The Fairy-Tale Vanguard

The Fairy-Tale Vanguard:

Literary Self-Consciousness in a Marvelous Genre

Edited by Stijn Praet and Anna Kérchy

The Fairy-Tale Vanguard: Literary Self-Consciousness in a Marvelous Genre

Edited by Stijn Praet and Anna Kérchy

This book first published 2019

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover image: Detail from the frontispiece to Jonathan Swift, Le conte de tonneau, trans. Justus van Effen (1757), vol. 2, p. 87. After Bernard Lens and John Sturt. © Swift Studies (Ehrenpreis Centre)

Cover design: © Jonas Gezels

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

ISBN (10): 1-5275-3472-3 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-3472-8 TABLE OFCONTENTS

Introduction ...... 1 An Underdog in the Vanguard STIJNPRAET

PART ONE: Metaliterary Reflections

Chapter One ...... 18 The Modernist PoliticalContes de AgendaFées: Mademoiselle of the First Lhéritier, MadameMadame d’Aulnoy, de Murat’s and Paratexts SOPHIERAYNARD

Chapter Two ...... 37 Perrault’s Vanguard Experimentationistory: with Apuleius, Basile and H Sleeping Beauty,d the PsycheBourbon an Princess UTEH EIDMANN

Chapter Three ...... 55 Meta-Imagination in Lewis Carroll’ses about Literary Fairy-Tale Fantasi Alice’s Adventures ANNAK ÉRCHY

Chapter Four ...... 77 Princesses andontemporary Lift-men: The as CSelf-Consciousy Pla in Edith Nesbit’s Fairy Tales JESSICATIFFIN

Chapter Five ...... 92 Fairying the Avant-GardeEvil Fairy Talesin Pär Lagerkvist’s BJÖRNSUNDMARK

ChapterSix ...... 111 Cartesian Wit andsy: American A Comparative Fanta Study of Eric Chevillard’sLe Vaillant Petit Tailleur (2003) and Robert Coover’s Briar Rose (1996) EMELINEMORIN vi Table of Contents

Response to Part One ...... 129 Ruth B. Bottigheimer

PART TWO: Intergeneric, Stylistic and Linguistic Experimentations

Chapter Seven ...... 138 Fairy Tales and Genre Transformation:The Thousand The Influence of and One Nights on French Literature in the Eighteenth Century RICHARD VANLEEUWEN

Chapter Eight ...... 154 Little Worlds of TheWords Intergeneric and Things:tic and Linguis Innovation of Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales HELENEHØYRUP

Chapter Nine ...... 175 The Role of Fairy Tales in the Formationiterature of Romanian National L DANIELGICU

Chapter Ten ...... 193 “Excavating theover Very the Old Very to Disc New”:st The Moderni Fairy Tales ofe D.H.and Katherine Lawrenc Mansfield MARIACASADO VILLANUEVA

Chapter Eleven ...... 213 The Linguistic PunctumThe Complete in Rikki Butcher’s Ducornet’s Tales (1994)The andOne Marvelous Thing (2008) MICHELLERYAN -SAUTOUR

Chapter Twelve ...... 229 The Witch in the HanselOven: & Gretel: Exploring Witch Hunters WILLEMB DELÉCOURT

Response to Part Two ...... 247 “Wondering and Wandering” in Fairy-Tale Studies ELIZABETHWANNING HARRIES

Interviewanguard with a VAuthor ...... 256 RIKKIDUCORNET ANDMICHELLE RYAN -SAUTOUR

The Fairy-Tale Vanguardvii

Contributors ...... 267

Index of Keywords, Literary Authors and Titles ...... 274

INTRODUCTION

ANU NDERDOG INV THEANGUARD

STIJNPRAET

The image on this volume’s covernathan is taken from an edition of Jo Swift’s mock-epicThe Battle of the satire Books, which serves as an introductoryTale ofpiece a Tub (1704). to his Set against the backdrop of the so-called Quarrel of the Ancientsbeing and the Moderns that was waged among certain groups of Frencht’s text and English literati, Swif recounts how the books at St. James’ed by Library have become animat the spirits of their creatorslassical to have versus it out with one another–c contemporary authors,critics versus but alsojects. their It literary seems ob quite fitting that it is the ghting actual here. books that should do the fi After all, how do writers packiting? a punch, Not if not through their wr only do books constitute a concreteof their realization and exhibition authors’ poetics and artisticss projects, a keen some of them also expre awareness of theirrtistic, own status social,l, (a etc.) epistemologica as works of literature. Indeed,ed books to fend can be perfectly well equipp for themselves. Making our way across Swift’s bookishmany battlefield, we encounter valiant warriors, all of themrity. convinced Also of their side’s superio among them is a codex incarnationrles of the French Academician Cha Perrault, fighting for the Moderns–quiteor he briefly, I must add, f immediately gets his brains bashedhile out by Homer on horseback. W best remembered today for hisse collections and prose, of fairy tales in ver Perrault was also a leadingQuerelle and figure author in ofthe the French impressive multi-volumeParallèle des Anciens et des Modernes en ce qui regarde les Arts et les Sciences (Parallel of the Ancients and the Moderns Regarding the Arts and Sciences, 1688-1692), in which he evaluates the merits of boths sides. fairy-tale In fact, collectionse understood hi may as b a practical demonstrationorical defense and rhetd) of his (nuance 2 Introduction modernist1 If poetics. we imagine Perrault the Warrior Book, declaring his cause and fighting for the futureas well of be literature, a it might just copy ofHistoires his et contes du temps passé ((Hi)Stories and Tales of Times Gone By, 1697). As the present volume will confirm,t one of Perrault’s collection is bu many cases in whichare entwined fairy tales withf literary expressions o self-consciousness, both inn theand shapeformal of metaliterary reflectio experimentation. Now, going throughrtaining the existing scholarship pe to this particular topic, we findn on that the focus has mostly lai postmodern fairy tales andaptations, fairy-tale by authors ad such as Robert Coover and2 This A.S. is perhaps Byatt. not much of a surprise, given that overt displays ofe literary of the staple self-consciousness are on features of postmodern literaturery self- in general. Meanwhile, litera consciousness is hardly a postmodernew devices invention, and there are f associated with it that haven not millennia. been around for centuries, eve Texts such as LucianἈληθῆ διηγήματα of Samosata’s (True Histories, nd2 c. AD), GuillaumeLe voir de dit Machault’s (True Account, 1363-65), Miguel de Cervantes’Don Quixote (1605, 1615) and Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1759) may serve as a sobering reminder of that–to name but four canonical titles from esser an enormous corpus of well and l known historical works, including fairy tales. There is truth to Elizabeth Harries’we have observation that “because ignored or forgotten other momentss, we fail in theto history of fairy tale see the continuitieshrough it”, that and runcious] that t “[self-cons play and critique have been part of thet from genre the of the literary tale almos beginning”Twice Upon (16).3 Luckily, this neglectful amnesia is in the process of beingthe remedied. gradual With emancipationry-tale of fai studies from folkloristics inlars the have later twentieth century, scho grown increasingly comfortableas with just approaching the fairy tale another genre among literary genres:nd not mysterious, timeless a immutable, but with a documentable,n, and traceable history of its ow

