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Fairy Tales House In Real World
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Originally, stories we would now call fairy tales were not marked out as a separate genre. The German term "Märchen" literally translates as "tale"—not any specific type of tale. The genre was first marked out by writers of the Renaissance, stabilized through the works of many subsequent writers, and emerged as an unquestioned genre in the works of the Brothers Grimm. In this evolution, the name was coined when the précieuses took up writing literary stories; Madame d'Aulnoy invented the term conte de fée, or fairy tale.
Before the definition of the genre of fantasy, many works that would now be classified as fantasy were termed "fairy tales", including Tolkien's The Hobbit, George Orwell's Animal Farm, and L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Indeed, Tolkien's "On Fairy-Stories" includes discussions of world-building and is considered a vital part of fantasy criticism. Although fantasy, particularly the sub-genre of fairytale fantasy, draws heavily on fairy tale motifs, the genres are now regarded as distinct.
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