Thanks to him, we know the wonderful stories about Little Red Riding Hood and Puss in Boots, but did he write these works? And what was in these fairy tales in the original version?
One day two boys came to the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. It was a weekday morning. They were two students of the Beauvais College. One of them, Charles, was expelled from the lesson, the second, Borin, followed his friend. The boys sat down on the bench and began to discuss the current situation - what to do next. They knew one thing for sure: they would not return to the boring college for anything. But you have to study. Charles heard this from childhood from his father, who was a lawyer for the Paris Parliament. And his mother was an educated woman, she herself taught her sons to read and write. When Charles entered college at the age of eight and a half, his father checked his lessons every day, he had great respect for books, teaching, and literature. But only at home, with his father and brothers, you could argue, defend your point of view, and in college you needed to cram, you just had to repeat after the teacher, and God forbid, argue with him. For these disputes, Charles was expelled from the lesson. No, no more to the disgusting college with a foot! But what about education? The boys racked their brains and decided: we will study on our own. Right there in the Luxembourg Gardens, they drew up a routine and from the next day began to implement it. Borin came to Charles at 8 in the morning, they studied together until 11, then dined, rested and studied again from 3 to 5. The boys read ancient authors together, studied the history of France, learned Greek and Latin, in a word, those subjects that they would pass and in college. “If I know anything,” Charles wrote many years later, “I owe it exclusively to these three or four years of study.” What happened to the second boy named Borin, we do not know, but the name of his friend is now known to everyone - his name was Charles Perrault.
But let's move on to a mystery shrouded in darkness.
It turns out that in philological science there is still no exact answer to the elementary question: who wrote the famous fairy tales?
The fact is that when the book of fairy tales of Mother Goose was first published, and it happened in Paris on October 28, 1696, a certain Pierre de Armancourt was designated as the author of the book.
However, in Paris they quickly learned the truth. Under the magnificent pseudonym de Armancourt, none other than the youngest and beloved son of Charles Perrault, nineteen-year-old Pierre was hiding. For a long time it was believed that the writer father went to this trick only in order to introduce the young man into elite, in the circle of the young Princess of Orleans, niece of King Louis the Sun. After all, this book was dedicated to her. But later it turned out that young Perrault, on the advice of his father, wrote down some folk tales, and there are documentary references to this fact.
The inexplicable silence of Charles Perrault has given rise today to two main scientific versions about the authorship of fairy tales. The first is that Perrault himself wrote the book, but on principle he decided to secure the glory of fairy tales for his beloved son. The second version - fairy tales were really written by the youngest son of Perrault, the brilliant young man Pierre Perrault, and the writer's father only literary processed the works of his son.
But in fact, the tales of Mother Goose became the first book in the world written for children. Prior to this, no one specifically wrote books for children ... So whoever it was, thanks to him, we have such a wonderful genre as "children's fairy tales."
But the same fairy tales have come down to us, as they were in the first edition, or has something changed? Let's figure it out.
Most of the fairy tales known to us under the authorship of Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and other storytellers originated among the people in the Middle Ages, and their original plots are sometimes distinguished by cruelty and naturalness. domestic scenes. For example, in the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood" the Wolf eats not only the grandmother, but also the girl herself in addition.
And in the well-known Sleeping Beauty, waking up, the princess says: “Oh, is that you, prince? You kept yourself waiting!" No kissing, just small talk that lasted for four hours and woke up the whole palace. “He approached her with trembling and admiration and knelt before her. Then the princess woke up, for the time had come for the spell to dissipate ... ”- this is how Perrault describes this scene. And the kiss comes to her from the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm "Rosehip". And also in the original of this tale, a couple in love will still have a difficult test in the form of a cannibalistic mother-in-law who wants to eat her grandchildren.