1 I use the term “modernist” (notal sense capitalized) of non- or here in its gener anti-conventionalist/-traditionalist/-classicist.ate connection For betweenthe intim the FrenchQuerelle and the riseconte de(s) of fées the, see Fumaroli; Heidmann and Adam,Textualité 33-152; Seifert 61-78; and Sophie Raynard’s contribution to this volume. 2 See for instance the seminal studiesosen; Tiffin, by Bacchilega; Benson; Jo Marvelous Geometry. 3 In her lemma on “Metafiction”Greenwood Encyclopedia offor Folktales the and Fairy Tales, Tiffin acknowledgesary self-consciousness that liter tales does in fairy precede postmodernism, thoughack she further appears than hesitant to push it b Victorianmes (622). ti An Underdog in the Vanguard3 inscribed within the evolvinglds. dynamics Some of of specific literary fie them have also begun to exploreousness matters of literary self-consci throughout the4 When genre’s we combine history. the results of their variously specialized effortsrs, (mostly texts or focused on specific autho time periods), a larger pictureostmodernity, begins to emerge: long before p the fairy-tale tradition had es already and produced a myriad of stori collections that self-consciouslyh their reflectown on and experiment wit status as literary texts andts, their genres, relations to other (hypo)tex aesthetic currents, and artistic movements. Examples range from the early framedttista tale collections of Giamba Basile and Marie-Catherineoy, to Christoph d’Aulnd’s Martin Wielan quixotic dalliances fairy-tale in fairyland, farragoes to the and deconstructions of Decadent authors like Catulle5 and Mendès the and Anatole France, High Modernist tales and allusiveand Virginia flirtations of Robert Walser Woolf.6 What I want to propose here is that this recurring connection between fairy tales and literary a question self-consciousness of is not just some scattered, coincidentaltion cases in with a predictable prolifera postmodernity,a conspicuously well-representedbut diachronic phenomenon that runs throughout the literary genre’s entire history.

4 As Citton notes (554-555), contemporary from and on the fairy-tale scholarship Francophone world appears particularly for instance rich in this regard. See Heidmann andTextualité Adam,; Jomand-Baudry and Perrin; Seiffert; Sermain, Conte andMétafictions 357-432. Otherdevote studies special that attention to literary self-consciousness clude in pre-postmodernist Canepa fairy tales in (Basile); Magnanini and Straparola), (BasileTwice Upon Harries,(seventeenth century onward);wentieth Martin century); (earlys onward). t Eicher (1880 5 For the Decadent fairy tale, seeifert’s Gretchen translated Schultz and Lewis Se collectionFairy Tales offor the Disillusioned (2016). It is interesting to see the parallels betweenion of this authors’ generat sponse self-conscious to the re Perrauldian fairy of postmodernists tale and thatan/Disney to the Grimmi model. 6 If we go back further in time,tury before French the late-seventeenth-cen institutionalization of then fairy before tale Basile’s as a literary genre, eve milestoneLo cunto de li cunti (The Tale of Tales, 1634-1636, the first story collection to bentirely made up of almost what tales”) e we call and “fairy the earlier experiments of Giovan tity Francesco other Straparola,self- we can iden consciousfairy-tale-like texts by ancient and medieval writers such as Ovid, Apuleius, John ofMarie Alta de Silva France andonk’s (see Praet, Tale”, “M “Onwaarschijnlijk” and “Readeription Beware”). “fairy-tale- I prefer the circumscr like” (retrospectively) to re, “fairy given tales” that (anachronistically) these he texts belong prehistory to the. genre’s 4 Introduction

II.

Before questioning the underlyinglet us reasons for this phenomenon, briefly dwell on its two main expressions:literary on the one hand meta reflection in the guise of peritextualn, on the discourse and metafictio other, literary experimentation.most Starting with the former: the straightforward way to attachen metaliteraryfairy tale reflections to a giv or fairy-tale collection (literallyh peritextual and figuratively) is throug pieces such as dedicatorymmendatory and letters, coilogues, pro- and ep introductions, frontispieces,7 Here, the notes author and may book covers. situate their work within broaders, engage literary in and artistic context literary theorizing (e.g. concerning and style, matters of genre, language tradition versus innovation,iterature, the function or of the marvelous in l the relation between narrative or provide and cultural/national identity), the reader with a hermeneuticaluate lens through the which to read and ev tales at hand (e.g. through ironicg them distancing, to or by encouragin distill a “deeper wisdom”8 However, from theirall not “humble” form). fairy-tale peritextsto interpret: are asem whileeasy require some a of th more than decent knowledge of, theirothers literary-historical will context turn out to be fictionalizeda’s or dedications fully fictional (e.g. Straparol inLe piacevoli notti/The Pleasant Nights, the preface to the Braunschweig Feen-Märchen/Tales of the Fairies, or the Introduction and Notes in J.K. Rowling’sThe Tales of Beedle the Bard), if not downright fictitious and meant to mislead. This leads us to that other popularflection, vehicle for metaliterary re namely metafiction.9 Through a range of metafictional devices, fairy tales

