Making the Marvelous: Marie-Catherine D'Aulnoy, Henriette-Julie De Murat, and the Literary Representation of the Decorative Arts by Rori Bloom

Author:Rori Bloom [Bloom, Rori]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Legends & Mythology, LIT004150 Literary Criticism / European / French, Literary Criticism, LIT022000 LITERARY CRITICISM / Fairy Tales, Fairy Tales; Folk Tales; Legends & Mythology, Folk Tales, French, European
ISBN: 9781496222671
Google: MIhlEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Published: 2022-06-15T20:45:42+00:00

The baby himself does not inspire the sort of religious awe surrounding the infant Jesus (often displayed as a tiny porcelain doll in his crèche); the baby’s mother and his nurses marvel at the cradle instead.55 Moreover, in this description of a toy that moves, d’Aulnoy undermines the seeming marvel of magical animation by hinting at mechanical explanations, adducing human manipulation as the cause. Although the sculpted cupids on the beautiful cradle seem to come to life to rock the baby, d’Aulnoy’s use of the words “masterpiece” and “artistry” to describe the cradle hint at some ingenious mechanism created through the collaboration of cabinetmakers and clockmakers, predicting the mechanical furniture that would become fashionable in succeeding reigns.

In describing the seemingly marvelous movement of miniature carriages and the magical animation of dancing dolls, d’Aulnoy explains these phenomena as examples of skilled stagecraft by which trained animals execute tricks or marionettes are made to move by unseen strings. Although toys that move provoke a specific sort of wonder in d’Aulnoy, she often points to a mechanical cause for the seeming magic of their animation, replacing awe for the enchanted with admiration for the technical. In “Le Prince Lutin” the toy carriage is drawn by monkeys trained by “Brioché, famous puppeteer” (246); in “L’Oiseau Bleu” the “little carriage” is occupied by “four marionettes more lively and wittier than all those one may see at the Saint-Germain or Saint-Laurent fairs: they did surprising things, particularly two little Gypsies who danced the sarabande and the passepieds just as well as Léance” (218). The first toy moves because its monkey drivers were trained to perform this trick; the marionettes in the second dance because a master puppeteer manipulates them. While childish spectators may be amazed by the movement of puppets, adults enjoy the show while understanding the animation of inanimate objects as the result of human art; similarly, childish readers of fairy tales may marvel at their magic, while adult readers appreciate the skilled manipulation of language through which the story exercises its charms.

When Manson examines the role of toys in d’Aulnoy’s “Serpentin Vert” and calls it “a tale whose story may be read on two levels” by children and by adults, he nevertheless neglects an analysis of the role of the puppeteer or rather the author in this paradigm.56 However, if d’Aulnoy’s childish readers enjoy playing with toys, d’Aulnoy herself, like some master marionettist, plays with her own characters as if they were dolls.57 When d’Aulnoy dresses her characters as if they were mannequins, a child’s penchant for play merges with an adult’s interest in fashion, especially since the dolls (“poupées”) in her tales closely resemble fashion dolls (“poupées de mode”), the doll-like dummies used to disseminate French style throughout seventeenth-century Europe. This confusion between the mannequin made for adults and the doll made for children is abetted by assertions that poupées de mode were made by the same craftsmen who made poupées and that these same poupées de mode were themselves sometimes repurposed as playthings for children.

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