Also in the fairy tale "Cinderella", beloved by girls, the shoes were far from crystal, but trimmed with fur. Some believe that this fur was the famous Russian sable, and in translations they write "sable shoes". However, it so happened that over time, the word "vair" ("fur for the trim"), according to the principle of a damaged telephone, was transformed into "verre" ("glass"). As a result, comfortable and soft shoes have become refined by ear, but completely sadistic in practice " crystal slippers". And also a completely cruel event in the original of this tale: when a messenger with shoes appears in Cinderella's family, the mischievous sisters manage to try them on, for which one of them ... cuts off her finger, and the second - her heel! However, two doves expose the liars, humming:
"Look, look, And the slipper is covered in blood ...".
Yes, yes, not everything was fabulous in the works of Charles Perrault. But it seems to us that it is better to let the books be published in the way we are used to than in the original version. Nobody wants to injure a child's delicate psyche, right? :)
Cinderella Charles Perrault
(No ratings yet)
Title: Cinderella
About Cinderella by Charles Perrault
Every girl wants to be Cinderella. And it's not just that. We always dream that the Prince will come for us and take us to his castle, where we will live happily ever after, and we will have many happy children. Many will say that this is a banal desire for a freebie. Previously, men sought the hands of girls, took on all the most hard work. Women, on the other hand, were supposed to be the mistresses of the family hearth, build a family nest and maintain peace and love in the family. So it is inherent in us by nature, only today it is interpreted a little differently. It's a pity.
The book "Cinderella" by Charles Perrault is the most favorite fairy tale of every girl. Cinderella lived with her father and stepmother, who had two daughters of her own. The stepmother was a real tyrant, and she kept Cinderella near her instead of a servant. The girl is faced with a huge injustice, no one defended her, no one spared her. And the main thing in the family was not her father, but her stepmother. Yes, and the sisters did not miss the opportunity to make fun of Cinderella.
And then an amazing event is brewing - royal ball where any girl from the poor or rich family. And the excitement lies in the fact that the Prince is looking for a bride. Cinderella also wants to go, because she deserves a holiday. But her stepmother does not allow her, loading her with work to the fullest.
Cinderella has a godmother - magic fairy, which helps that get to the ball. Yes, and makes it so that the girl eclipsed everyone and won the heart of the handsome Prince. But all the magic ends at exactly midnight. Cinderella loses her shoe, which the Prince finds. The girl has a very small size legs, so it will not be difficult to find it. The stepmother tries all sorts of ways to push her daughters into the Kingdom, so they eventually managed to pull glass slipper on the foot of one of the daughters. But she flies and falls at the feet of Cinderella. Well, then there is a real fairy tale, which every girl dreams of.
Cinderella by Charles Perrault is sweet and good fairy tale about good and evil, good and bad people. Evil will always be punished, and justice will take the reins of government into its hands. There will always be those on the way who can help, support, which is what Cinderella's godmother did. And in the life of every girl there will be a Prince.
The book "Cinderella" will teach girls and how to behave real princess. Cinderella was modest, she never argued with her stepmother and sisters. She did all the tasks that they gave her. And even when she was fraudulently left at home during the ball, she was upset, but did not show it.
The work of Charles Perrault also teaches that you need to be sensitive, kind to others, and then the world will send you real fairy tale. If you are carried away by wealth, a title, and you will achieve your goals in dishonest ways, it will return to you like a boomerang. As happened with the stepmother and her daughters.
The book "Cinderella" is naive, but this is how fairy tales for children should be. It has a lot of meaning and beautiful story about a girl who became a happy princess. The book gives a lot of positive emotions and leaves a warm trace in the soul.
On our site about books, you can download the site for free without registration or read online book"Cinderella" by Charles Perrault in epub, fb2, txt, rtf, pdf formats for iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle. The book will give you a lot pleasant moments and a real pleasure to read. Buy full version you can have our partner. Also, here you will find last news from literary world, find out the biography of your favorite authors. For budding writers there is separate section With useful tips and recommendations, interesting articles, thanks to which you yourself can try your hand at writing.
