Great politician Charles Perrault. Who was the legendary storyteller really?
He was predicted to become a brilliant lawyer or even a judge. And he dreamed of becoming a famous writer, with serious and thoughtful works under his belt. His track record includes treatises, poems, and philosophical reflections, but they did not leave the name of Charles Perrault for centuries. He remained a great storyteller, the author of the immortal “Cinderella”, “Puss in Boots”, “Sleeping Beauty”.
In Perrault's time, fairy tales were something frivolous. There wasn’t even such a genre, stories for children existed only in oral form, everyone told them in their own way, adding their own characters, details, plot twists. Academician and author of numerous treatises Charles Perrault did not admit the authorship of fairy tales. The works were signed with the name of his son, Pierre Perrault. And even in the dying memoirs there is not a single word about “Cinderella” or “Bluebeard”.
Childhood
The future storyteller was born in Paris on January 12, 1628, into a very wealthy family. Father - Pierre Perrault - a judge of the capital's parliament, mother - Paquette-Leclerc came from a noble French family and was a very educated and rich woman. Charles is the sixth child in the family, he was born with a twin brother, Francois, who was several hours older. Unfortunately, Francois will die at the age of six months.
Charles grows up as a nimble and inquisitive child. My favorite toy as a child was a medieval castle. It was a large building the size of a child, where one could move freely. Charles sits inside the castle for hours, imagining himself as a great and brave knight.
Education
The Perrault family pays great attention to the education of children. Not only invited tutors and teachers work with them, but also parents. The future writer was taught to read by his mother. All children will subsequently rise high up the career ladder and make a brilliant career. Son Jean will become a famous lawyer, Nicolas will become a professor at the Sorbonne, Claude will become an architect who will design the Louvre, and Pierre will become the general collector of finances of Paris.
The younger Charles studies at home until he is eight and a half years old. Then his parents send him to the famous Beauvais College at the Faculty of Arts. Young Perrault studies well; it is known that during the years of training he was never beaten with rods, this indicates extremely exemplary behavior and diligence. But in 1644, in the 8th year of study, after an argument with the teacher, Charles left the lesson and did not return to college. “He (the teacher) ordered me to be silent, to which, rising from my seat, I answered him that since I was not allowed to answer, that since no one would argue with me anymore, then I had nothing more to do in the class. I bowed to the teacher and all the students and left the class.”
His friend Boren also leaves with Perrault. They decide to educate themselves and create their own lesson plan. They read a lot, the Bible, Virgil, Horace, History of France are on the list, they translate from Latin, and they debate. Over the years, Perrault will say that it was these 3-4 years that gave him a lot in terms of education. Charles then takes private lessons in law and obtains a lawyer's license.
Career
In his specialty, Charles Perrault practically does not work; he successfully defends two cases, after which he gets a job as a clerk in the architectural office of his brother Claude. The fact is that Perrault's father is dying and no one insists on practicing law anymore. Charles successfully combines his paperwork with the start of his writing career. The first works are long, cumbersome, and do not contain much meaning; the author pays attention to form rather than content.
Soon Charles Perrault falls under the patronage of the powerful Jean Colbert, a close associate of Louis XIV, it is this man who dictates the palace policy in the field of arts. Colbert creates the Academy of Bells and Letters, appointing Charles Perrault as its secretary. Later, the writer becomes an active member of this academy and receives the title of nobleman.
In the literary field
Charles Perrault dreams of gaining fame as a serious author, a virtuoso of the pen. He works hard, creating one after another works that correspond to the spirit of the times. So he writes a treatise “Comparison of ancient and modern”, where he very vividly proves that modern authors are no worse than ancient ones. “Why value the ancients? Just because they are ancient? So we are the same, because nowadays the world is more mature, and we also have more experience.”
- “The Famous”, a book that became a natural continuation of the treatise. This is a huge volume in which Perrault collected biographies of prominent French figures of the 17th century;
- In 1653, the author wrote a parody poem, The Wall of Troy, or the Origin of Burlesque;
- In 1687 he created the historical poem “The Age of Louis the Great”;
- In 1694, the satire “Apology for Women” and the story “Amusing Desires” were published;
- In 1703, Charles Perrault, a few months before his death, began writing his Memoirs;
- The writer is also one of the authors of the “General Dictionary of the French Language”.
