Histoires ou contes du temps passé
Histoires
ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités or Contes de ma mère l'Oye (Stories or
Tales from Past Times, with Morals or Mother Goose Tales)[2] is a collection of literary fairy
tales written by Charles
Perrault, published in Paris in 1697. The
work became popular because it was written at a time when fairy tales were
fashionable amongst aristocrats in Parisian literary salons.[3] Perrault wrote the work when he retired from court as
secretary to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, minister to Louis XIV of France.
Colbert's death may have forced Perrault's retirement, at which point he turned
to writing. Scholars have debated as to the origin of his tales and whether
they are original literary fairy tales modified from commonly known stories, or
based on stories written by earlier medieval writers such as Boccaccio.
Elaborate
embellishments were a preferred style at the French court. The simple plots
Perrault started with were modified, the language enhanced, and rewritten for
an audience of aristocratic and noble courtiers. Thematically, the stories
support Perrault's belief that the nobility is superior to the peasant class,
and many of the stories show an adherence to Catholic beliefs, such as those in which a woman undergoes
purification from sin and repentance before reintegration into society.[4]
Background
Charles
Perrault came from a large, well-known and
respected bourgeois
family. His father was a lawyer and member of parliament. As a young man,
Perrault began writing, receiving royal attention for a series of honorary
poems written for Louis XIV of France
in 1660, which may have been the catalyst for his two-decade post as secretary
to Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert.[5] Perrault established and administered academies for arts
such as the Académie de peinture
et de sculpture (Academy of painting and sculpture)
and the Académie
d'architecture (Academy of architecture) during
those years, .[6] He retired from public duty and returned to writing on the
death of Colbert.[6]
Children's
literature scholar Jack Zipes
speculates that Perrault's fairy tales may have been written to be the last
word in a decade-long literary quarrel. He had become increasingly progressive
while in public service, believing France and Church needed modernizing, which culminated in the Quarrel of the
Ancients and the Moderns that
started in 1687 and ended a decade later by Louis XIV's ruling in favor of the
"ancients". At that point Perrault wrote his tales, that were based
on the ancient but rewritten to be modern.[5] Additionally, the tales may have been written as means for
him to regain a place in society, particularly in the well-attended literary
salons.[6]
The
French literary style préciosité, characterized by witty conversations, literary salons, and
telling fairy stories were fashionable ("all the rage") in the upper
echelons of society and aristocratic circles, and most particularly, at court. Préciosité
was reflected in fashions, conversations, art and literature that were elevated
and affected with great embellishments and meant to be brilliant in an effort
to separate the upper levels of society from the vulgarity and coarseness of
the bourgeoise. The game of telling fairy stories amongst the précieuses
in the then highly fashionable ladies' literary salons
became popular in the late 17th century.[6] Zipes says Perrault published in Contes stories
written explicitly for his "peers in the literary salons",[5]
whereas Humphrey Carpenter believes he wrote for an audience of aristocratic
children as well.[7] Writing for children in itself was a trend, as shown by the
stories Louis XIV's wife wrote for girls in convents.[3]
Publication history
Between
1691 and 1694, Perrault wrote three stories in verse form,
"Griselidis" (a novella,
originally titled La Marquise de Salusses ou la
Patience de Griselidis and read
to the Académie française),
"The Ridiculous Wishes" (published in the Mercure
galant in 1693[6][8]), and "Donkeyskin",
that were published in a single volume in 1694 and republished a year later in
a volume with a preface.[3] These three verse tales form only the prehistory of the Histoires
ou Contes du temps passé. It was only in the late 18th century that
these stories were included in editions variously named as Contes de fées,
Contes des fées, or simply Contes.[9]
The
year 1695 saw the manuscript edition of the Contes de ma mère l'Oye (Stories
of Mother Goose), containing five of the later to be published prose tales.[1] In February 1696, Perrault published a first story in
prose, "The Sleeping Beauty",
in the Mercure galant.[6] More may have been published in additional literary
magazines, however it is unknown whether they appeared in the magazines before
the book's publication or whether they were later pirated editions.[10] In 1697, Claude Barbin published the classical eight
stories, titled Histoires ou Contes du temps passé, avec des Moralitez (Stories
or Tales from Past Times, with Morals). With two reprints in the same year,
the volume soon came to be known by its inofficial title Contes de ma mère
l'Oye, used already in the 1695 manuscript. This title was also featured in
the illustrated frontispiece of the printed edition (copied from the manuscript
edition), showing an old woman weaving, telling stories to children who are
dressed in clothing of the higher classes. Above on the wall hangs a plaque
with the words Contes de ma mère l'Oye.[10]
The
stories assembled in the 1697 edition were "The Sleeping Beauty",
"Little Red Riding Hood", "Bluebeard", "The
Master Cat, or Puss in Boots",
"Diamonds and Toads"
(Les Fées), "Cinderella", "Riquet with the Tuft", and "Hop
o' My Thumb". Each story ended with a
rhymed, well-defined and cynical moral (moralité).[7] The author of the volume was given as "P.
