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This paper presents a brief survey of interdisciplinary Danish studies in experimental reader response since 1965. The paper describes nine projects or studies, including information on their purposes and methods, stages, persons responsible, supporters, funding institutions, internal reports, and publications. Project titles include "Tension"; "Ram No. 1"; "Fairytale"; "Ram No. 3"; "Ram No. 4"; and "Folktale." Descriptions of three related studies, a list of related publications, brief biographies of three Danish researchers, and a table sketching the interconnectedness of the Danish studies are attached. (RS)

Outlined in this paper are the plans for three additional pilot studies to be conducted in Denmark as part of the interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project. The project is concerned with the collective versus the individual nature of reader response to literature and the three pilot studies are: introspection studies during the reading, essay studies in writing, and studies to develop a tentative questionnaire to collect background variables. Sections of the paper discuss (1) readers in the Danish introspection study, (2) instructions (in Danish) to readers in the introspection study, (3) procedures used in the introspection studies, (4) procedures for the essay pilot study, and (5) procedures for the questionnaire study covering background variables. (HOD)

Summaries of the Danish internal reports of the essay studies, the introspection studies, and the literary analyses that are part of the larger interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project concerning the collective versus the individual nature of the response to literature are presented in this report. Various sections of the five papers provide descriptions of (1) the essay study, (2) the participating classes and the distribution of the sexes in each, (3) the mode of data analysis, and (4) the readers in the introspection study. The paper also contains questions used for each fairytale, sample responses to the individual tales, sample protocols, and the study results for each of the three tales: "The Snake, the Fox, and the Man,""The Gold Apple," and "Per Smed's Whip." (HOD)

The theoretical background of the interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project is discussed in this paper. The paper first offers support for the working hypotheses of the Fairytale Project, which was designed to determine (1) if there are aesthetic principles that are universal and that guide the reader's experience of literary works; (2) whether these principles are built into people by their cultural, economic, and social experiences; or (3) whether these principles are totally individualistic. Then, the theory of reader response that suggests that text does not exist outside the experiences of the readers/listeners is detailed. This theory is applied to the project. An explanation is provided of why explicit statements from different schools of critical thinking are needed in the planning stage, for pilot studies, and for the final assessment. A description of each of the seven fairy tales under consideration is also presented. An explanation of a phenomenological approach to some features in the seven tales is offered and the cultural factors, the Propp functions, and the Holbeck metafunctions that apply to each are described in detail. Fairy tales in relation to the reader/listener and psychological symbols found in the tales are also discussed. (CRH)

Part of the interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project, this paper provides information about the three fairy tales chosen for study: "The Snake, the Fox, and the Man,""The Gold Apple," and "Per Smed's Whip." Various sections of the paper contain descriptions of the following: (1) the selection procedures, (2) the procedures used in establishing "identity" between the three tales in Danish and Turkish, (3) procedures used in editing the tales, and (4) texts and variants of each tale in Turkish, Danish, and English. (FL)

As part of the interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project, both an introspection and an essay study were conducted with Turkish university prep-school students and junior college students to determine their responses to three fairytales: "The Snake, the Fox, and the Man,""The Gold Apple," and "Per Smed's Whip." The 63 readers in the introspection study were given the texts of the three tales, one by one, and were asked to report on what they experienced during the actual reading of each tale. After their commentary, the readers were asked, among other things, whether they liked the story and what the meaning of the story was. After they had read all three tales, the readers were asked whether they had read or heard of the stories before, which of the stories they liked best, which of the stories were most familiar, and which of the stories were most alien. The 61 readers who participated in the essay study were asked to write summaries of each tale and to answer questions that were identical to those in the introspection studies. Most of the readers for the introspection study reported that they had never heard of the stories before, liked "The Gold Apple" best and found it most familiar, and found "Per Smed's Whip" the most alien. Most of the readers for the essay study reported they had never heard or read the stories previously, preferred "The Snake, The Fox, and The Man," found "The Gold Apple" most familiar, and found "Per Smed's Whip" the most alien. (Extensive examples of student comments on the fairy tales are appended.) (HOD)