Storyteller Perrault
During his lifetime, Charles Perrault never mentioned that he was the author of fairy tales. First, “The Sleeping Beauty,” published in 1696 in the magazine “Gallant Mercury,” and then the entire collection of “Tales of Mother Goose” (1697) was published under the name of Pierre Perrault de Armancourt, the youngest son of the writer. De Armancourt is the prefix of an estate that belonged to the family.
And only after the death of Charles Perrault, it was proven that he was the author of fairy tales. Although some were confident in their son’s writing talent. Disputes on this topic have not subsided to this day. But it is generally accepted that it was Perrault the father who wrote the famous fairy tales.
It seemed that Charles had done nothing special. He simply retold the stories existing among the people, and only one fairy tale, “Rike with the Tuft,” was invented by himself. But the collection, even during Perrault’s lifetime, sold like hotcakes. It has been estimated that it was more popular than Harry Potter today. The thing is that in the 17th century children's literature did not exist at all. The kids learned to read from books for adults. Fairy tales that came from the Middle Ages resembled more bloodthirsty horror stories than fascinating stories and were transmitted only orally.
He was born into a wealthy family of a lawyer in the Parisian Parliament, but he did not have the title of nobility. He had three brothers, and his father tried to give all his children a decent education. Charles's mother was also an educated woman and even taught her children to write and read. Two of the four children of this family became famous people: Claude Perrault (the eldest son) became famous as an architect, and the youngest son, Charles, also made a great name for himself.
But he became famous not only as a storyteller, but also as the head of the “new” party. Representatives of the “ancient” party believed that the best works had already been created by ancient writers, and one just needed to imitate them in everything, since modern poets, writers and artists could not create anything new. It was this assertion that the debater Charles Perrault fought against. At the time, this controversy received very wide publicity.
And he really loved to argue; he even dropped out of college because of it. He was offended that it was impossible to argue with the teacher, but he had to blindly obey him. Cramming exhausted the boy so much that he rebelled and left college, and together with his friend Charles began studying at home. A few years later, the children received an excellent education, but did not have diplomas.
Despite this, with the help of his father’s money and connections, Charles entered university at the age of 17 and received a law degree at the age of 23. For five years the young man worked as a lawyer and defended poor people. He could afford this, since he was never short of money, and was only involved in cases that were interesting from the point of view of the legal profession. But soon he just got bored and went to work for the French Ministry of Finance. It brought Charles Perrault recognition at the court of Louis IV.
But the young man dreamed of becoming a poet. He wrote poems and odes, long and sublime, but, unfortunately, no one remembers about them. Charles Perrault lived in a time of beautiful ladies with fans and musketeers with bushy mustaches. And at this time, writing poetry was considered an ordinary matter, and, without the ability to compose them, it was impossible to win the affection of the ladies, and Charles had a huge passion for women.
It was then that he married a young beauty, 13 years younger than him, and soon they had a son, Pierre. To celebrate, Charles got so drunk that he was not even allowed to hold the child in his arms. True, soon, with his whims, the child began to irritate his father, and soon he lost all interest in him, and once even hit him. His wife's indignation knew no bounds, and Charles left home and caroused in brothels for 3 days, but then returned to the family. Relationship with son Charles Perrault they never became cordial and trusting.
In the 17th century, fairy tales became popular in Europe, and on October 8, 1696, a book of Mother Goose's fairy tales was published in Paris. The author of the book was Pierre D Armancourt. But the truth quickly came out - the son of Charles Perrault was hiding under this pseudonym. The father used this trick to introduce Pierre to high society, to the king's court, although the book was written by him himself.
The book was a stunning success, and the young man entered the close circle of the Princess of Orleans, because this book of fairy tales was dedicated to her. But to his misfortune, in a street fight, Pierre (a nobleman) stabbed the son of the widow of a carpenter (commoner) Guilloia Coll. And at that time, such a murder was considered an immoral act, and the young man ended up in prison. Thanks to his money and connections, he rescued his son from prison and bought him the rank of lieutenant in the king’s regiment. At the front, in another battle, Pierre died.
