Awakening the Moral Imagination
by Vigen Guroian
The notion that fairy tales and fantasy stories stimulate and instruct
the moral imagination of the young is, of course, not new.
The Victorians certainly held to that notion when they brought the fairy tale into the nursery.
In our day, we have seen a resurgence of interest in the fairy tale.
The renowned psychiatrist Bruno Bettelheim gave this an important impetus twenty years ago with his publication of The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales(1975).
“It hardly requires emphasis at this moment in our history” Bettelheim wrote, that children need “a moral education… [that teaches] not through abstract ethical concepts but through that which seems tangibly right and therefore meaningful…. The child finds this kind of meaning through fairy tales.”
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