Fairy Tales Framed by Bottigheimer Ruth B.;

Author:Bottigheimer, Ruth B.; [Bottigheimer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 3407043
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2012-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

16

Charles Perrault, Tales of My Mother Goose (1695)

The opening pages of Perrault's 1695 manuscript Contes de ma Mère L'Oye (Tales of My Mother Goose) consisted of a dedicatory letter to Mademoiselle, Élisabeth-Charlotte d'Orléans (1676–1744). There Perrault wrote that “a Child took pleasure in composing the Tales in this collection.” This statement may be construed in several ways. One could see it as a reference to puerescantia, a seventeenth-century notion concerning the maintenance of the childlike innocence beyond childhood itself. Another might be that a real child, namely, Perrault's son, the eighteen-year-old Pierre Darmancour, had composed the tale collection, a view supported by the fact that the subsequent license to print Histoires, ou Contes du Temps passé had been issued to “Sir P. Darmancour” who had in turn transferred the license to Perrault's printer-publisher, Claude Barbin. Little else supports Pierre Darmancour's authorship, however.

Perrault's further declaration that all of the tales “contain a very wise Lesson” stressed the importance of a positive moral lesson, a fundamental part of Perrault's position in the Debate between the Ancients and the Moderns. In the dedicatory letter, Perrault referred to the tales that followed as Contes, Récits, or bagatelles,1 using the term Histoires to denote the kinds of stories that humble parents make up to instruct their children in the social practices and beliefs they needed to live in this world.

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