7 I take my cue from Genette’s understandingxt” (Genette 10- of the term “perite 11,et passim ). As regards early modern fairy-talens and collections, later editio translations have often omitted selection their and original English peritexts. For a translation of such texts, accompaniednatory essays, by annotations see and expla Bottigheimer,Fairy Tales Framed . 8 This strategy of vindicating “low”phasizing but attractive the genres by em edificatory potential of their its contentsown in Western has a long tradition of literatures fromd, alsoAntiquity receiving onwarcertain a boost passages from in the writings of such Church as Augustine Fatherssidore of Hippo of Seville and I (see for instance Praet, “Monk’s Tale” 81-84). 9 On a basic semiotic level, metafictionalityall fictional writing is (as a function of is the poetic function of all linguisticJakobson’s communicationfamous in Roman model), in the sense that such lf writing and is cannot but position itse automatically positioned by audiencess and cultural in relation to other text repertoires inextuality, a web of intert bothnconsciously. consciously and To u write, create, adapt, or translateernalize isand to reject interpret, other repeat, int An Underdog in the Vanguard5 may encourage their readers todness consider of the the literary constructe text itself (its textuality,ell intertextuality, as broader genericity), as w literary questions that exceednting it, orthus complementing, suppleme replacing the more metaliterary or less direct statementsight also one m find in peritexts. Apart fromieces the fictional(ized) peritextual p mentioned above, examples of suchl use devices of include the purposefu intertextuality to elicit aairy-tale direct comparison and with the text’s f other hypotexts (already quitevogue), intensely the during the French ostentatious deconstruction ofentions narratorial voice and genre conv (extremely so in postmodern ictales), creativity the thematization of artist and the transformative power ofmantic the imagination (e.g. many a Ro Kunstmärchen),10 the identification of the Author with their characters (e.g.conteuses the in their guise of refined11 and powerful creative fairies), as well as the embedding of talesuch within as narrative frameworks s dialogues or plot-driven frameury tales very (before the twentieth cent common where fairy-tales12 The latter are concerned). in particular allows the author to dramatizeextualize and the cont ng act and of storytelli writing itself by putting talesonal in the mouths or hands of ficti characters, havingtheir them significance debatemerits, and artistic highlighting thetions relevant between connec fairyundane tales and m life, and showing the potential a given effects of marvelous stories on audience.

texts and discursiveall acts conventions, whiched can as be a form constru of dialogic response. “faithful” Even the translation/adaptat mostion of a given fairy tale might be read as a metafictionalurce text. perspective That being on its own so said, “metafiction’”only applied is more here commicted in sense the restr to fictional writing in which thiso the reflexive fore. See function the is brought t classic theoreticalHutcheon, studies Scholes bywell and as Waugh, the edited as essay collections by Currie and also Lepaludier, includes the latter of which analyses of tales by Angela Carter. 10 For the author/artistKunstmärchen as hero, see in Zipes,theBreaking Romantic 23-46, 73-75, 100-102.onal demonstration For a fictigination’s of the potential ima as a cognitive Kérchy’s tool, also contribution. see 11 See for instance Seifert 88-97 and Raynard’s contribution. 12 While Straparolall turn andoccaccian Basileto the B sti(in model itself preceded by various classical, medieval to European narrative and Oriental approaches framing), later authors such as de D’Aulnoy, Beaumont, Jeanne-Marie Leprince Wieland, Johann Wolfgangthe, Ludwig von Tieck, GoeArnim, Bettina Anne von Thackeray Ritchie and Nathanieling Hawthorne with a would keep experiment variety of structural their narrative set-upslso forframeworks. see TwiceHarries, A Upon 104-134. 6 Introduction

The second, less prototypicaliousness expression of literary self-consc that needs to be touched on herey isolate, can be a bit harder to formall exactly because ital: is literary so fundament experimentation,or the conscious digression of conventionsry out and propriety in order to t something new, based on an author’sry field, understanding of the litera whether or not with a notable and durable effect on its further development. It mightical for seem the paradoxnre fairy that tale, is so a ge popularly accompanied by the worded here “traditional”, to be associat with artistic novelty. However,s with the the better we acquaint ourselve fairy tale’s history,it becomes the obvious moren fact that dealing we are i with a protean very genre that has always continued to refashion itself in relation to other genres and artistics, also in developments and movement different ways . at Tradition, the same time yes,thic but or not monoli reactionary!13 What is more, fairy-tale authors have not just responded to these movements anda posteriori developments; many of them have actually taken the lead, positioningguard of themselves at the very van literary experimentalism andussions innovation, go with stakes and reperc beyond the fairy tale-genre itself.sion one That is at least the impres derives from contemporary fairy-tale contributions scholarship, including the to this volume. Surely, this is d not merely a case of wide-sprea “enthusiastic myopia”, of individualence that scholars’ misguided insist “their” texts are somehow special,ime, due subversive, to a ahead of their t lack or distortionof perspective?

III.

If my proposition is correctes that and the literary entanglement of fairy tal self-consciousness constitutes goes beyond a literary-historical trend that

13 This is also one why of it the is reasons so notoriouslycult to come diffi up with a definition of the fairy taleustice that is to inclusive the enough to do j heterogeneity ofrms the of corpus narrative in literary te materials texture and (genericity, style,c.) without register, losingc usefulness.et its pragmati Bottigheimer addresses the vaguenessthe term with “fairy which we tend to use tale” in her Response to Parte One.to a combination Personally, of I think it is du this protean nature of the tradition, generic a Babylonian confusion of terminologies,e fact thatand th the discourses a “fairy on what tale” counts is not a so much controlled by scholars,ers, as translators, by authors, editors, film publish makers, marketersaudience. and the widerFor thee, wepresent have volum chosen to adopt an open approache aswilling to what to kinds of text we ar consider in terms of the fairy-taletale parodies tradition, and including fairy- deconstructionswithout (no “anti-tale” a tale),t stories, realistic Surrealist shor vignettes, nonsense-literature,riental tales,ilms, action/horror etc. O f An Underdog in the Vanguard7 the coincidental, then the tquestion the underlying that suggests itself is wha reasons for that Is trend it possible mightis be. that, vast and within th heterogeneous corpus of texts her that as we have come to jumble toget fairy tales, there are some substantial that actually and/or formal constants provoke and facilitate a literaryeir authors? self-conscious stance from th To put it the other way around: whynt for would authors with a pencha literary theory and debate, metafictionalimentation play, or formal exper want to turn to fairy-tale(-like)fer an writing? Without trying to of exhaustive answer to these questions,er two more I would like us to consid or lessgenerically inherent factors that appear of relevance here: firstly, its long-standing status as an underdogrmal genre, and secondly, its fo suitibility for reflexivity tors and experimentation. are Both these fac connected to statusthe fairy as atale’s fictionalpar excellence:14 genre Though also informed by historicalone of realities and perspectives, the fairy tale’s strongestdigression generic markers from is its ostentatious what is conventionally accepted the at a given time and place to be mimetic representation of historical-empiricalich was, is, reality (that wh or could be), most obviously through beings, the inclusion of marvelous objects and events that wouldprobable be impossible or at least very im outside of its fictional realm.lity” The is furtherfairy tale’s “high fictiona enhanced by some of its more typicalrender formal it features that also textually15 from opaque: the very start, the fairy-tale reader is introduced into a world that is not delineatedn a time in in time a and space, once upo far-off land, nowhere and everywhere. this The characters inhabiting world are relatively one-dimensional,lity, their appearance, persona conduct and functional relationslittle to room each other clear-cut, with for psychologized realism andures internal are development. Plot struct fairly linear, to the point oflaic. becoming Indeed, predictable, even formu the fairy tale tends to revels and in abstraction. flatness, clear lines, pattern While the world that it constructsng to themight be thoroughly engrossi

