This fairy tale is about a young girl named Rapunzel who is locked away in a tall tower by an enchantress. Rapunzel's long golden hair provides the only way to access the tower. A prince hears Rapunzel singing and climbs up her hair to visit her. They fall in love but are discovered by the enchantress, who cuts off Rapunzel's hair and banishes her. Years later, the prince and now blind Rapunzel are reunited in the forest, where her tears heal his eyesight. They return to his kingdom and live happily ever after.

1. Background Literature
In
Germany

2. German literature begins in the Carolingian
period, first in Latin and then in Old High
German. The most famous work in OHG is
the Hildebrandslied, a short piece of
Germanic alliterative heroic verse which is the
sole survivor of what must have been a vast
oral tradition. Other important works are the
Evangelienbuch (Gospel harmony) of Ottfried
von Weissenburg, the short but splendid
Ludwigslied, and in the northern dialect of Old
Saxon, a life of Christ in the style of a heroic
epic known as the Heliand. The Old High
German period is reckoned to run until about
the mid-11th century, though the boundary to
Early Middle High German (second half of the
11th century) is not clear-cut.

3. Literature in Germany
German literature comprises those literary
texts originating within Germany proper
and written in the German language. The
term may also denote any literature
composed primarily in the German
language, though in other countries; for
example Austria, Switzerland, the former
Czechoslovakia, etc.

4. Literature in Germany
 Modern German literature begins around 1750 with the
dramas of Lessing (Miss Sara Sampson, 1755; Minna
von Barnhelm, 1767), the poems of Klopstock and the
novels ofGellert, Wieland and Sophie von La Roche.
 The classical period in German literature is known as
the Goethezeit, in other words Goethe’s (life)time
(1749-1832). Within this period there are several key
turning points: Goethe’s move to Weimar in
1775; Goethe’s departure for Italy in 1786 and Schiller’s
death in 1805. In the last few years of the century the
German
Romantics Tieck, Schlegel and Novalisproduced some
astonishingly modern writing. But it is also rewarding to
read texts by mid 18th century poets such
as Gleim, Klopstock, Albrecht von Haller and Anna
Louisa Karsch.

5. Gimmy’s Fairy tale

6. Rapunzel Background
Rapunzel is a German fairy tale in the collection
assembled by the Brothers Grimm, and first published
in 1812 as part of Children's and Household
Tales.The Grimm Brothers' story is an adaptation of
the fairy tale Persinette by Charlotte-Rose de
Caumont de La Force originally published in 1698. Its
plot has been used and parodied in
various media and its best known line ("Rapunzel,
Rapunzel, let down your hair") is an idiom of popular
culture.

7. Characters:

9. There were once a man and a woman who had long, in vain,
wished for a child. At length it appeared that God was about
to grant their desire.
These people had a little window at the back of their house
from which a splendid garden could be seen, which was full
of the most beautiful flowers and herbs. It was, however,
surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared to go into it
because it belonged to an enchantress, who had great power
and was dreaded by all the world.
One day the woman was standing by this window and
looking down into the garden, when she saw a bed which was
planted with the most beautiful rampion, and it looked so
fresh and green that she longed for it. She quite pined away,
and began to look pale and miserable.
Her husband was alarmed, and asked: 'What ails you,
dear wife?'

10. 'Ah,' she replied, 'if I can't eat some of the rampion, which is in the
garden behind our house, I shall die.‘
The man, who loved her, thought: 'Sooner than let your wife die,
bring her some of the rampion yourself, let it cost what it will.'
At twilight, he clambered down over the wall into the garden of the
enchantress, hastily clutched a handful of rampion, and took it to his
wife.
She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It tasted so
good to her - so very good, that the next day she longed for it three
times as much as before.
If he was to have any rest, her husband knew he must once more
descend into the garden. Therefore, in the gloom of evening, he let
himself down again; but when he had clambered down the wall he was
terribly afraid, for he saw the enchantress standing before him.
'How can you dare,' said she with angry look, 'descend into my
garden and steal my rampion like a thief? You shall suffer for it!'