But even for Charles Perrault himself, the road to high society was closed. For writing fairy tales, scientists and colleagues (and Charles by this time was already a professor) exiled him from the world, and the nobility closed the doors of their houses in front of him.
Tired and tormented, he curses the writing of fairy tales and dies in 1703. He takes the secret of writing fairy tales with him to the grave, and only 10 years after his death it was established that all the fairy tales known to us came from the pen of Father Perrault.
For the first time in Moscow, in Russian, fairy tales Charles Perrault came out in 1768, and now there is not a person in our country who does not know such fairy tales as “Sleeping Beauty”, “Puss in Boots”, “Little Red Riding Hood” and other interesting stories. Based on the fairy tales of Charles Perrault, ballets were written, plays were staged and films were made, but the writer himself never felt the sweet taste of fame and popularity.
Charles Perrault (1628-1703) - French storyteller, critic and poet, was a member of the French Academy.
Childhood
On January 12, 1628, twin boys were born into the family of Pierre Perrault in Paris. They were named Francois and Charles. The head of the family worked as a judge in the Parliament of Paris. His wife took care of the housework and raising the children, of whom there were already four before the birth of the twins. 6 months later, little Francois fell ill with pneumonia and died, and his twin brother Charles became a favorite in the family and in the future glorified the Perrault family throughout the world with his famous fairy tales. In addition to Charles, his older brother Claude, a great architect, author of the eastern façade of the Louvre and the Paris Observatory, was also famous.
The family was wealthy and intelligent. Charles's paternal grandfather was a wealthy merchant. Mom came from a noble family and lived on the village estate of Viri before her marriage. As a child, Charles often visited there and, most likely, later drew stories from there for his fairy tales.
Education
Parents made every effort to ensure that their children received a decent education. While the boys were little, their mother taught them reading and writing. The father was very busy at work, but in his free time he always helped his wife. The Perrault brothers all studied at Beauvais University College, and dad sometimes tested their knowledge. All the boys performed excellently in their studies; during the entire period of study they were not caned, which was very rare at that time.
When Charles was 13 years old, he was kicked out of class for arguing with the teacher. The guy dropped out of school because he disagreed with his teachers in many ways.
He received further education independently with his best friend Boren. In three years they taught themselves Latin, French history, Greek and ancient literature. Charles later said that all the knowledge that was useful to him in life was obtained during the period of self-study with a friend.
Having reached adulthood, Perrault studied law with a private teacher. In 1651 he was awarded a law degree.
Career and creativity
While still in college, Perrault wrote his first poems, comedies and poems.
In 1653, his first work was published - a poetic parody “The Walls of Troy, or the Origin of Burlesque.” But Perrault perceived literature as a hobby; he built his career in a completely different direction.
As his father wanted, after receiving a law degree, Charles worked as a lawyer for some time, but this type of activity soon seemed uninteresting to him. He went to work as a clerk for his older brother, who by that time ran an architectural department. It should be noted that Charles Perrault built his career successfully, rose to the rank of adviser to the King, chief inspector of buildings, then headed the Committee of Writers and the department of the Glory of the King.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a statesman and chief controller of finances who actually ruled France during the time of Louis XIV, patronized Charles. Thanks to such a patron, in 1663, during the creation of the Academy of Inscriptions and Beaux-Letters, Perrault received the position of secretary. He achieved wealth and influence. Along with his main occupation, Charles successfully continued to write poetry and engage in literary criticism.
But in 1683, Colbert died, and Perrault became disgraceful at court, first he was deprived of his pension, and then the position of secretary.
During this period, the very first fairy tale about a shepherdess, called “Grisel,” was written. The author did not pay special attention to this work and continued to engage in criticism, writing a large four-volume collection of dialogues “Comparison of Ancient and Modern Authors,” as well as publishing the book “Famous People of France in the 17th Century.”
When his next two works, “Donkey Skin” and “Funny Desires,” were published in 1694, it became clear that a new era of storyteller Charles Perrault had arrived.
In 1696, the fairy tale “The Sleeping Beauty”, published in the magazine “Gallant Mercury”, instantly became popular. And just a year later, the success of the published book “Tales of Mother Goose, or Stories and Tales of Bygone Times with Teachings” turned out to be incredible. Perrault heard the plots of the nine fairy tales included in this book when his son’s nurse told them to his baby before bed. He took folk tales as a basis and gave them artistic treatment, thereby opening the way for them into high literature.