14 Also see JacksonMarvellous 22; 13-20; Tiffin, Waugh 81. 15 The reader might recognize thesions influence on the of Max Lüthi’s discus EuropeanZauber)märchen ( here (e.g. Lüthi the prominence40-75). For of form in fairy tales, also seeMarvellous Bernheimer;. Again, one Tiffin, can think of many counter-examplese labeled of texts as that fairydo not ar tales, neatly but fit this description,specific set intimestions, and with locang plotsmeanderi punctured by flashbacks, anders ambiguous that have charact dynamicves. The inner dozens li of talesconteuses by such as D’Aulnoy, Lhéritier, De Murat and De La Force, which around 1700 still constitutedxts the (!), majority already of defy all fairy-tale te some of the common traits listedn as here they to are some with extent, interwove the French novel tradition. 8 Introduction reader, its formal features nonetheless of the fact conspire to remind them that it is, very words”, much, a “worldand highlyrential. of self-refe The genre’s heightened fictionalitynot and opaque textuality have always been met positively invincing terms of artistic appreciation, e gentle mocking, icy disdain and As even with fiery indignation instead. other fabulatory genres, from es beast to fables and chivalric romanc modern fantasy and science-fictionsistently novels, fairy tales have con been marginalizedactors by theiras naïve detrile trifles pastime, and puer admissibleperhaps when offered to children (though even that is not always a given) or among so-calledly not “vulgar crowds”, but certain among educated readers, who should such know better than to buy into fanciful, idle day-dreamingre and substantial limit their readerly diet to mo and edificatory16 fare. Extant examples of such criticismliers’ abound, from the Abbot of Vil dialogic treatisethe (1699) French against fairy-taled other vogue an genres “in badngle taste” philosopher (“Not a thatsi or I able know person has ever invented or composed trans.),fairy17 tales”, De Villiers 76, own to one recent film reviewer’s historicallytion misinformed exaspera regarding the 2015 adaptationLo cunto (“Since of when Basile’s are fairy tales aimed at adult viewers? […It]g points toward the increasin infantilization of the audience,and designed where stories shorn of nuance for a six-year-old’sd attention rather spanorm limite become for adult the n minds”, Fazio); and from the Dutchrns (1893) librarian Jacob Geel’s conce that “a deeply imprintedin that magical belief tales] world [of in fairy young minds may give rise to a nauseating, dim-witted narrow- mindedness thatthe surely goal cannot of man’stion” be Higher (ix, educa own trans.),18 to evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins’ musings (2014) that it might be “rather pernicious view of theto inculcate into a child a world which includeslism […] supernatura Even fairyones wetales, the

16 This observation is also the startingFantasy and point of Kathryn Hume’s Mimesis: Responses to Reality in Western Literature (1984), which presents itself as a complement to ErichMimesis: Auerbach’s Dargestellte Wirklichkeit classic in der abendländischen Literatur (1946). 17 “[…] aucun Philosophe & aucun habileinventé homme ou que je sçache, n’a composé des Contesor the de good Fées”. Abbot’s F Sophie treatise, Reynard’s see contribution. 18 “[…] een diep ingeprent geloofd, aan ten die gronde tooverwereld in de jeug leggen kan tot een misselijke domme doel bekrompenheid, eener die niet het Hoogere opvoedingn mensch van zijn de kan”. An Underdog in the Vanguard9 all love, with wizards or princessesever it was” turning into frogs or what (qtd. in 19Johnston). This brings us to a first significantge of fairy factor in the long marria tales and literary self-consciousness,uthors have namely that fairy-tale a usually been well aware of suchy were prejudice and the fact that the practicing an “artisticallyhat suspect” has so type of writing. This is w often stimulated them to employrse the and kinds of peritextual discou metafictional devices discussed purpose above, of more specifically to the an anticipatory vindicationrtistic and demonstration merits of their tales’ a and edificatory potential, ranging to dead from light-heartedly playful serious. It is not without ironyalready that in some the fairy-tale authors, eighteenth century, partiallyy building side with in the perennial critics b implicit and explicit criticismsand what of they their fairy-tale hypotexts perceive as the “traditional”. By fairy framing tale’s ethics and esthetics those as backwards, simplisticshown and off naïve, as their own writing is more modern and sophisticated–whichine of of course is just another l defense...20 The second relatively constanttive factor is more positive, explora rather than defensive: whilenality the fairy and tale’s heightened fictio opaque textuality have long fedation into as its a (non-ubiquitous) reput trivial, whimsical and childishn ideal genre, they also make it into a playground and miniature laboratoryoregrounding, for all manners of formal f introspection and experimentation.push the Where better to examine and boundaries of literary writinge bending than in of a genre that combines th the strictures of conventionalized-shaped mimetic and realism with a clear thus rather noticablend narrative textual architecture?ale’s a The t condensed format is not unimportantarter once in this regard; as Angela C put it with reference to the, short it is rococo.story, it I “is not minimalist feel in absolute control. It iser like than writing chamber music rath symphonies” (qtd. in Simpson xix). Apart from these genericallyink inherent of factors, we could also th other,historically more variable ones, like the eighteenth-century emergence of children’s literaturefor children, and the which fairy stimulated tale the elaboration ofly new, age-appropriate presumab21 or the nineteenth- styles;

19 This passing remark earned Dawkins in the a media, lot of negative attention also from fairy-taled authors, scholars whichm toan quickly rephrase led his hi stance: “If youto did a child’s inculcate mindsm…that in supernaturali would be pernicious. Theer question fairy stories is whethhat actuallyand I’m now do t thinking they probablycould even don’t. be thed. Itin reverse” Weaver). (qt 20 See Tiffin’s and contributions. Morin 21 See Høyrup’s contribution. 10 Introduction century conceptualization of)creation “national of literatures” and the (re an “authentic” text corpus tole go as with folktale it, in which the fairy ta occupied a privileged22 or how the position; fairy tale would provide High Modernists, Dadaistslists alike and Surrea withmaterials just the right with which to destabilizeary Naturalism liter23 or and the Realism; fact that in recent decades, the fairyst old tale literary has become one of the la genres of which the formal conventionsl and a bowdlerized textua repertoire are truly still wide known audience, to a making it into a suitable vessel for intertextual24 We could go postmodern on for a play. while, especially if we also were to take into account the more idiosyncratic projects of individual surpass the authors–but that would far scope and purpose of this Introduction.

