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)