He managed to link long-standing folk works to modernity; his fairy tales were written so accessible that they were read by people from high society and from ordinary classes. More than three centuries have passed, and all over the world mothers and fathers read to their children before bed:
- "Cinderella" and "Tom Thumb";
- "Puss in Boots" and "Little Red Riding Hood";
- "Gingerbread House" and "Bluebeard".
Based on the plots of Perrault's fairy tales, ballets were staged and operas were written in the best theaters in the world.
Perrault's fairy tales were first translated into Russian in 1768. In terms of the number of works published in the USSR, Charles became fourth among foreign writers after Jack London, Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm.
Personal life
Charles Perrault married quite late, at 44 years old. His chosen one was a young, 19-year-old girl, Marie Guchon. They had four children. But the marriage did not last long; Marie died at the age of 25 from smallpox. Charles never remarried and raised his daughter and three sons on his own.
In the Chevreuse Valley, not far from Paris, is the Domain of Puss in Boots, the castle-museum of Charles Perrault, where wax figures of characters from his fairy tales can be found on every corner.
Biography of Charles Perrault
Huge merit Perrault in that he selected several stories from the mass of folk tales and recorded their plot, which had not yet become final. He gave them a tone, a climate, a style that was characteristic of the 17th century, and yet very personal.
Among the storytellers who “legalized” fairy tales in serious literature, the very first and honorable place is given to the French writer Charles Perrault. Few of our contemporaries know that Perrault was a venerable poet of his time, an academician of the French Academy, and the author of famous scientific works. But it was not his thick, serious books that brought him worldwide fame and recognition from his descendants, but his wonderful fairy tales “Cinderella”, “Puss in Boots”, “Bluebeard”.
Charles Perrault was born in 1628. The boy's family was concerned about the education of their children, and at the age of eight, Charles was sent to college. As historian Philippe Ariès notes, Perrault’s school biography is the biography of a typical excellent student. During their training, neither he nor his brothers were ever beaten with rods - an exceptional case at that time.
After college, Charles takes private law lessons for three years and eventually receives a law degree.
At twenty-three he returns to Paris and begins his career as a lawyer. Perrault's literary activity occurred at a time when a fashion for fairy tales appeared in high society. Reading and listening to fairy tales is becoming one of the common hobbies of secular society, comparable only to reading detective stories by our contemporaries. Some prefer to listen to philosophical fairy tales, others pay tribute to ancient fairy tales, passed down in the retellings of grandmothers and nannies. Writers, trying to satisfy these demands, write down fairy tales, processing plots familiar to them from childhood, and the oral fairy tale tradition gradually begins to turn into a written one.
However, Perrault did not dare to publish the fairy tales under his own name, and the book he published bore the name of his eighteen-year-old son, P. Darmancourt. He feared that, with all the love for “fairy-tale” entertainment, writing fairy tales would be perceived as a frivolous activity, casting a shadow with its frivolity on the authority of a serious writer.
Perrault's fairy tales are based on well-known folklore plots, which he presented with his characteristic talent and humor, omitting some details and adding new ones, “ennobling” the language. Most of all, these tales were suitable for children. And it is Perrault who can be considered the founder of world children's literature and literary pedagogy.
Charles Perrault, now we call him a storyteller, but in general during his lifetime (he was born in 1628, died in 1703). Charles Perrault was known as a poet and publicist, dignitary and academician. He was a lawyer, the first clerk of the French Minister of Finance Colbert.
When Colbert founded the Académie de France in 1666, one of its first members was Charles's brother, Claude Perrault, whom Charles had recently helped win a competition to design the façade of the Louvre. A few years later, Charles Perrault was also accepted into the Academy, and he was assigned to head the work on the “General Dictionary of the French Language”.
The story of his life is both personal and social, and politics mixed with literature, and literature, as if divided into what glorified Charles Perrault over the centuries - fairy tales, and what remained transient. For example, Perrault became the author of the poem “The Age of Louis the Great,” in which he glorified his king. His famous works are “Great Men of France”, voluminous “Memoirs” and many others. In 1695, a collection of poetic tales by Charles Perrault was published.