IV.

By now, I hope thatrvations my main have obse come there across: is that indeed a rich vein of literaryiry-tale self-consciousness within the fa tradition; that this vein runs genre’s all the early way back to the literary modern inception (and even to); fairy that ittale-like has texts before that known various expressions relating, the genre to specific fairy-tale texts itself and/or broader mattersressions of literature; may and that these exp be linked both to generically riable inherent and historically more va factors. I will leave it to this turn volume’s these other contributors to generalizing statements into something more concrete. Before offering the reader a quicke outline of the ensuing twelv chapters, I shouldare trying note what to achieve swe volume here. is Thi not set up as a collaborative monographpass with the ambition to encom the entire fairy-tales massive tradition’ historycal and spread; geographi nor does it attempt to mapall theout, major classify forms and of analyze literary self-consciousness t that itdoes one might encounter there. Wha offer, is a selective testimonyllection of this of phenomenon through a co case studies that focus on textso the ranging twenty- from the seventeenth t first century, inSwedish, English, Danish, German, Romanian. French, and These studies can be read independentlyable of one another, as valu contributions to ongoing researchs and texts, pertaining to specific author but they can also serve as a continued facets and exploration of different expressions of literary self-consciousness, literary- the theoretical and historical ramificationsh are just as ofapplicableer whic (fairy-tale) to oth

22 See Gicu’s contribution. 23 See Sundmark, Casado and Ryan-Sautour’s Villanuevans. contributio 24 See Morin and De Blécourts contributions. An Underdog in the Vanguard11 texts outside this volume’s scope.pique theWe hope that they will help interest of fairy-taleand students scholars inthus, this in topic the long and run, enhance our understandingas literature in relation of to the fairy tale literature. The chapters of this volume havec been arranged into two themati sections, each of which concludese, with a critical response piec respectively by Ruther and B. Elizabeth Bottigheimies. Wanning Harr These responsesance are themeant volume’s to enhrence internal and cohe to stimulate critical dialoguekes regarding by its some of the stances ta contributors. Both of them alsoairy-tale offer suggestions as to where f scholarship in general could go from here. Part One, entitled “Metaliterarye Reflections”, opens with Sophi Raynard’s analysis of the programmaticnal passages peritexts and metafictio through which the late-seventeenth-centuryconteuses Lhéritier, D’Aulnoy and De Murat attempt to “market”as a theirmodern takes on the fairy tale literary genre that is both morallyle. Raynard and aesthetically respectab relates their projectQuerelle todes Anciens the concurrentet des Modernes and the objections of some of the bourgeoning genre’s notable detractors. Remaining in the environment ofench the late-seventeenth-century Fr courts and salons, Ute Heidmannaterial, presents us with the specific m literary, and historical contextau bois in which Perrault’s “La belle dormant” (“Theauty Sleeping in the Woods”, Be first took 1695) shape. She posits that Perrault’s tales,ourbon originally addressed to the B Princess Elisabethrléans, Charlotte were setntertextually d’O up peri- and i as a hermeneutic exercise thatty hingeswith, on on the reader’s familiari the one hand, literary traditions,neous events and on the other, contempora and discourses concerning the. plights of young aristocrat women Moving to Victorian England, Annas Kérchy tackles Lewis Carroll’ fairy tale-adjacent adventureshow of they Alice in Wonderland, arguing provide their readers with elaboratengs of the reflections on and imagini process of imagination and imaginative as a storytelling, not merely fanciful or artistic activity,apacity but as that a fundamental cognitive c entails a variety of applications,te problem- from social skills to concre solving. Next, Jessica Tiffinw half discussesa centuryNesbit’s later, ho Edith Edwardian fairy tales for childrener the invite their readers to pond relevance of theg playfulgenre by commentaries staginrchaic on its a feudal structures, which clashedcally with Nesbit’s own socio-politi progressive convictions. At tales the same tend time, to Tiffin explains, her foreground the “science-fictiond technological wonder” of recent scientific an 12 Introduction discovery, thus relocating theture-in-thefairy tale from the past to a fu making. Björn Sundmark reconsidersOnda Pär sagor Lagerkvist’s book of (Evil Fairy Tales, 1922) in relation to the aesthetic and political agenda of the latter’s avant-gardeOrdkonst och bildkonst: manifesto Om modärn skönlitteraturs dekadans–om den modärna konstens vitalitet (Literary and Pictorial Art: On the Decline of Modern Literature–On the Vitality of Modern Art, 1913), underlining the importance of this collection for Modernist Scandinavian literature and other art forms. Part One ends with Emeline Morin’s comparative analysis of two postmodern adaptations of canonicald’sLe fairy tales: Eric Chevillar Vaillant petit tailleur (The Brave Little Taylor, 2003) andBriar Coover’s Rose (1996). Not unlike Nesbit’safictional tales, both these texts rely on met techniques to playfully questionile also older modes of storytelling wh undermining the fairy tale’sand penchant happy for readerly enchantment endings. Morin suggests the possibilityners in that the respective man which this is accomplished withinf more the texts may be indicative o general Francophone and Anglophoneal” fairy attitudes towards “tradition tales and how to adapt them. Part Two is devoted to “Intergeneric, Linguistic and Stylistic Experimentations”. It begins ntwith of Richardthe van Leeuwen’s treatme powerful creative impactMille made et une bynuits Antoine Galland’s (Thousand and One Nights) on eighteenth-century European literatures. He attributeshe this collection’s in partmulating to tartistically “generic sti instability”, easure as well trove as to of itsers, novel tr plots, charact settings and narrative techniques.Jean Paul In his analyses of works by Bignon, Jacques Cazotte and Jeanw the Potocki, Van Leeuwen argues ho Nights became an importantnt in reference discussionsature poi about the n and function of fictionrelationship and the betweend realism an imagination in literature. Helene Høyrup eventyr turns of to Hans the Christian Andersen, characterizing them as hybrid,ls” Romantic-Realist that “miniature nove also anticipate features of twentieth-century innovative Modernism. Highly in their use of language with (fusing the literary) the colloquial and narratorial positions (addressingnd adults), a dual audience of children a Andersen’s tales reflect contemporaneousof Danish debates on the future literature and would leave a notablehe Danish mark on the formation of t literary canon. Daniel Gicu likewise discussesales the and relationship between fairy t the nineteenth-century creationchapter of national on literatures in his Romania’s earliest folk- and how fairy-tale collectors collections. He details An Underdog in the Vanguard13 and editor-authors such as Arthurlimon and and Albert Schott, Nicolae Fi Petre Ispirescu took their cue e from an the Brothers Grimm to creat “authentic” narrative heritagealso for been the Romanian nation. As had the case Kinder- with und the Hausmärchen , this entailed an intense editing process, as well as arythe styleelaboration that of a specific liter was meant to showcase the “inherentlyRomanian poetic qualities” of the people. Maria Casado Villanueva sheds lighthe on the connection between t fairy tale and the British Modernistat, while short the story. She argues th two might appear strange bedfellowsother-worldly at first, the fairy tale’s atmosphere and adherence to establishedrovided narrative conventions p Modernist authors with a stock of to marvelous elements with which undermine literary realism andconstructed with recognizable plots to be de for the sake of readerly defamiliarization.heoretical She then puts her t framework to use in two case studies,ence’s respectively on D.H. Lawr The Horse Dealer’s Daughter (1922) and CatherineThe Mansfield’s Tiredness of Rosabel (1920). Michelle Ryan-Sautour’s contributionvisual deals with the author and artist Rikki Ducornet,Complete especially Butcher’s Tales the latter’s (1994)The andOne Marvelous Thing (2008). Wavering on the edges of the fairy tale, the nineteenth-centuryealism, nonsense-tradition, Surr magical realism and the shortterized story, byDucornet’s a prose is charac generic and linguisticrization, defamilia whichan-Sautour according to Ry goes hand in hand with a marvel-inducing itself, experience of language including its visual representations. Finally, Willem de Blécourt tacklesdition the interaction between tra and experimentation in the multi-medialncerning family of narratives co Hansel and Gretel. His focal pointmmy is the Norwegian director To Wirkola’sHansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013). Though this film was widely panned by critics, De Blécourtess makes proposes that it nonethel for an interestingntergeneric case study fairy-taletion in i on adapta account of its savvynsformation use and of tra olderof depictions witchcraft in popular belief,hemselves literature and film that are in t foreign to the fairy-tale tradition. On top of these twelve chapters, we have chosen to include an interview with Rikki Ducornet byher Michelle Ryan-Sautour, who in other contribution firmlyoeuvre at situates the vanguard the former’s of contemporary fiction. Ducornetof presented her and discussed samples work at theFairy-Tale 2012 Vanguard conference in Ghent, alongside other acclaimed rators, writers including and illust, Peter Carll Cneut Verhelst and Bernard Dewulf. By, reproducing we this interview here 14 Introduction want to offer just a glimmer ofes the that kind took of interesting dialogu place during that event.

