Darnton and Levine

Darnton's take on the mother goose tales is highly analytical, and I think takes away from some of the enjoyment of the actual story. When reading little red riding hood, I don't want to be reminded of the fact that the wolf if symbolic of a predatory pedophile male figure.
I was shocked to see how much the stories have changed over time. It wasn't until last Thursday's class discussion that I realized that the stories mirrored the time period. At the time that the little red riding hood story on the first page of the Darnton article was written, vulgarity was more widely accepted. In that story, not only did the wolf kill the grandmother, but he also cut up her body, drained her blood, and then served it to little red riding hood. Is it necessary to add an element of cannibalism to a child's story? No... but it definitely makes it more interesting. In modern times no parent would dream of reading a story about little red riding hood consuming her own grandmother to their child, but I'm sure it would make a great twisted horror movie. In many modern day little red riding hood tales, both grandma and red manage to get away, and it is actually the wolf that dies. The story has changed to fit the values of the time period.
In Levine's article however, it is highlighted that the stories never change. I found this to be an interesting contrast from Darnton. You can change a fairy tale to cater to the times, or to the children. However, a slave story has little room for modification since it is mirroring actual events. As fairy tales change from vulgar to semi appropriate, to PG cookie cutter clean, a slave story will always be a slave story. It will always be horrific, terribly depressing, and undeniably truthful.

I found Howsam's book to be monotonous at best. However, the fact that her writing was completely dull forced me as a reader to find some deeper meaning and read between the lines so as to keep from falling asleep. I believe that her objective was not to blatantly state that history, literature, and bibliography, are separate entities, but rather to point out their differences in hopes of having the reader connect them (if that makes any sense at all). Literature and history prove to be quite similar where as bibliography is the only one that could be considered a separate discipline. Howsam points out that history has a primary focus on agency, power, and experience, and literature focuses on texts, and criticism. However I believe that literature relies on history. A book, or rather a story focuses on events of the time, surroundings, and a basic history of whatever the story happens to be about. Without history there is no literature. History is a literature of past events. The two are interchangeable. Howsam states that literature focuses on texts and criticism, but through the text there is a criticism of history. My ideas may be slightly obscure, but Howsam's writing was quite elusive so i found it difficult to form any sort of viable opinion.
I was excited when I bought this book because I hoped it would actually outline the history of the book both as an object and an idea. Instead it gave a dull overview of the differences in three disciplines which were actually quite similar and I found myself skimming pages because it became hard to concentrate. It was frustrating that the book was a short overview. Every time Howsam came close to making a point she would change her focus to something else. My mind started to wander much like the way her writing wandered.