A detailed plan for stages one and two of the interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project is presented in this paper and factors considered in the project's research design are discussed in depth. The first section describes the working hypotheses of the project--that there are primordial patterns in the response to literature that are common to people in different cultures and countries, and that this hypothesis can be tested by charting readers' responses to fairy tales. The first section also notes that fairy tales belong to an oral tradition, describes some reasons for their appeal to large audiences today, and explains how they can be broken into deep structures. The second section explains the selection criteria for the fairy tales to be used in the project, including restrictions on length, cross cultural availability, and symbol familiarity/obviousness. The third section describes the tentative structure of the experimental set-up. The subjects and the core groups, preliminary plans for the instruction and questionnaires to be used, and the order of the fairy tales are discussed. (CRH)

To put the interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project, which is concerned with the dynamics of reader response to literature, into a theoretical framework, this paper first describes how modern aesthetics take an interdisciplinary approach and investigate--by cross cultural approaches and in human behavior terms--the phenomenon of art and its place in human life. Some of the major twentieth century schools of literary criticism, including moral evaluation and sociological criticism, are then described. Psychological criticism, with its new insights (more precise language to describe the creative process and psychoanalysis of characters) and archetypal criticism (that asserts the validity of myth and subconscious retention of archetypal patterns in social memory) are cited as the two most promising approaches. Next, the paper cites the reception theory, or "Receptionaesthetic" as significant in that this approach conceives of the text as only one element of the literary work, and focuses on the reader, who is responsible for the process of creating meaning. Finally, current work in the area of structural analysis of the fairy tale itself is identified and it is suggested that Bengt Holbek's reworking of Vladimir Propp's work will provide the Fairytale Project with an efficient methodology. (HTH)

Prepared as part of the Turko-Danish Fairytale Project conducted to uncover universal, cross-cultural features in readers' response to literature, this paper reports on a pilot study to determine which three out of nine preselected fairy tales would elicit the most faceted response from a population of Turkish readers. After explaining the selection of readers, the paper then details the translation, editing, and stylistic preparation of the tales to make them comprehensible to Turkish readers. A description of the nine-point questionnaire used to elicit responses from the readers about each tale is followed by an analysis of their answers using a 29-point key developed by the researchers. The discussion of the key is divided into two sections, the first dealing with the readers' economic and cultural backgrounds, the second with the readers' conscious and unconscious interpretation and evaluation of the texts. The latter section pays particular attention to the themes of "struggle with authority" and "rewards." Statements reflecting these themes that could be deduced from the texts were incorporated into the key based on the analysis of fairy tale content. (RBW)

Prepared as part of the Turko-Danish Fairytale Project conducted to uncover universal, cross-cultural features in readers' response to literature, this paper reports on a pilot study to determine which three out of nine preselected fairy tales would elicit the most faceted, legitimate response from a population of Danish readers. After explaining the selection of readers, the paper notes the questions used to evoke responses from the readers about the tales and subjects. Answers to a "highly modified" form of content analysis were used to isolate that one tale from each grouping--Danish, Turkish, and outside--that elicited the broadest spontaneous response. The discussion that follows looks at the honesty of the answers, at illegitimate answers (i.e., those that contain erroneous information), and at the effect of the readers comparing the three stories in each group on the answers given. The effects of prereading instructions, classroom discussions of the tales, class makeup, and the structure of the questions themselves on the answers given are also considered. The paper concludes with discussions of the expectations of Danish readers, who are accustomed to the style of Hans Christian Anderson, when perusing fairy tales from other sources, and of the priorities they established when rating Danish, Turkish, and outside fairy tales. (RBW)