Darmancour", hinting at Perrault's 19-year-old son Pierre, who was long
time believed to have written the stories.[2] However Zipes claims modern scholarship shows little
evidence the son wrote the stories, nor that the volume was the result of a
collaboration between father and son. Almost certainly Perrault the elder was
the author.[5] It is possible that the son's name, and the dedication to
the king's niece Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans, was meant as a means to introduce the son to society.[2] The book contains an introductory letter to
"Mademoiselle", saying "No one will think it strange that a
child should have found pleasure in composing the Tales in this volume, but
some will be surprised that he should have presumed to dedicate them to
you."[7]
The
volume achieved considerable success with eight reprints in Perrault's lifetime.
With Louis XIV's death at the beginning of the 18th century the lifestyle of
the précieuse faded, as did the popularity of the literary salons and
the fairy tales at the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment. Perrault's tales, however, continued to be sought after
with four editions published in that century.[6]
Origins and style
Scholars
are divided about the origins of the tales; some theorize that they were
original whereas others say Perrault took from earlier versions.[11] Children's literature scholar Ruth Bottigheimer discounts
as myth the story that Perrault recounted stories he heard from a household nurse.[3] The contemporary view was that the stories originated in
popular tradition, but Carpenter points out that none of the stories existed in
contemporary chapbooks
leading him to think Perrault took and modified them from earlier (probably
literary) versions.[11]
Although
some of Perrault's tales had folkloric origins, he modified them with elaborate detail written in
intentionally brilliant language for an audience of sophisticated adults who
expected embellishment. Some stories such as "Sleeping Beauty" were
original literary tales, divested from their (possible) folkloric roots. The
intention was to present the précieux with modern retellings of stories
from which the base, the common, and the rustic had been removed.[6] Carpenter says of "Sleeping Beauty" that "it
reads like a fashionable romance rather than a folk-tale."[7] "Little Red Riding Hood" was almost certainly
original, because earlier versions have not been recorded or do not seem to
exist, and nothing remotely similar can be found in older literature.[10] The first edition of the volume has margin notes for
"Little Red Riding Hood" telling the reader the last lines are to be
read in a loud voice to scare the child, leading Carpenter to believe it was
written as a children's game, though he goes on the say that the sexual
connotations are impossible to ignore.[12]
The
stories were not intended for children because literature for children did not
exist in the late 17th century,[5]
and most likely were taken from earlier literary stories.[11] Such was already the case with "Griselidis",
intended to be a "modern novella", although based on a contemporary chapbook (or bibliotheque bleue) and ultimately on a version in Boccaccio's
14th-century Decameron
which was later translated to Latin by Petrarch. The chapbook version had simple language intended for an
uneducated and unsophisticated audience, whereas Perrault embellished the story
to appeal to the sophisticates who frequented the literary salons.[13] Giambattista Basile's
volume of stories published in Naples earlier in the century, around 1634,
contains stories with strong similarities to four of Perrault's stories,
including "Puss in Boots".[14]
Other
stories show elements from earlier works, often obscured in medieval or earlier
texts. "Donkeyskin" has elements found in Apuleius' second-century Cupid
and Psyche in which Psyche
clad in an ass' skin is abandoned on a hillside.[15] "Sleeping Beauty", believed to have been written
by Perrault as an original literary tale, has similarities with three earlier
stories: Jean-Pierre Camus'
"La Princesse jalouse", Basile's "Sun, Moon and Thalia",[16] and a tale written by Straparola.[6] "Les Souhaits" is based on Jean de La Fontaine's
"Les Souhaits Ridicules", however Perrault made the tale more
entertaining for the salon audience by adding coarse comedy.[17]
Zipes
claims Perrault's tales have "withstood the test of time" because he
was the "greatest stylist" and that in the Contes he brought a
"modern approach to literature".[18] The tales were written to impress the précieuse,
with a style that appealed to the literary elite and patronized the lower
classes. Bottigheimer believes Perrault's style is imaginative and enchanting,
most likely the effect of writing for a demanding audience.[3]
Themes
Perrault's
tales are primarily moralistic or didactic, with elements of Christian teaching,[19] about which scholar Lydia Jean says they were written
"to reinforce royal absolutism; [Perrault] defended the primacy of the
Catholic faith".[6] For example the main character in the first tale,