Quotes from Cinderella by Charles Perrault
- 234.50 KbHaving finished the work, the poor thing would hide in a corner near the hearth and sit right on the ashes, for which the eldest stepmother's daughter called her Zamarashka. But the younger one, not as rude as her sister, began to call her Cinderella. And Cinderella, even in an old dress, was a hundred times nicer than her discharged sisters.
Thus, the structure of the fairy tale image literary fairy tale differs significantly from the structure of a fairy tale image in a folk tale.
Language (speech style). One of the main elements of the structure of a literary work is language, or speech style. In this work, we will use the definition of style given by Z.I. Khovanskaya [Khovanskaya Z.I. Stylistics of the French language. - M.: Higher school, 1984. - p. 314], namely:
Style is specific way implementation of the target setting, the most typical for a particular type of communication.
In the field of literary communication, the target setting is represented by the aesthetic intention of the writer, which, embodied in the artistic structure of the work, turns out to be at the heart of it. aesthetic function. The way to implement the aesthetic function includes the use of all available means, ranging from a system of artistic images and general construction works, and ending with the use language tools. Based on this, it can be argued that style is practically absent in a folk tale, since it is a form of collective creativity, and in literary style plays an important role.
So, folk tale, as a representative of the epic genre, the following stylistic features are inherent:
The presence of traditional formulas for the beginning and ending;
The presence of repetitive structures;
Colloquial speech,
repetitive storytelling,
The three-tier structure of the plot
The literary fairy tale, in order to be called such, for the most part borrows its stylistic features from the folk tale. But, as has been repeatedly repeated, the degree of stylization of his work depends only on the will of the author. Most often, the author of a literary fairy tale sacrifices the colloquiality of speech, complicating the structure of phrases and attaching great importance to the correctness of their construction. As for the other features, they can also be painlessly absent in the author's work, although their presence creates a special fairy-tale atmosphere.
Compositional speech forms also have their own stylistic characteristics, in which general properties type, genre and literary direction, as well as specific features that allow them to be distinguished into special units of text.
When distinguishing compositional-speech forms, it is necessary to take into account, first of all, two features:
1. Interaction of dialogical and monologue speech, as well as the speech of the speaking subject himself and the transmission of other people's words in the form of indirect or improperly direct speech;
2. The role of the compositional-speech form in the construction of the literary level of the composition, that is, in the development of the plot and in the disclosure of characters, as well as in the direct implementation of the author's aesthetic task.
IN epic literature monological type of speech prevails, interacting with dialogue in different ways. Events and characters that are the subject of artistic representation cannot be directly shown to the reader here: therefore, a certain person, acting as a narrator, tells about them, narrates.
The monologic type of speech underlies the two most essential compositional speech forms for this kind of literature: narrative and description. Narration and description are opposed to each other on the basis of "dynamic / static", since the narration serves, first of all, as a means of conveying events, deploying the actual event side of the plot, and the description, on the contrary, is associated with slowing down the action.
In a folk tale, as already noted, the action is the core of the plot, so the predominant compositional and speech form in it is narration. In a literary tale, which pays great attention to the characters of the characters, an important place is given to descriptions and reasoning (which together belong to the descriptive style).
With the help of narrative forms of the compositional-speech structure, due to the dynamics of the developing plot, artistic time, since time is generally comprehended by man in action. Artistic time does not coincide with real time. Thus, in a folk tale, it speeds up (for example, the hero's road leading to the goal is not described, but the fact of departure and the fact of arrival are simply reported). In a literary fairy tale, the writer is free to speed up some events and delay others, disrupt their sequential course, combine various elements of the action in his own way, rearranging them in time.
Dialogic speech performs various functions in an epic work. The most typical for her are two characterological functions:
1) the character's manner of speaking gives an idea of his belonging to a particular socio-professional environment, or
2) reveals his psychological state at the moment of speech and his relationship with other characters.
