Improvisatore makes me famous then these will make me immortal, for they are the most perfect things I have written; but I myself do not think so.»^[7] On 26  March, he observed that «[the fairy tales] will be published in April, and people will say: the work of my immortality! Of course, I shan’t enjoy the experience in this world.»^[7]

Publication[edit]

«The Princess and the Pea» was first published in Copenhagen, Denmark by C.A. Reitzel on 8  May 1835 in an unbound 61-page booklet called Tales, Told for Children. First Collection. First Booklet. 1835. (Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. Første Samling. Første Hefte. 1835.). «The Princess and the Pea» was the third tale in the collection, with «The Tinderbox» («Fyrtøiet«), «Little Claus and Big Claus» («Lille Claus og store Claus«) and «Little Ida’s Flowers» («Den Lille Idas Blomster«). The booklet was priced at twenty-four shillings (the equivalent of 25  Dkr. or approximately US$5 as of 2009),^[4] and the publisher paid Andersen 30 rixdollars (US$450 as of 2009).^[7] A second edition was published in 1842 and a third in 1845.^[4] «The Princess and the Pea» was reprinted on 18 December 1849 in Tales. 1850. with illustrations by Vilhelm Pedersen. The story was published again on 15  December 1862, in Tales and Stories. First Volume. 1862.The first Danish reviews of Andersen’s 1835 tales appeared in 1836 and were hostile. Critics disliked the informal, chatty style and the lack of morals,^[2] and offered Andersen no encouragement. One literary journal failed to mention the tales at all, while another advised Andersen not to waste his time writing «wonder stories». He was told he «lacked the usual form of that kind of poetry … and would not study models». Andersen felt he was working against their preconceived notions of what a fairy tale should be and returned to writing novels, believing it to be his true calling.^[8]

English translation[edit]

Charles Boner was the first to translate «The Princess and the Pea» into English, working from a German translation that had increased Andersen’s lone pea to a trio of peas in an attempt to make the story more credible, an embellishment also added by another early English translator, Caroline Peachey.^[9] Boner’s translation was published as «The Princess on the Peas» in A Danish Story-Book in 1846.^[6] Boner has been accused of missing the satire of the tale by ending with the rhetorical question, «Now was not that a lady of exquisite feeling?» rather than Andersen’s joke of the pea being placed in the Royal Museum.^[9] Boner and Peachey’s work established the standard for English translations of the fairy tales, which, for almost a century, as Wullschlager notes, «continued to range from the inadequate to the abysmal».^[10]

An alternate translation to the title was The Princess and the Bean, in The Birch-Tree Fairy Book.^[11]

[edit]

Wullschlager observes that in «The Princess and the Pea» Andersen blended his childhood memories of a primitive world of violence, death and inexorable fate, with his social climber’s private romance about the serene, secure and cultivated Danish bourgeoisie, which did not quite accept him as one of their own. Researcher Jack Zipes said that Andersen, during his lifetime, «was obliged to act as a dominated subject within the dominant social circles despite his fame and recognition as a writer»; Andersen, therefore, developed a feared and loved the view of the aristocracy. Others have said that Andersen constantly felt as though he did not belong, and longed to be a part of the upper class.^[12] The nervousness and humiliations Andersen suffered in the presence of the bourgeoisie were mythologized by the storyteller in the tale of «The Princess and the Pea», with Andersen himself the morbidly sensitive princess who can feel a pea through 20  mattresses.^[13] Maria Tatar notes that, unlike the folk heroine of his source material for the story, Andersen’s princess has no need to resort to deceit to establish her identity; her sensitivity is enough to validate her nobility. For Andersen, she indicates, «true» nobility is derived not from an individual’s birth but from their sensitivity. Andersen’s insistence upon sensitivity as the exclusive privilege of nobility challenges modern notions about character and social worth. The princess’s sensitivity, however, may be a metaphor for her depth of feeling and compassion.^[1]

While a 1905 article in the American Journal of Education recommended the story for children aged 8–10,^[14] «The Princess and the Pea» was not uniformly well received by critics. Toksvig wrote in 1934, «[the story] seems to the reviewer not only indelicate but indefensible, in so far as the child might absorb the false idea that great ladies must always be so terribly thin-skinned.»^[15] Tatar notes that the princess’s sensitivity has been interpreted as poor manners rather than a manifestation of noble birth, a view said to be based on «the cultural association between women’s physical sensitivity and emotional sensitivity, specifically, the link between a woman reporting her physical experience of touch and negative images of women who are hypersensitive to physical conditions, who complain about trivialities, and who demand special treatment».^[1]

