Yolen, Jane (1939– ), American poet, playwright, and writer and editor of children's books, fantasy, and science fiction, who is one of the most prolific and experimental writers of fairy tales on the contemporary scene. After graduating from Smith College in 1960 and working for different publishing houses, Yolen turned to full‐time professional writing in 1965. Her first book was a delightful comical fairy tale for children, The Witch who Wasn't (1964), and since this first publication, she has gone on to publish well over 250 titles, including such important non‐fiction books as Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie, and Folktale in the Literature of Childhood (1981). She has also produced film scripts and cassettes based on her work.
One of Yolen's main goals has been to recapture the flavour and spirit of the oral tradition in her literary fairy tales. She writes with grace and painstaking care to create tales that evoke the atmosphere of long ago and other worlds, and she prefers to use metaphors and symbols in unusual combinations that produce new associations. Although she has adapted numerous folk tales and classical fairy tales, her best work can be seen in the fairy tales she herself has created in such books as The Girl who Loved the Wind (1972), The Girl who Cried Flowers and Other Tales (1976), The Moon Ribbon and Other Tales (1976), The Lady and the Merman (1977), The Hundredth Dove and Other Tales (1977), Dream Weaver (1979), Sleeping Ugly (1981), Tales of Wonder (1983), Dragonfield and Other Stories (1985), The Faery Flag (1989), The Dragon's Boy (1990), The Girl in the Golden Bower (1995), and Child of Faerie (1996).
Given her comprehensive knowledge of folk and fairy tales throughout the world—she has also edited an important collection of tales entitled Favorite Folktales from Around the World (1986)—Yolen has subtly altered many popular tales to undermine and provoke audience expectations in tales that appeal both to adults and young readers. Such stories as ‘Moon Ribbon’, ‘Brother Hart’, ‘The Thirteenth Fey’, ‘Happy Dens, or A Day in the Old Wolves Home’ and ‘The Undine’ contain startling metaphors and unusual plots that place traditional tales and their meaning in question. For instance, in ‘Undine’ Yolen emphasizes the notion of male betrayal and female autonomy in an implicit critique of Hans Christian Andersen's ‘The Little Mermaid’. Here the mermaid leaves the prince, who beckoned her, to return to her sisters in the sea. In ‘The Thirteenth Fey’ Yolen recalls the story of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ through a first‐person narrative of the youngest daughter of a family of fairies and produces a philosophical critique of decadent monarchy in the name of democracy. Though not a writer with a strong ideological bent, Yolen has been influenced by the feminist movement, and one of her major achievements has been to subvert the male discourse that has dominated the fairy tale as genre so that the repressed concerns of women are addressed, and the predictable happy endings that signify male hegemony and closure are exploded or placed into question. Thus, in ‘The White Seal Maid’ and ‘The Lady and the Merman’, she has her female protagonists seek refuge in their origins, the sea, which represents for Yolen the essence of restlessness, change, tenderness, and humanity.
Two of her fantasy books, The Devil's Arithmetic (1998) and Briar Rose (1992), have the Holocaust as their theme. The latter makes use of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ as the granddaughter of a Holocaust victim tries to make sense out of her grandmother's strange retelling of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and discovers how her grandmother had been gassed and revived to survive the Nazi destruction of the Jews.
In some of her other works, Yolen has sought to revise the myths of Merlin and Arthur, and in her science‐fiction/fantasy novels and stories she often experiments with shifting narrative voices and perspectives as well as with time slips. From 1990 to 1996 she developed her own imprint at Harcourt Brace to publish fairy‐tale novels and works of fantasy by other authors and continued this series at TAR Books. Not only has Yolen made highly original contributions to develop the fairy‐tale genre, but she has also encouraged and supported younger writers to produce innovative work in the field.
Bibliography
- ‘An Interview with Jane Yolen’,
Mythlore , 13 (1986). - Russell, David, ‘Reading the Shards and Fragments: Holocaust Literature for Young Readers’,
The Lion and the Unicorn , 21 (1997). - Weil, Ellen R., ‘The Door to Lilith's Cave: Memory and Imagination in Jane Yolen's Holocaust Novels’,
Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts , 5 (1983).
— Jack Zipes