Dialogue often takes on the functions of narration, simultaneously reporting information about ongoing events and characterizing their participants. This is especially characteristic of small epic forms, such as folk tales. In a literary tale, dialogue performs its typical functions.
The author's style, distinguished by the totality of the works of one writer, has common features of the literary movement to which it belongs, the genre in which it is written this group works, and individual traits brought into them creative personality writer. Finally, the author's style, which manifests itself in a separate work, is the most specific concept that incorporates all common features the stylistic categories listed above, including the author's style as a whole, and adding to them the individual properties of this work.
1.2. Charles Perrault as the Creator of the Literary Fairy Tale Genre.
A serious contribution to the development of this genre was made by such women writers as Madame d "Onua, Mademoiselle Léritier, Mademoiselle de La Force, Countess de Mura, and others. But the full-fledged creator of this genre is the theorist of French language and literature, a member of the French Academy - Charles Perrault. “He introduced the folk tale into the system of literary genres, developed the fairy tale genre, which before Perrault was considered low and vulgar” [Zueva T.V. Magic fairy tale. - M .: Prometheus, 1993. p. 139].
Charles Perrault is a recognized master of magic author's fairy tale. His famous collection of fairy tales "Stories or Tales of Bygone Times with Moral Instructions", at one time, made a splash in secular society, thus leaving behind him the right to be called the first storyteller of France. Thus, becoming an example for other, less fortunate writers of fairy tales, Perrault received the right to dictate his own standards in the field of this popular and prestigious literary genre of this period.
Each fairy tale by Charles Perrault shines with its invention, and real world is reflected in the fairy tale by one side or the other. The fairy tales of Charles Perrault about the Sleeping Beauty, the Bluebeard, the Boy with a Thumb and others that are more complex in figurative system, children usually turn to in their first school years. In Russia, the fairy tales of Charles Perrault gained fame long ago - children of many generations got acquainted early with the original work of one of the fine writers of France. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev wrote about the fairy tales of Charles Perrault: “They are cheerful, entertaining, relaxed, not burdened with either excessive morality or the author's claim; they still feel the spirit of folk poetry, which once created them; they have precisely that mixture of incomprehensibly wonderful and ordinary-simple, sublime and amusing, which is the hallmark of a real fairy-tale fiction.
The collection of Charles Perrault "Stories or Tales of Old Times with Moral Instructions" collected the fairy tales "Sleeping Beauty", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Bluebeard", "Puss in Boots", "Fairies", "Cinderella, or the Crystal Slipper", "Riquet-with-tuft", "Boy-with-finger", . Basically, his tales reveal two themes: the dangers associated with the feeling of love ("Sleeping Beauty", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Bluebeard", "Rick-with-tuft") and compensation to the protagonist for the humiliation inflicted on his family or society ("Puss in Boots", "Fairies", "Cinderella", "Thumb Boy").
An interesting fact is that of all his fairy tales, by the nature of the genre, created for a children's audience, only one "Little Red Riding Hood" can be called a children's fairy tale, in literally this word. This tale was intended, so to speak, to intimidate young children, and this was its educational aspect.
The work of Charles Perrault was aimed at an aristocratic audience. High society approved of his fairy tales, as they corresponded to his values, worldview, and besides this, the plots of fairy tales were familiar to his representatives from childhood. Thus, the author remained faithful to the immortal folk traditions, and at the same time, he expressed the trends of modern society in a new way. The texts of his fairy tales served as an example of accepted, normalized speech in higher strata society.
Charles Perrault himself determined the norms of the literary fairy tale genre, which made him a master of his craft. His works were highly valued by the aristocracy, as they satisfied their interests and needs, dictated by the era of classicism, where, above all, the beauty of the word, the normalization and sophistication of the language were valued.
1.2.1 Biography of Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault - a famous French lawyer, poet, writer - storyteller, was born on January 12, one thousand six hundred and twenty-eight, in the family of one of the judges of the Paris Parliament.