Researcher Jack Zipes notes that the tale is told tongue-in-cheek, with Andersen poking fun at the «curious and ridiculous» measures taken by the nobility to establish the value of bloodlines. He also notes that the author makes a case for sensitivity being the decisive factor in determining royal authenticity and that Andersen «never tired of glorifying the sensitive nature of an elite class of people».^[16]

“The Princess and the Pea” spurred on positive criticism, as well. In fact, critic Paul Hazard pointed out the realistic aspects of the fairy tale that make it easily relatable to all people. He believed that «the world Andersen witnessed—which encompassed sorrow, death, evil and man’s follies—is reflected in his tales,» and most evidently in «The Princess and the Pea.» Another scholar, Niels Kofoed, noticed that “since they involve everyday-life themes of love, death, nature, injustice, suffering and poverty, they appeal to all races, ideologies, classes and genders.” Moreover, Celia Catlett Anderson realized that one of the things that makes this story so appealing and relatable is that optimism prevails over pessimism, especially for the main character of the princess. This inspires hope in the readers for their own futures and strength within themselves.^[17]

Adaptations[edit]

In 1927, German composer Ernst Toch published an opera based on «The Princess and the Pea», with a libretto by Benno Elkan.^[18] Reportedly this opera was very popular in the American student repertoires;^[19] the music, as well as the English translation (by Marion Farquhar), were praised in a review in Notes.^[18] The story was adapted to the musical stage in 1959 as Once Upon a Mattress, with comedian Carol Burnett playing the play’s heroine, Princess Winnifred the Woebegone. The musical was revived in 1997 with Sarah Jessica Parker in the role. A television adaptation of «The Princess and the Pea» starred Liza Minnelli in a Faerie Tale Theatre episode in 1984. The story has been adapted into three films, a six-minute IMAX production in 2001, one full-length animation film in 2002 and the 2005 feature-length movie featuring Carol Burnett and Zooey Deschanel.^[1] The tale was the basis for a story in The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka^[20] and Lane Smith, wherein the prince decides to slip a bowling ball underneath one hundred mattresses after three years of unsuccessful attempts with the pea. In the morning, the princess comes downstairs and tells the queen, «This might sound odd but I think you need another mattress. I felt like I was sleeping on a lump as big as a bowling ball.» satisfying the king and the queen. The princess marries the prince and they live happily, though maybe not entirely honestly, ever after.^[21] American poet Jane Shore published a poem, «The Princess and the Pea», in the January 1973 issue of Poetry, in which a close dependency between princess and pea is posited: «I lie in my skin as in an ugly coat: / my body owned by the citizens / who ache and turn whenever I turn / on the pea on which so much depends» (13-16).^[22] Russian writer Evgeny Shvarts incorporates the story, with two other Andersen stories, in his Naked King.^[23] In 2019, Simon Hood published a contemporary version of the story with animated illustrations.^[24] Both the language and the illustrations modernised the story, while the plot itself remained close to traditional versions.

Similar tales[edit]

Tales of extreme sensitivity are infrequent in world culture but a few have been recorded. As early as the 1st century, Seneca the Younger had mentioned a legend about a Sybaris native who slept on a bed of roses and suffered due to one petal folding over.^[25] Also similar is the medieval Perso-Arabic legend of al-Nadirah.^[26] The 11th-century Kathasaritsagara by Somadeva tells of a young man who claims to be especially fastidious about beds. After sleeping in a bed on top of seven mattresses newly made with clean sheets, the young man rises in great pain. A crooked red mark is discovered on his body and upon investigation, a hair is found on the bottom-most mattress of the bed.^[6] An Italian tale called «The Most Sensitive Woman» tells of a woman whose foot is bandaged after a jasmine petal falls upon it. The Brothers Grimm included a «Princess on the Pea» tale in an edition of their Kinder- und Hausmärchen but removed it after they discovered that it belonged to the Danish literary tradition.^[1]