But the collection “Tales of Mother Goose, or Stories and Tales of Bygone Times with Teachings” was published under the name of Charles Perrault’s son Pierre de Armancourt - Perrault. It was the son who, in 1694, on the advice of his father, began to write down folk tales. Pierre Perrault died in 1699. In his memoirs, written a few months before his death (he died in 1703), Charles Perrault does not write anything about who was the author of the fairy tales or, more precisely, the literary record.
These memoirs, however, were published only in 1909, and twenty years after the death of the writer, academician and storyteller, in the 1724 edition of the book “Tales of Mother Goose” (which, by the way, immediately became a bestseller), authorship was first attributed to Charles Perrault alone . In a word, there are many “blank spots” in this biography. The fate of the storyteller himself and his fairy tales, written in collaboration with his son Pierre, is described in such detail for the first time in Russia in the book “Charles Perrault” by Sergei Boyko.
The Rare Books Department of the Scientific Library of Moscow State Pedagogical University stores domestic publications of the 19th – 20th centuries. fairy tales of Charles Perrault, whose name is known in Russia no less (and sometimes more) than the names of storytellers Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm and Wilhelm Hauff.
Biography of the writer.
On January 12, 1628, in the French city of Paris, twins were born into the family of Pierre Perrault (who already had four sons - Jean, Pierre, Claude and Nicolas), who were named Francois and Charles. Francois lived only a few months, but Charles was destined for a long life and immortal glory.
In the Perrault family, learning was highly respected and the parents sought to give all their sons a good education: the mother of the family, an educated woman, herself taught her sons to read and write; and when the youngest, Charles, at the age of eight began to study at Beauvais College, his father, a lawyer by profession, himself checked his sons’ lessons. According to the French historian Philippe Ariès (1914 – 1984; mainly engaged in the history of everyday life, family and childhood), Perrault’s school biography is the biography of a typical excellent student; During their training, none of the Perrault brothers were ever beaten with rods, which at that time was considered an exception.
But still, in 1641, for arguing with teachers, Charles and his schoolmate Borin were kicked out of classes, and they decided to engage in self-education: the boys studied from 8 to 11 in the morning, then had lunch, rested and studied again from 3 to 5 in the afternoon; They read ancient authors together, studied the history of France, studied Greek and Latin - that is, what they would have studied in college. As Charles Perrault later wrote, “If I know anything, I owe it solely to these three or four years of study”. After Charles Perrault takes private law lessons for three years, receives a law degree and buys a lawyer's license; but Perrault Jr. did not work in his specialty for long, and soon became a clerk for his brother, the architect Claude Perrault (1665 - 1680).
The desperate debater subsequently found use for his talent during the dispute between the “ancients” and the “new”. In the 17th century, the prevailing point of view was that ancient writers, poets and scientists created the most perfect, best works, while the “new”, that is, contemporaries, can only imitate the “ancient”, since they are not able to create anything better, in Therefore, the main thing for a poet, playwright, and scientist was considered to be the desire to be like ancient examples.
With the poet, critic and classicist theorist Nicolas Boileau (Nicola Boileau-Depreo; 11/01/1636 – 03/13/1711), author of the treatise "Poetic Art", in which he established the “laws” of writing works so that everything would be exactly like the ancient writers, Perrault categorically disagreed (“Why do we respect the ancients so much? Just for their antiquity? We ourselves are ancient, because in our time the world has become older, we have more experience”). His treatise "Comparison of Ancient and Modern" caused a storm of indignation among adherents of the “ancients”: they began to accuse Perrault of being self-taught, criticizing the ancients only because, not knowing Greek and Latin, he was not familiar with their works.
To prove that his contemporaries were no worse and to give him the opportunity to become like his contemporaries, Perrault published a huge volume "Famous(or, in some translations, the Great Ones) people of France of the 17th century", where he collected more than a hundred biographies of famous scientists, poets, historians, surgeons, and artists.
