Mme d’Aulnoy’s Fairy Tales and the Making of the English Novel
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14198/raei.32744Keywords:
D’Aulnoy, Fairy Tales, Salon Culture, Early Prose Fiction, Literature by Women, Seventeenth-Century Literature, Eighteenth-Century LiteratureAbstract
French salon culture was pivotal in the development of female prose fiction throughout the seventeenth century since salons offered women a sociocultural public sphere and provided them with a literary forum in which they could create collectively. One of the most significant results of this culture was the emergence of the conte de fées, a genre closely related to the activities developed in the salons and to their female protagonists. It was Mme d’Aulnoy who initiated this vogue in 1690 and who coined the term, first, in French and, later, in English with the translation of some of her works as “tales of the fairies” or fairy tales. Originally, fairy tales were intended for an adult audience and, as recent research has emphasised, they were full of references to contemporary society, easily recognisable for their readers, making them to some extent realistic and, consequently, closer to the novel genre. Nevertheless, fairy tales with their elegant settings, aristocratic characters, romantic plots, supernatural elements and obstacles to be overcome were also close to the romances of the early seventeenth century. By analysing, first, the characteristics and consequences of salon culture and its relationship to the contes de fées / fairy tales and, second, the relevance of d’Aulnoy’s fairy tales in French and English prose fiction and taking “L’île de la Félicité.” / “The History of Adolphus” as a case study, this paper argues that fairy tales had a transitional role between romance and the budding novel genre in the Restoration and early eighteenth century.
Funding
This article is a result of the research project “Women and the Early Novel in English, 1621-1699: The European Context,” financed by PAID 2020 (Call 2021), Junta de Andalucía, Consejería de Universidad, Investigación e Innovación (PROYEXCEL_00186).References
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