A few folk tales feature a boy discovering a pea or a bean assumed to be of great value. After the boy enters a castle and is given a bed of straw for the night he tosses and turns in his sleep, attempting to guard his treasure. Some observers are persuaded that the boy is restless because he is unaccustomed to sleeping on straw and is therefore of aristocratic blood.^[1] In the more popular versions of the tale, only one pea is used. However, Charles Boner added in two more peas in his translation of the story upon which Andersen based his tale. Other differences amongst versions can be seen in various numbers of mattresses as well as feather beds. Versions of the story differ based on whether or not the character of the helper is included. The helper, in some cases, tells the princess to pretend she slept badly. In other versions, the helper does not appear at all and the princess decides to lie all on her own.^[27]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Bataller Català, Alexandre. (2018). «La princesa i el pèsol» (ATU 704): de les reescriptures escolars a la construcció identitària. Estudis de Literatura Oral Popular / Studies in Oral Folk Literature. 27. 10.17345/elop201827-46.
• Shojaei Kawan, Christine. (2005). The Princess on the Pea: Andersen, Grimm and the Orient. Fabula. 46. 89-115. 10.1515/fabl.2005.46.1-2.89.

External links[edit]

• «Prinsessen på Ærten» Original Danish text
• «The Princess and the Pea» English translation by Jean Hersholt
• Archived audio version of the story
• The Princess and the Pea public domain audiobook at LibriVox

Читательский дневник по сказке «Принцесса на горошине» Андерсена

Автор: Ганс Христиан Андерсен.

Название: «Принцесса на горошине»

Число страниц: 3

Жанр: сказка

Главные герои: принцесса, принц, королева.

Второстепенные герои: король.

Характеристика главных героев:

Королева — старая и мудрая.

Хитрая.

Нашла невесту для сына.

Принцесса — добрая, нежная и красивая.

Стала женой принца.

Принц — справедливый и придирчивый.

Капризный.

Характеристика второстепенных героев:

Король — старый, спокойный, невозмутимый.

Краткое содержание сказки «Принцесса на горошине»

Принц хотел жениться. Но нигде не мог найти настоящую принцессу.

В грозу к замку пришла девушка, которая сказала, что она принцесса.

Королева решила испытать девушку.

Она подложила в постель горошину.

Девушка не выспалась, и принц женился на ней.

План сказки:

1. Поиски принцем жены.
2. Гроза.
3. Проверка девушки.
4. Плохой сон.
5. Свадьба.

Детский рисунок-иллюстрация

Основная мысль произведения «Принцесса на горошине»

Главная мысль сказки в том, что счастье само может найти человека.

Основная идея сказки в том, что если человек имеет цель, он всегда найдёт способ это сделать.

Чему учит сказка

Произведение учит проявлять смекалку, быть сообразительным.

Учит хитрости и находчивости.

Учит не быть слишком привередливым.

Краткий отзыв по сказке «Принцесса на горошине» для читательского дневника

Прочитав эту сказку, я подумала, что мы часто ищем того, чего сами не знаем.

Вот и принц искал настоящую принцессу, не понимая, что это значит.

И никого не мог найти.

А она сама зашла в его замок.

Это интересная и смешная сказка.

Автору удалось показать, как можно решить сложную проблему.

Мне очень понравилась старая королева, которой до смерти надоели капризы сына.

Она придумала, как убедить его в том, что ночная гостья действительно принцесса.

А может быть и сама её пригласила.

Я всем советую прочитать эту сказку и подумать о том, что желать можно многого.

Но важно знать точно, чего ты хочешь.

Иначе можно всю жизнь провести в напрасных поисках.

Пословицы к произведению:

• Смекалка во всяком деле выручит.
• Находчивого не озадачишь.
• Находчивый найдёт выход.
• Находчивость – великая сила.
• Кто ищет, тот всегда найдёт.

Словарь неизвестных слов:

• Гагачий — пух северной птицы.
• Тюфяк — старинный матрас.
• Кунсткамера — собрание диковинок, музей.

Отрывок, поразивший меня больше всего:

«Ну, это мы разузнаем!» — подумала старая королева, но ничего не сказала, а пошла в опочивальню, сняла с кровати все тюфяки и подушки и положила на доски горошину, а потом взяла двадцать тюфяков и положила их на горошину, а на тюфяки ещё двадцать перин из гагачьего пуха.

На этой постели и уложили на ночь девушку.

Ещё читательские дневники по произведениям Ганса Христиана Андерсена

• «Стойкий оловянный солдатик»
• «Русалочка»
• «Дюймовочка»
• «Огниво»
• «Снежная Королева»
• «Свинопас»
• «Дикие лебеди»
• «Пятеро из одного стручка»
• «Чайник»
• «Гадкий утёнок»
• «Оле Лукойе»
• «Штопальная игла»
• «Новое платье короля»
• «Соловей»
• Краткая биография Ганса Христиана Андерсена и презентация

Библиотека произведений автора пополняется.