Charles Perrault began his studies at the age of 8 at the college of Beauvais University. His school biography was even better than just an excellent student. Charles studied well, his behavior in the college was the same, he was never punished with rods during his entire studies, which can already be considered an unprecedented achievement for that time. But, despite this, he decided to continue his studies on his own and left the college. After 3 years of private lessons in law, he received a law degree and at the age of 23 began his legal career. During his life, Charles Perrault made an amazing career and gained fame not only as a storyteller, writer and poet, but also as an outstanding lawyer and academician.
My literary career he began in 1653 with his first work entitled The Walls of Troy, or the Origin of Burlesque, which was written in the genre of a parody poem and had a verse form. He liked to write in the style of so-called gallant court poetry. With his allegorical odes, poems and epistles, he defended the position of the superiority of the writers of his time over the writers of the past. He also repeatedly wrote various works for the royal court of France, one of these works was a poem called "The Age of Louis the Great", in which the writer glorified the king of France of that time.
The work "Great People of France" became a collection of biographies, where Charles Perrault displayed the biographies of famous French writers, poets, artists, scientists, surgeons, historians and many other significant personalities of his time. And who would have thought that the most important and significant event in his biography would be the release of a collection book called “Tales of Mother Goose or Stories and Tales of Old Times with Teachings”, which included 9 fairy tales. All the fairy tales that were included in this collection were folk tales, processed by Charles Perrault, only one of them, called "Riquet-with-tuft", was written by him. The most interesting thing was that the 69-year-old Charles himself was embarrassed by his authorship of this collection and even signed it in the name of his young son D "Armancourt. Nevertheless, these tales made it possible for him to become famous outside the literary circle. Thus, Perrault actually became the founder of the fairy tale genre in literature.In 1768, the first book in Russian was published, it was called "Tales of Sorceresses with Morales".
Before his death, Charles Perrault managed to write his memoirs, which were his last work, published under the title "Memoirs".
Chronology of the life of Charles Perrault:
1651 - Charles Perrault receives a law degree and begins his legal career.
1670 - Charles, following his brother, Claude Perrault, is admitted to the Academy of France.
1672 - Charles Perrault marries Marie Grichon - a young (she was not yet 30) Parisian.
1683 Perrault loses his literary pension from the Academy of France.
1685 - Charles Perrault writes his first fairy tale - "Griselda" - the story of the shepherdess Griselda, who, despite all the hardships, becomes the wife of the prince.
1687 - the poem "The Age of Louis the Great" is published.
1694 - the writer publishes several more works - "Donkey Skin" and "Funny Desires".
1695 - The first collection of fairy tales by Charles Perrault - "Tales of Mother Goose" - is published.
1768 - The first edition of Charles Perrault's fairy tales in Russian is published - "Tales of Sorceresses with Morales".
1909 - almost two hundred years after the death of the author, his biography is published.
Short description
The fairy tale is incredibly multifaceted and science has done a lot to study it. The fairy tale is devoted to a huge, boundless amount scientific papers, books. But, to the delight of inquisitive researchers, it is an inexhaustible source of scientific inspiration, and its study knows no boundaries. It is so rich and varied that looking at it from different points of view, one can constantly find new and interesting topics for research. So, having at our disposal such a wide area for our work, we have chosen a fairy tale as an object of study, as one of the types of fairy tales as such. The subject of our study is the structural-typological composition fairy tale. The aim of our work is to consider artistic features French literary fairy tales on the example of the fairy tales of Charles Perrault.
Content
Introduction.
Peculiarities of the genre of the French literary fairy tale.
Features of a literary fairy tale and its differences from folk.
Charles Perrault as the Creator of the Literary Fairy Tale Genre.
Biography of Charles Perrault
The influence of classicism on the work of C. Perro.
The history of the creation of fairy tales and the question of authorship.