To say that this book is long overduet. My would be an understatemen sincere thanks go to our contributorse and for their angelic patienc sustained efforts, to our respondentseedy replies, for their thorough but sp to Vanessa Joosen, who was therethis at project, the earliest conception of and especially to Anna Kérchy who,us co- by volunteering as my frabjo editor, gavetra pushit the it ex needed.

Works Cited

Bacchilega,Postmodern Cristina. Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. Print. Benson, Stephen,Cycles of Influence: ed. Fiction, Folktale, Theory. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003. Print. Bernheimer, Kate. “Fairy TaleThe Writer’s is Form, Form is Fairy Tale”. Notebook. New York/Portland: Tin House Books, 2010. 61-73. Print. Bottigheimer,Fairy Ruth Tales Framed: B., ed.Early Forewords, Afterwords, and Critical Words. New York: State University Press of New York, 2012. Print. Canepa, Nancy From Court L.to Forrest: Giambattista Basile’s Lo cunto de li cunti and the Birth of the Literary Fairy Tale. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999. Print. Citton, Yves. “Fairy Poetics: (Post) Revisiting French Fairy Tales as Modern LiteraryEighteenth-Century Machines”. Studies 39.4 (2006): 449-555. Print. Currie, Mark,Metafiction. ed. London/New York: Longman, 1995. 1-18. Print. De Villiers,Entretiens Pierre. sur les contes de fees et sur quelques autres ouvrages du temps, pour servir de préservatif contre le mauvais goût. Paris: Jacques Collombat, 1699. Web. Eicher, Thomas,Märchen und ed. Moderne: Fallbeispiele einer intertextuellen Relation.Literatur im Kontext: Quellen und Studien zur deutschsprachigen Literatur der Moderne. Vol. 2. Münster: Lit, 1996. Print. Fazio, Giovanni.’: “‘TaleDo we need of Tales fables?”.The for adults Japan Times, 30 Nov. 2016,apantimes.co.jp/culture/ https://www.j 2016/11/30/films/film-reviews/tale-tales-need-fables-adults.cessed 4 Ac May 2018. Web. An Underdog in the Vanguard15

Fumaroli, Marc. “Less d’éloquence: enchantementharles ‘Les fées’ de C Perrault ou deLe la statut littérature”. de la littérature: mélanges offerts à Paul Bénichou. Genève: Livraire Droz S.A, 1982, pp.153- 186. Geel, Jacob.Onderzoek “Voorrede”. en Phantasie. Leiden: C.C. Van der Hoek, 1938. i-xviii. Web. Genette,Seuils Gérard.. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1987. Harries, ElizabethTwice Upon a Wanning.Time: Women Writers and the History of the Fairy Tale. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. Print. Heidmann, Ute and Jean-MichelTextualité et intertextualité Adam. des contes. Perrault, Apulée, La Fontaine, Lhéritier… Paris: Éditions Classiquesr, 2010. Garnie Print. Hume, Kathryn.Fantasy and Mimesis: Responses to Reality in Western Literature. New York/London: Methuen, 1984. Print. Hutcheon,Narcissistic Linda. Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox. Wilfrid Laurier Waterloo, University Ontario, Press:t. 1980. Prin Jackson, Rosemary.Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion. London/New York: Routledge, 1981. Print. Johnston, Ian. “Richardon Fairy Dawkins Tales:ather ‘I think it’s r pernicious to inculcate intoincludes a child a view of the world which supernaturalism’”.The Independent, 5 June 2014, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/professor-richard- dawkins-claims-fairy-tales-are-harmful-to-children-9489287.html. Accessed 14 Feb. 2016. Web. Joosen, Critical Vanessa. and Creative Perspectives on Fairy Tales: An Intertextual Dialogue between Fairy-Tale Scholarship and Postmodern Retellings. Detroit: Wayneersity State Press, Univ 2011. Print. Lepaludier,Métatextualité Laurent, et metafiction: ed. théorie et analyses. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2003. Print. Lüthi,The Max. Fairy Tale as Art Form and Portrait of Man. Trans. Jon Erickson. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Print. Jomand-Baudry, Régine andLe Conte Jean-François merveilleux Perrin, eds. au XVIIIe siècle: une poétique expérimentale. Paris: Kimé, 2002. Print. Magnanini,Fairy Suzanne. Tale Science: Monstrous Generation in the Tales of Straparola and Basile. Buffalo/London/Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Print. Martin,Red Ann.Riding Hood and the Woolf in Bed: Modernism’s Fairy Tales. Buffalo/London/Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006. Print. 16 Introduction

