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"The Snowman" is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a snowman who falls in love with a stove. It was published by C.A. Reitzel in Copenhagen as ''Sneemanden'' on 2 March 1861. Andersen biographer Jackie Wullschlager describes the tale as a lyrical and poignant complement to Andersen's "The Fir-Tree" of December 1844. Wullschlager believes "The Snowman" was the product in part of Andersen’s "pining and discontent over" Harald Scharff, a handsome young dancer at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. According to Wullschlager, the two men entered a relationship in the early 1860s that brought the poet "some kind of sexual fulfillment and a temporary end to loneliness." It was the only homosexual affair during Andersen's life that brought him happiness. == Plot == "The Snowman" begins with its eponymous hero standing in the garden of a manor house watching the sun set and the moon rise.. He is only a day old, and quite naive and inexperienced. His sole companion is a watchdog who warns him that the sun will make him run into the ditch. The dog senses a change in the weather, enters his kennel and goes to sleep. At dawn, the land is covered in frosty whiteness when a young couple enter the garden to admire the scene and the Snowman. When they leave, the dog tells the Snowman the couple are sweethearts who will someday move into "the same kennel and share their bones". He then recounts happier days when he slept under the stove in the housekeeper‘s room as a pampered pet. The Snowman can see the stove through a window in the house and believes it is female. He falls in love. The Snowman longs to be in the room with the stove, but the dog warns him he would melt. All day the Snowman gazes upon the stove, and, at twilight, the stove glows. When the door of the room is opened, the flames leap out of the stove and glow upon the snowman's face and chest. He is delighted. In the morning, the window is covered with frost and the Snowman cannot see the stove. He is stove-sick and cannot enjoy the frosty weather. The dog warns the snowman of an imminent change in the weather. A thaw descends, and, one morning, the snowman collapses. The dog finds a stove poker used to build the snowman within his remains, and then understands why the snowman longed for the stove, "That's what moved inside him...Now he is over that, too!" The girls in the house sing a springtime carol and the snowman is forgotten.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Snowman (fairy tale)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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