Artistic features of the fairy tales of Charles Perrault
Reflection of the era in fairy tales.
Features of the interpretation of fairy tales by Charles Perrault for adults and children.
Conclusion.
Bibliography.
Photo-1L "The influence of Charles Perrault... is so great that if you ask someone today to name a typical magic story, he, apparently, will name you one of the French ones: "Puss in Boots", "Cinderella" or "Little Red Riding Hood". (D.R.R. Tolkien)
The cult English storyteller of the 20th century was not mistaken. And half a century after his statement, the situation has not changed. In 2004, the British cinema chain UCI conducted a survey among children about their favorite fairy tale. The results of the survey did not particularly surprise anyone: the 1st place was unconditionally taken by a poor but promising stepdaughter with an influential godmother, followed by a beauty who had lain in suspended animation for a hundred years, and 5th place was taken by a young fashionista talking with wolves. In another poll (conducted among adults), the list was already topped by "Little Red Riding Hood". It turns out that 80% of Europeans, 60% of Americans and 50% of Australians remember this fairy tale almost by heart.
If we add "Puss in Boots", "Bluebeard" and "The Boy with a Finger" to the mentioned masterpieces, then it becomes clear that they owe their fame to the Frenchman Charles Perrault, who in late XVII centuries, not only recorded and published these folklore fairy tales, but also truly canonized, legalized and "untwisted" them in an elite society. Folk tales have finally become literature, and not nanny's tales. What is the true role of Perrault in the processing of these plots that have become flesh and blood Western culture? What metamorphoses have they experienced over several centuries of existence?
Photo-2R Tales at His Majesty's Court
"Let it not bother you at all,
If the wise thought of the luminary,
Tired of bending your back over a book,
They listen to the fairy tales of the good fairy ... ".
(Ch. Perrot)
Perhaps this will surprise someone, but before Perrault, folklore and elite noble culture existed without actually intersecting. Of course, noble ladies and gentlemen entertained themselves with fantasy, but it was of a completely different kind - more about knights, their exploits and lovers (like the courtly poems of the Arthurian cycle). "Peasant fables" were too rude and vulgar, and therefore unworthy of refined taste. And so Perrault, who himself adored these "nanny's" tales to the depths of his soul, volunteered to justify folk genre before a noble audience, to introduce a folk tale into high society.
In 1696, he makes his first attempt - he publishes the fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty" in the magazine "Gallant Mercury". Without a signature. The "Audience at Court" is more than successful, and next year Charles publishes a full-fledged collection - "Tales of Mother Goose, or stories and tales of bygone times with teachings", which he signs ... with the name of his 11-year-old son and dedicates to his daughter Louis XIV. The author went to this hoax for a reason - well, it is not serious for a respectable 69-year-old man to entertain a respectable audience with such "nonsense"! Under the name of Charles Perrault, fairy tales came out only after the death of the author.
Photo-4L "Your Royal Highness!
No one will think it strange that it was a pleasure for a child to compose the tales that made up this collection, but it will be surprising that he had the audacity to present them to you. However, Your Royal Highness, whatever the disproportion between the simplicity of these stories and the enlightenment of your mind, if you carefully consider these tales, it will become clear that I am not as reprehensible as it may seem at first. All of them are full of a very reasonable meaning, which reveals itself to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how much the readers delve into it. Moreover, since nothing distinguishes the true breadth of the mind so much as its ability to rise to the greatest objects and at the same time descend to the smallest ... ... who better to know how peoples live than those persons who heaven intended to lead them! The desire to know this led valiant men, moreover, men who belonged to your family, to poor huts and shacks, in order to see close up and with their own eyes the remarkable things that are happening there, for such knowledge seemed to them necessary for the completeness of their enlightenment "(Perrot d 'Amancourt, but in fact Charles Perrault, from the preface to fairy tales)
Perrot justified himself in vain. The enlightened public appreciated this "nonsense", and fairy tales became no less popular than gallant novels. However, Perrault himself did everything possible to prevent the rejection of the nobility from the "grassroots" culture.