Praet, Stijn. “A Monk’s Tale:Alta Framing Silva’s the Fictional in John of Dolopathos”.Narratologie und mittelalterliches Erzählen: Autor, Erzähler, Perspektive, Zeit und Raum. Eds. Eva von Contzen and FlorianDas Kragl. Mittelalter. Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung. Beihefte. Vol. 7. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018. 81-100. Print. —. “Een onwaarschijnlijk verhaal:en de Latijnse ‘sprookjes’ van e middeleeuwse VolkskundeCisterciënzer”. 118.3 (2017): 235-254. Print. —. Reader Beware: “Reader Beware: Apuleius, Metafiction and the Literary FairyAnti-Tales: Tale”.The Uses of Disenchantment. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge . Scholars Publishing, 2011. 37-50 Print. Scholes,Fabulation Robert. and Metafiction . Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980. Print. Sermain, Jean-Paul.Le Conte de fées du classicisme aux Lumières. Paris: Desjonquères, 2005. Print. —.Métafictions (1670-1730). La réflexivité dans la littérature d’imagination. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2002. Print. Schultz, Gretchen and LewisFairy Tales Seifert, for the ed. and trans. Disillusioned: Enchanted Stories from the French Decadent Tradition. Princeton: Princeton 2016. University Print. Press, Simpson, Helen.The “Introduction”. Bloody Chamber and Other Stories . By Angela Carter. London: Vintage, 2006. vii-xix. Print. Tiffin, Marvelous Jessica. Geometry: Narrative and Metafiction in Modern Fairy Tales. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009. Print. —. “Metafiction”. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales. Ed. Donald Haase. Vol. 2. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008. 622-623. Print. Weaver, Matthew. “You can call ,me says a big bad wolf but not a bore Richard Dawkins”.The Guardian, 5 June 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/05/richard-dawkins- fairytales-not-harmful.ccessed 14 Feb. A 2016. Web. Waugh, Patricia.Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of a Self- Conscious Genre. London: Methuen, 1984. Print. Zipes,Breaking Jack. the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales. 2nd rev. exp. ed. Lexington:, The University Press of Kentucky 2002. Print. PART ONE

❧

METALITERARY REFLECTIONS CHAPTERONE

THEM ODERNISTPOLITICAL AGENDA OF THEFIRST CONTES DE FÉES: MADEMOISELLELHÉRITIER , MADAME’A DULNOY, ANDM ADAME DEMURAT ’SP ARATEXTS

SOPHIERAYNARD

Mademoiselle Lhéritier’s prefatoryds, Madame dedications and her afterwor d’Aulnoy’s frame tales in whichnd her fairy tales are embedded, a Madame de Murat’s famous introductoryher epistle preceding one of fairy-tale collections are thessing only the theoretical paratexts discu completely new fairy-tale vogue the 1690s.that these authors initiated in In this study, I will explainconteuses or how pioneers these three of early the genre intended to define thatublic, new in literary product to the p particular, how they marketed thehy fairy tale as modern and wort literature. But first let mateus describe of the times the politico-cultural cli in order to better understand ay the have position that women writers m taken and to what aim. We shallty try that and the highlight the opportuni Quarrel between the Ancients ande women the Moderns represented for th of letters.

Fairy Tales as a Point of Argumentation in the Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns

As Julie Boch explained in her ngs edition of the theoretical writi contemporary to the fairy-taletand vogue, the it is important to unders dialogue that was happening inin favor direct or against the fairy tale relation to France’s larger historical the times and social background of (“Introduction” 327-351). Inassic stating fairy- this, Boch corroborated cl The Modernist PoliticalContes de AgendaFées of19 the First tale specialist Raymonde Robert’st vogue earlier as interpretation of tha “one of the forms in which the elite’ss the various reactions toward historical movement” (Robert are expressed 455, eed, my trans.). Ind Robert attributed a social roles used to by the the fairy tale in that it wa elite as a sign of mutual intellectualalso stressed recognition. a Robert had second advantage inherent inhe that fairy imaginative tale literary genre: t was a perfect medium for literarycritical experimentation. The idea of freedom was important to the Modernsrel as expressed in their quar against the Ancients saw it because as proofress. they of human In his prog Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, 1686), academicianovier Bernard de Fontenelle Le B claimed equality between the Ancients andhe the Moderns on the basis of t universality of human nature. He the even went as far as suggesting Moderns’ superiority on the basishe Moderns of the theory of evolution, t having the advantage of capitalizingtheir on the inventions made by ancestors and thus surpassing them.lt and The Moderns (such as Perrau Fontenelle) also unfavorably compareder of the two sides on the matt style, taste, and moral propriety.Parallèle des Thus, in Charles Perrault’s Anciens et des Modernes (Parallel between Ancients and Moderns, 1688- 1692), the Abbé criticized the obscenity of antique fables:

These Milesian fables are so puerile,enough to that it is honoring them oppose them to Donkeyther Skin- Goose-tales, and soMo full or they are of iniquitiessaletés) likeGolden ( the Ass by Lucian or Apuleius […] and several others that they do note conte deserve en any attention (Boch, “L débats” 355-356, my trans.).

It is clear by this quote, putnist in the advocate, mouth of Perrault’s moder that the “new” fairy tales were the created to promote the cause of Moderns,t by at Perrault. leas

The Theoretical Writings Critiquing the Fairy-Tale Vogue

1. Pierre deEntretiens Villiers’ sur les contes de fées (Conversations about Contes de Fées) (1699)

Abbé de Villiers was on friendlye instigator terms with Nicolas Boileau, th of the Ancients in the quarrel.eady He was a predicator who had alr expressedEntretiens in surhis les tragédies de ce temps (Conversations on Tragedies of Our Times, 1675) his aversions for the contemporary tragedies based on passions andclear female that heroiche characters. It is and Boileau shared misogynisticitical traits among other esthetic-pol 20 Chapter One views, thus it is not surprisings’ modernist to understand the women writer position in the quarrel, as this comment from Villiers implies:

Most women only enjoy reading becauseriviality; they enjoy laziness and t not only in the provinces, butne also finds in this Paris and at the court o taste for frivolous books among a women.little Everything that requires effort tires andy amuse bores themselves them; thein the with same a book way they play with a fly or a ribbon.hat tales So anddoes it astonish you t little stories areEntretiens popular? sur les contes (Villiers,de fées, excerpt from thetion fifth trans. conversa in Bottigheimer 208)