Сказка Ганса Христиана Андерсена «Принцесса на горошине», краткое содержание которой знакомит читателей с интересными и добрыми героями, стала одним из первых произведений автора. В этом рассказе впервые поднимается тема настоящего благородства, присущего людям не по факту рождения в аристократической семье, а являющегося чертой характера.

История создания

«Принцессу на горошине» написал датский писатель Ганс Христиан Андерсен в 1835 году. Для автора она стала одним из первых произведений, в котором он бросает вызов сложившимся представлениям об аристократическом знатном происхождении, утверждая, что по рождению истинное благородство не может быть получено. Особенностью сказки является её сюжет. В нем используется простой текст, а также минимум основных и второстепенных героев.

Андерсен опубликовал «Принцессу на горошине» в тематическом детском литературном журнале и получил прекрасные отзывы критиков. В скором времени был издан сборник его сказок, который включал это произведение.

Писатель утверждал, что сказка является одним из его любимых творений, именно она принесла ему популярность и славу, открыв дверь в мир литераторов-сказочников.

Действующие лица

Главный герой произведения — молодой принц, желающий жениться на настоящей принцессе. Он благороден в своих поступках, но часто разочаровывается из-за неудачной любви. К главным персонажам сказки также относится принцесса — нежная и прекрасная девушка, ставшая парой своему избраннику. Второстепенные герои:

• королева — мудрая женщина и мать принца;
• король — добродушный и справедливый отец принца.

Родители поддержали сына, когда он решил отправиться в дальнее странствие в поисках своей любви, и предложили ему свою помощь.

Ганс Христиан Андерсен специально выбрал лишь четырех действующих персонажей, чтобы упростить и сделать сказку интересной для маленьких детишек. Благодаря доступному изложению сегодня «Принцессу на горошине» кратко читают ученики младших классов. С помощью этой сказки они учатся делать пересказ литературных произведений.

Краткое содержание

Сказка «Принцесса на горошине» — простое и легкое для восприятия произведение. Ее сюжет гласит, что в одном королевстве жил молодой принц, который хотел жениться на настоящей принцессе. Он много поездил по свету, но так и не нашел своей любви. Принцесс было предостаточно, однако их благородство и чистосердечность поступков всегда вызывали сомнение. Принц после нескольких лет странствий вернулся домой и горевал, что не смог найти настоящую любовь.

Однажды поздно вечером во время бури в замок постучались. Старый король открыл дверь и увидел на пороге насквозь промокшую красивую девушку. Каково было его удивление, когда он понял, что в воротах стоит настоящая принцесса. Король проводил гостью в замок, а его супруга решила проверить, действительно ли девушка та, кем себя называет.

Для незнакомки отвели лучшие покои и сделали необычную постель, положив на доски горошину, а сверху — сорок матрасов и мягкие пуховые перины. Это было испытание для принцессы. Утром за завтраком у девушки спросили, как ей спалось на новом месте. Юная красавица ответила, что, несмотря на усталость, сомкнуть глаз не смогла, потому что ей приходилось спать на чем-то твердом, а её тело всё в синяках.

Теперь старый король, его супруга и сын были уверены, что перед ними настоящая принцесса, ведь только человек благородного происхождения мог через сорок перин и подушек почувствовать маленькую горошинку. Принц влюбился в девушку и сделал ей предложение. Они поженились и жили счастливо на протяжении многих лет.

Характеристики героев

Старый добрый король олицетворяет в этой сказке мудрых, честных и благородных правителей, которые заботились о своем народе. Он правит уже много лет, смог завоевать доверие и почет. Старая королева — любящая мать, которая желает своему сыну исключительно добра. Она знает старинный способ проверки настоящих принцесс и смогла определить, что постучавшаяся в их замок гостья имеет благородное происхождение.

Молодой принц олицетворяет образ благородного рыцаря, который ради прекрасной дамы готов совершить невозможное. Он немало постранствовал по свету, надеясь найти принцессу, которую мог бы полюбить всем сердцем. В сказке рассказывается, что он совершил подвиги, достойные храброго и честного рыцаря. Для принца характерны следующие черты:

• благородство;
• отвага;
• доброта;
• честность.

О девушке, постучавшейся в грозу в ворота замка, практически ничего не известно. Она смиренно попросила помощи и разрешения переночевать в грозу, планируя затем продолжить свой путь. Подготовленное королевой испытание позволило установить, что в жилах гостьи течет голубая кровь. Именно ее и искал принц, чтобы взять в жёны.