Folk tales were "ennobled" as much as possible - cleansed of everything coarse and vulgar, stylized as courtly literature and filled with signs of the times. The manners of the heroes, their clothes and meals perfectly reflected the nobility of the 17th century.
Photo-3R So, in "Sleeping Beauty" the cannibal demands to give her the meat of children invariably "with Robber sauce"; the prince, who has awakened the beauty, notices that she is dressed old-fashionedly (“her collar is standing up”), and the awakened woman herself addresses the prince in the tone of a languid, capricious lady (“Oh, is that you, prince? You kept yourself waiting”). By the way, the prince at Perrault did not at all rush to kiss vulgarly. Finding the princess, he "approached her with trembling and admiration and knelt beside her." And after waking up, our heroine and her gallant cavalier did nothing reprehensible, but talked about love for four hours until the whole castle was awakened. Plus, with Perro, not all the inhabitants of the kingdom are immersed in a magical dream. The king and queen, as befits the reigning persons, continue to be awake, however, the awakening of their daughter, of course, is not caught.
A boy with a finger after his adventures becomes the "royal courier", and the surviving wife of Bluebeard manages the wealth of a cruel hubby quite practically.
"She used some of them to marry her sister Anna to a young nobleman ...; the other part - to deliver the captain's rank to her brothers, and the rest - to marry herself ... ". (Ch. Perrault "Bluebeard")All goodies Perrault's are well brought up, gallant in a nobility way and are expressed almost exclusively by "high calm". However, in fairy tales there is also an image of the life of the common people. Yes, falling into total poverty the peasants of that time really often took their children into the forest and left them to the mercy of fate (as in "A Boy with a Thumb"), and the deprived Younger son the miller could well dispose of his "inheritance" as he was going to do in a fairy tale - eat a cat, and make a muff out of his skin.
"...with teachings..."
“I could give my fairy tales greater pleasantness if I allowed myself other liberties with which they are usually enlivened; but the desire to please readers has never tempted me so much that I decided to break the law that I set for myself - not to write anything that would offend chastity or decency." (Ch. Perrot)
In order to introduce folk tales into high society, it was not enough to ennoble their style and surroundings. It was necessary to prove that folklore also carries a moralizing beginning, that " good fellows lesson,” about which Pushkin wrote. And although I don’t really like straightforward moralizing, it’s clear that such a step was necessary for Perrault.
Photo-5R "The reception that the public gave to the works that made up this collection, as it received them separately, serves as some guarantee that they will not make an unfavorable impression on her when they appear together. There were, however, people who who assume importance and have sufficient insight to see in them only fairy tales written for fun and devoted to subjects of little importance, and they treated them with contempt; but it turned out to our satisfaction that people endowed with good taste judge They noted with pleasure that these trinkets were not trinkets at all, but contained a useful morality, and that the playful mood of the narrative was chosen only so that they acted on the mind of the reader with greater pleasantness, both teaching and entertaining. This should have been enough for me not to be afraid of reproach that I was looking for frivolous fun. (Ch. Perrot)
As a result, Perrault, like fables, supplied each fairy tale with one (and sometimes two) poetic morals. True, these morals are addressed mainly to adult readers - they are graceful, playful, and sometimes, as they say, have a "double bottom".
Some of them are quite unexpected. So, in the first morality of the tale "Bluebeard" Perrault not so much reproaches the cruel husband as he makes fun of the female trait - sticking his nose where he shouldn't, and in the second morality - he is already ironic about the husbands who are pushed around by their wives.
Photo-6R "Yes, curiosity is a scourge.
It confuses everyone
Born to mortals on the mountain.
There are thousands of examples, as you look a little:
Amusing female passion for immodest secrets:
It is known, after all, that it was expensive,
It will instantly lose both taste and sweetness.