Villiers’sEntretiens sur les contes de fées et sur quelques autres ouvrages du temps, pour servir de préservatif contre le mauvais goût (Conversations about Contes de Fées and Some Other Works of Our Time, to serve as an antidote to bad taste, 1699) were dedicated to the gentlemen of the French Academy in order tose dissuade bad authors to compo frivolous works and incite others. The to only write excellent works problem with Villiers’contes de fées is critique that it isof based on the premise that they have been written antique for children, just like the fables they oppose to them:

THE PROVINCIAL: I am not comparingFables with Aesop’scontes the de fées at all. For those necessary fables, to it have ,was all all the the wit delicacy, and thend even good all sense, the knowledge excellenta of an philosopher.conte de But fées, forwhat a is necessary? There is no sense for reason; theseolous are tales very that friv to nurses amuse invented children.

THEP ARISIAN: You judgecontes de fées in just the same way as those who have written so many recently.equired They believed that these tales r neither reason nor good sense,giving and they them succeeded perfectly in that character. Most of them have that even these forgotten what you said, tales were invented for children. wrote They in made them so lengthy and so complex a style, that even the (Villiers children were bored with them trans. in Bottigheimer 212).

Yet, someone like Lhéritier insisteds in on the importance of moral contes de fées for one thing and alluded to the adult reception for another, when she reports that she had beenf “in the company of persons o distinguished merit, whose conversationems, tales, fell on the topic of po and short stories” and that theyed had all commented on and prais Perrault’s first tales–“Griselidis”its ridicules” (“Griselda”) and “Les Souha (“The Ridiculous Wishes”) are namedn her –, after which she had take turn to tell a tale and presentedishment”, “Marmoisan” “with some embell The Modernist PoliticalContes de AgendaFées of21 the First it having come to her mind “in theer, spur of the moment” (Lhériti “Preface to ‘Marmoisan’”rans. in Bottigheimer t 131):

We spent a great deal of time wasarguing also aboutsaid [short stories]. It that however beautifuls might be those in their genre, work respective they were nonethelessions lesser originating productf their from the hand o famous author, who had given sofor many poetry marks of his great talent and eloquence, ntand insights whose brillia in all the the sciences fine and arts everyone knew (Ibid.).

This is anotherr wayto say for that Lhéritie fairy-tales may be very author talented authors to begin with,, even and their because of that prerogative minor productions1 are worth something. By contrast, this presents is how theVilliers situation:

THEP ROVINCIAL: […] you will agree that the best tales we have are the ones that imitatehe simplicity the style and losely;of tnurses it most is c only for this reason that youed seem to the pleased son by the ones attribut of a famousan Academici (Villiersin Bottigheimer trans. 220).

So, just like the distinguishedented company her to which Lhéritier pres tale and within whom Perrault’sVilliers tales were very well received, also appreciated of the Perrault’s naïve charm as writings the as well solidity of his morals. However,ise. thisIndeed, is where he stops his pra he does not mention Lhéritier’sen analogous contributions, and ev condemns quite explicitly thehen stylistic he says: puerility of Aulnoy’s w

THEP ARISIAN: You believe that these authors [“ignorant people possessed by the desire tonk write that theirbooks] booksess? thi are worthl

THEP ROVINCIAL: Yes, and I even think that they admit it. I have heard tell of a lady who has writtencontes de fées some and ofis thesethe first to mock them and the bookstores andsays the readers who buy them. She everywhere that this is the worse after merchandise all in the world, but people want them,pay she me says,well, theyI’ll many give as them as they want.ns. (Villiers in Bottigheimer tra 211)

1 Bottigheimer argues that the Abbé’s fairy-tale de Villiers praised Perrault productions probablyult was because one of Perrathe of his dedicatees volume (207). Here, too, Lhéritier couldlomatic be praising reasons her uncle for dip because, as we can see from the womenments writers’ metaliterary com (Lhéritier’s, Aulnoy’s,t’s), those and ladies a Mura different chose quite path in writing their stories and portraying themselves as authors. 22 Chapter One

Villiers would characterize thethe Ancients’ style as natural and conteuses’ as artificial and infantile. Yet, by contrast, the Moderns considered Homer’s type of naturaly too trivial and mundane. The obviously had profound disagreementsception. in matters of style and re

2. Pierre-Valentin La Télémacomanie Faydit’s (Telemachomania) (1700)

Abbé Faydit, although the leastairy-tale known of the opponents to the f vogue, is perhaps the most virulentin fairy-tale of all. His loss of legacy studies may be due to the facted that in anhis theories are not compil essay directly addressing thatLa genre. It is indirectly, in his Télémacomanie, ou la Censure et critique du roman intitulé Les Aventures de TélémaqueTelemachomania, ( or Censure and Critique of the Novel entitled The Adventures of Telemachus, 1700), a volume constituting a systematic criticism of FrançoisTélémaque Fénelon’s famous novel (Telemachus 1699), that one can find his personal comments on the contemporary fairy-tale vogue.s’ Faydit’s in attack on the ‘marvelou Fénelon applies just as much marvelous to the fairy tale: it is a type of based on sentimental Romanesque,to loath a type of poetics he happened for being too corny and facetious,s opinion and its the fairy tale was in hi worst expression. He opposed iality.Homer’s Thesimplicity to such artific fact is that Faydit was againstven the sparing marvelous in general, not e Perrault in his and acerb openly criticism, condemnings of the the work conteuses as being intellectually despicable and undignified. Yet, he conceded in his concludingconteuses (he arguments specifically that the mentions the names of Mademoisellerat) de La Force and Madame de Mu did possess some wit and nobility, while Perrault had a fertile imagination–a mere concession ook that was made all too late in a b otherwise quitet thevindictive fairy talers. agains and its autho

3. Jean-Baptiste MorvanLettres curieuses de de Bellegarde’s littérature et de morale (Particular Letters on Literature and Morals) (1702)

Another religious man of letters, a former Jesuit who turned to Cartesianism, Abbé de Bellegardetises wrote for dialogues and moral trea the elite. TheLettres third curieuses letter de littérature in et de his morale par M. l’Abbé de Bellegarde (The Letters of Monsieur l’abbé de Bellegarde) (1702) addresses the moral differences between the Ancients and the Moderns and deals withs. the He fairy is tale among other topic prompted to do so by a Lady from theof court, the famous Duchess Maine, nicknamed Ludovie (afterretical a famous fairy), who poses theo