Prepared as part of the interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project, this paper contains descriptions of the core group of readers (600 18-year-old students) and the special groups of readers (each composed of approximately 50 subjects) who participated in the investigation of the collective versus the individual nature of the reader response to literature. After a brief discussion of the problems involved in choosing the subjects, the paper offers extensive data on various aspects of 1) the school systems of the core group students in Denmark and Turkey, (2) the background and education of the core group subjects, (3) differences in the classroom practices of the two countries, (4) teaching procedures used in each, and (5) major differences in the two educational systems as a whole. (FL)

Written literature has evolved over a long period to an entity separate from oral tradition. Written literature aspired to perpetuation, to the creation of written "monuments." This aspiration caused authors to find the means of multiplying authentic versions so that they could popularize their "original" form unchanged. On the other hand, oral tradition involved creative changes with each retelling. Folktale, legend, and fairy tale are considered to be the three major genres of folklore. At times it is difficult to differentiate between what is considered fairy tale and what is considered folktale. The majority of scholars of the fairy tale--whether psychologically, sociologically, or literarily oriented--all agree that the fairy tale as a narrative genre centers on human kind and its inner states. The fairy tale reflects the pains of growing up, the process of finding out about the objective world and coming to terms with it, learning to accept difficult challenges, and having faith in happy outcomes. In spite of the vagueness and considerable universality of a tale, it is possible to associate a specific version of a fairy tale with a particular culture or community. Narrators consciously reflect the traditional beliefs, customs, and values of their own community in their narratives. In seeking to study the collective versus the individual nature of reader response, the Turko-Danish Fairytale Project takes the fairytale as its point of departure, with the belief that if there are any universal or collective aesthetic values, they can most easily be traced in the reader's response to fairy tales. (HTH)

As part of the interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project concerning the nature of response to literature, this paper discusses the rationale, principles, and actual translation procedures behind nine fairytales considered for use in the study. Various sections of the report discuss (1) the texts to be chosen, including their authenticity, their origin, and the rationale behind the choices; (2) procedures used to establish the "identity" between Danish and Turkish versions of the texts; (3) procedures used to make translations; (4) texts of the Danish tales; (5) texts of the Turkish tales; and (6) the "common" or "outside" tales that had variants in both Denmark and Turkey. (HTH)

This paper describes the folkloristic and literary theories centered on the traditional narrative that have a bearing on the Turko-Danish Fairytale Project. These theories were incorporated into the Fairytale Project because traditional prose tales (of which the fairy tale is one of the most prominent forms) are a genre that exists in both oral and written literature in most parts of the world, and any assumptions concerning the literary fairy tale should take into account its occurrence and evaluation within the oral tradition. The fairy tale was chosen for study in the project because, synchronically and diachronically appealing to its audience and readers, it is best suited for establishing the collective versus the individual nature of reader response. The working hypothesis of the project reveals three intersecting circles, or one circle with three intersecting facets, in reader response to literature at large: universal (cross cultural), individualistic, and communal (culture specific). It also reveals a triangle, the components of which are historically related (oral literature, written literature, and the audience/readers). The paper describes how the project's hypothesis (dealing with literature at large and the traditional prose tale) was formulated. It further reveals how the theoretical coverage in the field has been insufficient, and explains how the broadly based empirical study centers on readers' response to this genre in order to illuminate the individual, communal, and universal nature of literature. (HTH)

Prepared as part of the interdisciplinary Turko-Danish Fairytale Project, this paper describes the design of a study intended to discover: (1) if there are aesthetic principles that are universal and that guide readers' experiences of works of literature; (2) whether the principles are built into people by their cultural, economic, and social experiences; or (3) whether readers' reactions are almost totally individualistic. After brief discussions of the rationale, purpose, and implications of the study, the paper offers information about the subjects, the texts used, and the data collecting procedures. The remainder of the paper consists of a tentative timetable and budget for the study. (FL)

This paper presents a history of Danish studies in reader response research, including the addition of questionnaires to the research. The paper describes nine studies in reader response research, including information on their stages, persons responsible, supporters, funding institutions, internal reports, and publications. Five additional publications and a description of a language test that supported the reader response studies are included, and one table of data is appended. (MS)