Also, Charles Perrault is an academician of the French Academy of Inscriptions and Beaux-Letters, who led the work on the “General Dictionary of the French Language”, lawyer and clerk of the French Minister of Finance under Louis XIV, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (08/29/1619 – 09/06/1683), for his services Charles Perrault received the title of nobleman. He was also a famous poet of his time, the author of several scientific works, as well as a number of works of art:
1653 – parody poem in verse “ The Wall of Troy, or the Origin of Burlesque"(Les murs de Troue ou l'Origine du burlesque)
1687 – didactic poem "The Age of Louis the Great"(Le Siecle de Louis le Grand), read at the French Academy, which marked the beginning of the “dispute about the ancients and the modern.” and opposes the imitation and long-established worship of antiquity, asserting that the contemporaries, the “new”, surpassed the “ancients” in literature and in the sciences, and that this is proven by the literary history of France and recent scientific discoveries
1691 - a fairy tale in verse "Griselda"(Griselde) (poetic adaptation of the 10th short story of the X day, the short story “The Decameron” by Boccaccio).
1694 – satire "Apology for Women"(Apologie des femmes) and a poetic story in the form of medieval fabliaux "Funny Desires".
In the same year, a poetic tale was written "Donkey Skin"(Peau d'ane)
1696 – fairy tale published anonymously "Sleeping Beauty", which for the first time embodied the features of a new type 
fairy tales: it is written in prose and is accompanied by a poetic moral teaching, addressed to adults, but not devoid of irony (Perrault wrote about his fairy tales that they are higher than ancient ones because they contain moral instructions). Gradually in the fairy tale, the fantastic beginning turns into a primary element, which is reflected in the title (the exact translation of La Bella au bois dormant - "Beauty in the Sleeping Forest").
1697 – collection published "Tales of Mother Goose, or Stories and Tales of Old Times with Moral Lessons", containing 9 works that were literary adaptations of folk tales
1703 – "Memoirs" Perrault, written a few months before his death, in which he covers all the most important events of his life and work, but does not mention fairy tales.
In 1683, Perrault quit his job and was given a good pension, on which he could live comfortably until the end of his days. And, having received a large amount of free time, Perrault began to write. And one day the idea occurred to him to present some folk tales in literary language, so that they would attract the interest of both adults and children. The author managed to achieve this by presenting serious thoughts in simple language. Almost all of Perrault's tales are a literary recording of folk legends and fairy tales that he often heard in his childhood in the kitchen, except for one: "Rike with Tuft" Perrault composed it himself.
In 1696, when Perrault was 68 years old, the tale was published anonymously in the magazine “Gallant Mercury” (Amsterdam). "Sleeping Beauty", and the next year, 1897, a small book with simple pictures called “Tales of Mother Goose, or Stories and Tales of Old Times with Teachings”, which soon gained incredible success.
But at first, Perrault did not dare to sign the fairy tales with his own name and published under the name of his son Pierre d'Armancourt (at one time there were even disputes in literary criticism that the fairy tales really belonged to the pen of his son, but during the investigation these assumptions were not confirmed; despite the fact that Pierre, on the advice of his father, began to write down folk tales and Charles Perrault himself in his memoirs, published only in 1909, does not mention the true author of the literary recording of fairy tales), since Charles Perrault considered himself a serious writer, and writing fairy tales could ruin his reputation .
However, folklore stories, presented by Perrault in an “ennobled” language with inherent talent and humor, omitting some details and adding new ones, began to enjoy high popularity and the demand for fairy tales only increased, and therefore they began to be considered real art and subsequently had a significant influence on development of the world fairy tale tradition: in particular, “Tales of Mother Goose” was the first book written specifically for children(in those days, children were taught to read from books for adults).
Perrault's merit lies in the fact that he selected several stories from the mass of folk tales and fixed their plot, which at that time was not yet final, and gave them a personal style, at the same time characteristic of the 17th century. They are magical and realistic at the same time: if you want to know what fashion was in 1697, read "Cinderella"(after all, the sisters, when going to the ball, dress in the latest fashion); If you want to listen to what a woodcutter's family said in the 17th century, contact "To Thumb", and you can hear the princess in "Sleeping Beauty"; Puss in Boots is a clever guy from the people who, thanks to his own cunning and resourcefulness, not only arranges the fate of his master, but also becomes “important person”- after all “he no longer catches mice, except sometimes for fun”, and Little Thumb practically remembers at the last moment to pull a bag of gold out of the Ogre’s pocket, thereby saving his family from starvation.
