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The first unabridged English translation taken directly from Basile's monumental Lo cunto de li cunti (1634-1636), this edition is fully annotated and illustrated, with an extensive bibliography.
Within four days, the date-tree had grown as tall as a woman, and out of it came a Fairy, who said to Zezolla, “What do you wish for?” Before Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, Basile penned the first modern literary version of the Cinderella fairytale. It is the story of Zezolla, the daughter of an Italian Prince, who is betrayed by her governess and forced to live the life of a servant—that is until the King announces a feast. With assistance from a date-tree given to her by the Fairies of Sardinia, Zezolla is able to attend the feast and her life is forever changed. In addition, this book contains The She-Bear—a close variant of The Cat Cinderella, also from Giambattista Basile’s The Pentamerone—for an English readership to enjoy. [Folklore Type: ATU-510: Cinderella and Catskin – A + B (Persecuted Heroine + Unnatural Love)]
Scholars from many different academic areas will use this volume to explore and implement new aspects of the field of fairy-tale studies in their teaching and research.
Covering over 300 years, this volume of essays articulates the literary, ideological and historical contexts in which fairy tales evolved in Italy and France. The tales analyzed were each appropriated from oral tradition by professional men and women of letters and thus reveal a cultural history
“The Princess Talia shall pierce her hand with a spindle and die of the wound.” Drawing on the versions by Perrault and Basile, this new retelling of the classic Sleeping Beauty fairytale tells the story of Talia, a Princess, who is cursed by a slighted Fairy to die of a wound from a spindle. However, her destiny is re-imagined by another Fairy to sleep until awoken by the son of a King, who will have to deal with an enchanted wood and an ogre before he can live in peace with Talia, and their two children, Sun and Moon... In addition, this book contains English translations of the original tales by Perrault and Basile, ‘The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood’ and ‘Sun, Moon and Talia.’ [Folklore Type: ATU-410 (The Sleeping Beauty)]
From Court to Forest is a critical and historical study of the beginnings of the modern literary fairy tale. From Court to Forest is a critical and historical study of the beginnings of the modern literary fairy tale. Giambattista Basile's Lo cunto de Ii cunti written in Neapolitan dialect and published in 1634-36, comprises fifty fairy tales and was the first integral collection of literary fairy tales to appear in Western Europe. It contains some of the best known fairy-tales types, such as Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Cinderella, and others, many in their earliest versions. Although it became a central reference point for subsequent fairy tale writers, such as Perrault and the Grimms, as well as a treasure chest for folklorists,Lo cunto de Ii cunti has had relatively little attention devoted to it by literary scholars. Lo cuntoconstituted a culmination of the erudite interest in popular culture and folk traditions that permeated the Renaissance. But even if Basile drew from the oral tradition, he did not merely transcribe the popular materials he heard and gathered around Naples and in his travels. He transformed them into original tales distinguished by vertiginous rhetorical play, abundant representations of the rituals of everyday life and the popular culture of the time, and a subtext of playful critique of courtly culture and the canonical literary tradition. This work fills a gap in fairy-tale and Italian literary studies through its rediscovery of one of the most important authors of the Italian Baroque and the genre of the literary fairy tale.
Analyzes the portrayal of German fairy-tale figures in contemporary North American media adaptations. Craving Supernatural Creatures: German Fairy-Tale Figures in American Pop Culture analyzes supernatural creatures in order to demonstrate how German fairy tales treat difference, alterity, and Otherness with terror, distance, and negativity, whereas contemporary North American popular culture adaptations navigate diversity by humanizing and redeeming such figures. This trend of transformation reflects a greater tolerance of other marginalized groups (in regard to race, ethnicity, ability, age, gender, sexual orientation, social class, religion, etc.) and acceptance of diversity in society today. The fairy-tale adaptations examined here are more than just twists on old stories—they serve as the looking glasses of significant cultural trends, customs, and social challenges. Whereas the fairy-tale adaptations that Claudia Schwabe analyzes suggest that Otherness can and should be fully embraced, they also highlight the gap that still exists between the representation and the reality of embracing diversity wholeheartedly in twenty-first-century America. The book's four chapters are structured around different supernatural creatures, beginning in chapter 1 with Schwabe's examination of the automaton, the golem, and the doppelganger, which emerged as popular figures in Germany in the early nineteenth century, and how media, such as Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow, dramatize, humanize, and infantilize these "uncanny" characters in multifaceted ways. Chapter 2 foregrounds the popular figures of the evil queen and witch in contemporary retellings of the Grimms' fairy tale "Snow White." Chapter 3 deconstructs the concept of the monstrous Other in fairy tales by scrutinizing the figure of the Big Bad Wolf in popular culture, including Once Upon a Timeand the Fables comic book series. In chapter 4, Schwabe explores the fairy-tale dwarf, claiming that adaptations today emphasize the diversity of dwarves' personalities and celebrate the potency of their physicality. Craving Supernatural Creaturesis a unique contribution to the field of fairy-tale studies and is essential reading for students, scholars, and pop-culture aficionados alike.
Duggan, and Adrion Dula hope both to foreground women writers' important contributions to the genre and to challenge common assumptions about what a fairy tale is for scholars, students, and general readers.