Griselidis, achieves goodness through the blessing of God although she is not
of noble birth; the moral is that through her ordeals she becomes worthy to be
wife to a nobleman. "Les Souhaits", on the other hand, probably
written to shock the sensibilities of his aristocratic audience, is about a
common woodcutter who neither knows what to do with the gift of three wishes
nor deserves the heavenly gift—because of his low birth and stupidity he
squanders the wishes.[17]
Perrault
was influenced by Church writers such as Jean-Pierre Camus and Tertullian, and the Fall
of Man is a pervasive theme in his
stories. Anne Duggan writes about the stories in "Women Subdued: The
Abdication and Purification of Female Characters in Perrault's Tales" that
the men are passionate whereas women's passions are punished. She goes on to
explain that Griselidis and Donkeyskin assume the original
sin of all women, and like Mary
Magdalen, undergo experiences of penitence
and repentance for their sin. The male characters are thus absolved of sin by
the female. Duggan writes that in the stories generally the female characters
begin in a state of sin: their experiences or ordeals purify and deliver them
while simultaneously making them powerless.[4]
For
example, Sleeping Beauty who is born in guilt, suffers the sin of curiosity, is
punished with a century of sleep as penance before being allowed to return to
live in the world. After her return, she is subordinate to the prince who
wakens her. Women who suffer the sin of pride are punished and some women, such
as Sleeping Beauty's mother, are depicted as evil,[4] who, described as an ogre and jealous of her son's wife and
children, orders them to be cooked and served for dinner. In the end, Sleeping
Beauty survives, while the mother-in-law suffers the fate she devises for her
daughter-in-law and grandchildren, and dies in the cook pot.[20] Furthermore, Perrault emphasizes the danger posed to women
from men, as in his moral written for "Little Red Riding Hood"—wolves
wait in the forest (or in the drawing rooms) for les jeunes demoiselles
(the young maidens).[12]
As
well as class lines, the morals fall along gender lines. For example,
"Little Red Riding Hood" teaches children the dangers of
disobedience, and "Puss in Boots" teaches boys to be heroic and witty
in spite of low social stature and small size. According to Zipes, girls and
women are meant to be passive and yet show desirable wifely qualities of
"patience, grace, charity" according to Zipes.[2] Other scholars however disagree with Zipes, such as
Hansjorg Hohr, who believes Perrault shows in Cinderella's character a
resilient young woman, knowledgeable about fashions, witty and clever,
generous, and above all skilled.[21]
A
widower many times over—having killed all his wives—and childless, Bluebeard's
character would not necessarily have been unusual at a time when women
frequently died in childbirth and men remarried.[22]
Perrault
described in minute detail settings such as Versailles
and contemporary fashions and cuisine, as a means of depicting modern society.[5] He developed simple stories by individualizing characters,
and then adding themes and morals relevant to his time, such as writing about
widowed women faced with the problem of daughters without dowries, or of peasants' lives in times of famine.[2] For example Bluebeard's last wife, who survives, uses his
fortune to give dowries to her sisters.[23]
Influence and legacy
In
1729, Robert Samber translated the volume into English, Histories, or Tales
of Past Time, which popularized in England, and later in America, the term
"Mother Goose Tales".[11]
In
the 19th century, in part because of the rise of romanticism, interest in fairy tales revived. In Germany the Brothers
Grimm, believing that tradition,
folklore, and the common people were necessary to a national identity,
collected and published fairy tales in the 1812 publication of Grimms' Fairy Tales, which they defined as traditionally German, although they
included Perrault's tales in their collection. At that time a myth was created
that Perrault's tales were an "exact reflection of folklore", as Jean
describes it,[24] although many of his tales had little basis in traditional
folklore. Nonetheless, in the 19th century, Perrault's tales were reevaluated
and considered to have been inspired by common people and based in folkloric
tradition. At this time the tales became popular as examples of showing
traditional folkloric values.[24]
Gustave
Doré's edition of the tales, published
with 36 engravings
in 1864, caused a renewed interest in Perrault.[2] Andrew Lang
published an annotated exact translation of the original French text in 1888.[10]
In
the 20th century, scholars discovered the tales originated in medieval texts;
but that they had undergone frequent adaptations and modifications. Although
the structure remained, Perrault's original tales are sometimes hard to
distinguish from modified versions, but the tales are now considered to have
become part of folkloric tradition. Today hundreds of editions in hundreds of
languages have been published.[2]
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