11. 'Ah,' answered he, 'let mercy take the place of justice, I only made up
my mind to do it out of necessity. My wife saw your rampion from the
window, and felt such a longing for it that she would have died if she
had not got some to eat.'
The enchantress allowed her anger to be softened, and said to
him: 'If the case be as you say, I will allow you to take away with you
as much rampion as you will, only I make one condition, you must
give me the child which your wife will bring into the world; it shall be
well treated, and I will care for it like a mother.'
The man in his terror consented to everything.
When the woman was brought to bed, the enchantress appeared
at once, gave the child the name of Rapunzel, and took it away with
her.
Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun. When
she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower in
the middle of a forest. The tower had neither stairs nor door, but near
the top was a little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in,
she placed herself beneath it and cried:

12. 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and
when she heard the voice of the enchantress, she unfastened her
braided tresses, wound them round one of the hooks of the
window above, and then the hair fell twenty ells down, and the
enchantress climbed up by it.
After a year or two, it came to pass that the king's son rode
through the forest and passed by the tower. Then he heard a
song, which was so charming that he stood still and listened.
It was Rapunzel, who in her solitude passed her time in letting
her sweet voice resound. The king's son wanted to climb up to
her, and looked for the door of the tower, but none was to be
found. He rode home, but the singing had so deeply touched his
heart, that every day he went out into the forest and listened to it.

13. Once when he was thus standing behind a tree, he saw
that an enchantress came there, and he heard how she
cried:
'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the
enchantress climbed up to her.
'If that is the ladder by which one mounts, I too will try my
fortune,' said he, and the next day when it began to grow
dark, he went to the tower and cried:
'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
Immediately the hair fell down and the king's son
climbed up.

14. At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man, such as her eyes
had never yet beheld, came to her; but the king's son began to talk to her
quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had been so stirred that it
had let him have no rest, and he had been forced to see her. Then
Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her if she would take him for
her husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she
thought: 'He will love me more than old Dame Gothel does'; and she said
yes, and laid her hand in his.
She said: 'I will willingly go away with you, but I do not know how to get
down. Bring with you a skein of silk every time that you come, and I will
weave a ladder with it, and when that is ready I will descend, and you will
take me on your horse.'
They agreed that until that time he should come to her every evening, for
the old woman came by day. The enchantress remarked nothing of this,
until once Rapunzel said to her: 'Tell me, Dame Gothel, how it happens
that you are so much heavier for me to draw up than the young king's son
- he is with me in a moment.'

15. 'Ah! you wicked child,' cried the enchantress. 'What do I hear
you say! I thought I had separated you from all the world, and
yet you have deceived me!'
In her anger she clutched Rapunzel's beautiful tresses,
wrapped them twice round her left hand, seized a pair of
scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut off, and
the lovely braids lay on the ground. And she was so pitiless
that she took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to
live in great grief and misery.
On the same day that she cast out Rapunzel, however, the
enchantress fastened the braids of hair, which she had cut off,
to the hook of the window, and when the king's son came and
cried:
'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.‘
she let the hair down. The king's son ascended, but instead
of finding his dearest Rapunzel, he found the enchantress,
who gazed at him with wicked and venomous looks.

16. 'Aha!' she cried mockingly, 'you would fetch your
dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in
the nest; the cat has got it, and will scratch out your
eyes as well. Rapunzel is lost to you; you will never
see her again.'
The king's son was beside himself with pain, and in
his despair he leapt down from the tower. He escaped
with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced
his eyes.
He wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing
but roots and berries, and did naught but lament and
weep over the loss of his dearest wife. Thus he
roamed about in misery for some years, and at length
came to the desert where Rapunzel, with the twins to
which she had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived in
wretchedness.

17. He heard a voice, and it seemed so familiar to him that
he went towards it, and when he approached,
Rapunzel knew him and fell on his neck and wept. Two
of her tears wetted his eyes and they grew clear again,
and he could see with them as before. He led her to
his kingdom where he was joyfully received, and they
lived for a long time afterwards, happy and contented.