"If there is a mind in the head,
To interpret worldly gibberish,
You will understand easily - such a story
Only in a fairy tale can we read.
There are no ferocious men in the world today:
There are no such restrictions.
The current husband, even with jealousy,
Yulit around his wife like a cockerel in love,
And his beard, even if it was piebald,
You can’t figure it out - it’s in whose power is it?
In the moral to Sleeping Beauty, he carefully criticizes the ladies' desire to get married as soon as possible.
"Wait a little for the husband to turn up,
Handsome and rich, moreover,
It is quite possible and understandable.
But a hundred for long years, lying in bed, waiting
For ladies it's so unpleasant
That no one can sleep ... ".
And "Little Red Riding Hood", according to Perrault, is a good warning to young girls about the deceit of seductive rogues.
Photo-7R "For little children, not without reason
(And especially girls,
beauties and spoiled women),
On the way, meeting all sorts of men,
You can not listen to insidious speeches, -
Otherwise, the wolf may eat them.
I said wolf! Wolves can't be counted
But there are others in between.
Dodgers so puffy
What, sweetly exuding flattery,
The maiden's honor is guarded,
Accompany their walks home,
Spend them bye-bye through the dark back streets ...
But the wolf, alas, is more modest than it seems,
That is why he is always crafty and more terrible!
We meet the most striking manifestation of courtly morality in Cinderella. By the way, not so long ago I read that this famous fairy tale, along with "Snow White", was ostracized by some frenzied feminists. The "guilt" of these works was supposedly that they teach girls that "beautiful to be profitable." Such a statement is not only stupid, but also fundamentally wrong. The dirty stepdaughter, whom no one pays attention to, differs from her sisters (by no means ugly) not in the volume of her chest and waist (although, of course, she is "potentially" beautiful), namely, modesty, patience, good heart and truly courtly courtesy (not without reason at the ball Cinderella sits down to her sisters, showers them with courtesies and shares "oranges and lemons that the prince gave her"). Beauty is, rather, a magical Gift - an external reward for internal (in the case of Perrault - courtly) virtues. By the way, psychologist E. Berne also noticed this.
“The teachings with which Charles Perrault accompanied the story of Cinderella were, in our opinion, Parental prescriptions. The author spoke of a happy gift that is greater than the beauty of the face; the charm of this gift surpasses everything else. instructed, taught noble manners so that Cinderella became queen.The last three provisions describe the real Parental model received by Cinderella from the fairy: this is the exact model of raising a lady, which we have already mentioned.Charles Perrault draws another conclusion - the need for parental permission in if the child is destined to accomplish something important in his life. He said that a person, no doubt, needs intelligence, courage and nobility. But none of these virtues will manifest itself in life if a person does not receive blessings from wizards and prophets. (E. Bern, "People who play games")
And I would advise feminists to read another wonderful (albeit not so well-known) fairy tale by Perrault, Rikke with a Tuft, dedicated precisely to the problem of the relationship between beauty and intelligence. In it, a beautiful, but extremely stupid princess and an intelligent, but ugly prince, thanks to love, fidelity and nobility, seem to share their virtues. Not so, I must say, and a fairy tale ...
"Although beauty is a great virtue in a young lady, yet youngest daughter always had more success than the older one. At first, everyone rushed to the beauty to look at her, to admire her, but soon everyone went to the one who was smart, because it was pleasant to listen to her ... The eldest, although she was very stupid, noticed this and would not regret giving all her beauty, just to be half as smart as her sister."
"... You know that when I was still a fool, I still did not dare to marry you then, - so how do you want that now, having the mind that you gave me ... I made a decision that I couldn't accept it even at that time.
"- ... know: from the same sorceress who on my birthday awarded me a magical gift and allowed me to endow with the mind any person I please, you also received a gift - you can make handsome the one you love and whom you want to honor with this grace" .
(Ch. Perro "Rikke with a tuft")
