Charles Perrault
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Chapter 2: Sisters and Brothers Charles Perrault |
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Charles Perrault
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Charles Perrault was born in Paris, into an upper-middle class family supported by his father, who was a successful lawyer. Perrault, who was trained as a lawyer and served in positions under the Minister of Finance, was well known as an intellectual whose writings defended the reign of Louis XIV and the contemporary culture of France. Most famously in his own day, Perrault engaged in a long public debate on the subject of the best qualities of the ancients and the moderns, about which he wrote a poem, Saint Paulin (1687) and a series of books, Parallels of the Ancients and the Moderns (1688-1697) favoring the moderns. Perrault's real claim to literary fame, however, is that he provided the fairytale with its modern form. It was Perrault's method to adapt traditional stories, many of them oral, and rewrite them for audiences that ranged from children to adults. It is probable that "Cinderella", "The Blue Beard," "Sleeping Beauty," "Puss and Boots," and "Little Redridinghood" were designed for Perrault's own children and the product of his own interest in the old tales which he may have heard in his youth. In fact, Perrault's first collection of tales, Histories ou contes du temps passe (1697), known simply as Contes, was published under the name of his son, Pierre. Though Perrault's stories are now considered as being the first children's literature, they also greatly appeal to mature audiences, who read these stories as comments on adult life. the subtitle of Contes is "Contes de ma Mere l'Oye," which was translated into English by Robert Samber in 1729 as Mother Goose Tales. Author Links
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"Cinderella" |
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