Tales of Charles Perrault.
Despite his scientific and literary merits, it was his fairy tales that brought Charles Perrault worldwide fame. "Puss in Boots", "Cinderella", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Tom Thumb", "Blue Beard" appeal not only to children, but also to adults, and are reflected in world culture in operas (“The Castle of Duke Bluebeard” by the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok; Italian opera buffa “Cinderella, or the Triumph of Virtue” by Gioachino Rossini), ballets (“The Sleeping Beauty” Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky; “Cinderella” by Sergei Sergeevich Prokofiev), dramatic performances, animated films and films.
Charles Perrault's fairy tales were often illustrated by great artists, for example, the French engraver, illustrator and painter Gustav (Gustave) Doré (1832 - 1883).
The Rare Books Department of the Moscow State Pedagogical University Scientific Library contains publications with Doré engravings:
Perrault's fairy tales. / Translation from French by Ivan Turgenev. Drawings by Gustav Doré. – St. Petersburg, Moscow: Publishing house of bookseller and typographer M. O. Wolf, 1867.
Perrault. Puss in Boots: A Fairy Tale for Little Children. Illustrations by Gustav Doré. Colored drawings by artist V. Mel (Book Publishing House "Odespoligraf").
Perrault. Little Thumb: A Fairy Tale for Little Children. Illustrations by Gustav Doré. Colored drawings by the artist S. Goldman (Book Publishing House "Odespoligraf").
Fairy tales of Charles Perrault in Russia.
For the first time in Russian, the fairy tales of Charles Perrault were published in Moscow in 1768 under the title "Tales of Sorceresses with Moral Teachings". They were titled somewhat unusually for the modern ear: "The Tale of the Girl with the Little Red Riding Hood", "The Tale of a Certain Man with a Blue Beard", "The Tale of Father the Cat in Spurs and Boots", "The Tale of the Beauty Sleeping in the Forest" …
Later, in the 19th and 20th centuries, Charles Perrault's tales were published under titles more familiar to modern readers:
Perrault. Little Red Riding Hood. Puss in Boots. Sleeping Beauty. Blue Beard. / Per. from French by B. D. Prozorovskaya. – St. Petersburg: Type. T-va “Public Benefit”, 1897. – (Illustrated fairy-tale library of F. Pavlenkov; No. 81).
Puss in Boots: A Tale: With six colored pictures. –
[Moscow]: Publishing house of I. D. Sytin,
Despite the love of readers, for Charles Perrault the road to high society was closed: for writing fairy tales, his learned colleagues did not like Professor Perrault, and the nobility closed the doors of their houses in front of him.
But this was not the only reason. Once, during a street fight, the writer’s son, Pierre, a nobleman by status, stabbed the commoner Guilloia Coll, the son of a carpenter’s widow, which at that time was considered an extremely immoral act. As a result, the young man ended up in prison.
Thanks to his money and connections, Charles Perrault rescued his son from prison and bought him the rank of lieutenant in the king's regiment, but this seriously ruined the family's reputation.
During the next battle, the young man died.
Charles Perrault died in 1703, tired and exhausted, hating his fairy tales and taking the secret of their authorship to the grave.
The fairy tales of Charles Perrault are still loved by both children and adults, and in the 21st century they are published in various combinations with new illustrations (for example, on the fiction subscription in the building of the humanities departments of the Scientific Library of Moscow State University you can find “Fairy Tales of Mother Goose” with illustrations by Yu. Boyarsky;
and a book of Fairy Tales by Charles Perrault with illustrations by Anna Vlasova).
Could a poet and scientist have thought in his time that his name would be glorified throughout the centuries not by poems and scientific treatises, but by a thin book of fairy tales?...
Fablio, fabliaux (from Latin fabula - fable, story. Old French fableaux, fabliaux - plural of fabli - “fable”; the form fabliaux is dialectic) - one of the genres of French urban literature of the 12th - early 14th centuries, which is a small poetic a short story whose purpose is to entertain and instruct listeners.
When writing this article, materials from the following sites were used:
Interesting illustrations for the fairy tales of Charles Perrault and other famous storytellers can be found at the link:
