Charles Perrault (1628-1703) - French poet and critic of the era of classicism, member of the French Academy. Has gained worldwide popularity thanks to the fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty" and the book "Tales of Mother Goose, or Stories and Tales of Bygone Times with Teachings".
Charles Perrault's fairy tales should be read for their special liveliness, cheerful instructiveness and the finest irony, sustained in an elegant style. They have not lost their relevance even in our days of all kinds of information technologies, probably because life itself was the source of inspiration for the author.
Perrault's tales can be read to understand the laws of life. The heroes of his works are aristocratic gallant and practically intelligent, spiritual and highly moral. It doesn't matter who they are - good girls from the common people or spoiled society ladies - each character perfectly embodies a specific type of person. Sly or hardworking, selfish or magnanimous - such as is the general example or such as should not be.
Read Charles Perrault's Tales Online
Whole wonderful world, which may seem naive, is unusually complex and deep, therefore it is able to sincerely captivate the imagination of not only a small person, but also an adult. Open this world right now - read Charles Perrault's fairy tales online!
As well as pre-red fairy tales, etc. For more than three hundred years, all the children of the world love and know these fairy tales.
Charles Perrault's Tales
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Charles Perrault biography
Charles Perrault - a famous French writer-storyteller, poet and critic of the era of classicism, a member of the French Academy since 1671, now known mainly as the author “ Fairy Tales of Mother Goose».
Name Charles Perrault - one of the most popular names of storytellers in Russia along with the names of Andersen, the brothers Grimm, Hoffmann. Perrault's wonderful tales from the collection of fairy tales of Mother Goose: "Cinderella", "Sleeping Beauty", "Puss in Boots", "Boy with a Thumb", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Blue Beard" are glorified in Russian music, ballets, films, theater performances, in painting and graphics dozens and hundreds of times.
Charles Perrault born on January 12, 1628 in Paris, in a wealthy family of the judge of the Paris Parliament, Pierre Perrot, and was the youngest of his seven children (his twin brother François was born with him, who died 6 months later). Among his brothers, Claude Perrault was a famous architect, the author of the eastern facade of the Louvre (1665-1680).
The boy's family was concerned with the education of their children, and at the age of eight, Charles was sent to the College of Beauvais. As the historian Philippe Aries notes, the school biography of Charles Perrault is the biography of a typical excellent student. During his studies, neither he nor his brothers were ever beaten with rods - an exceptional case at that time. College Charles Perrault dropped out without finishing his studies.
After college Charles Perrault for three years he took private lessons in law and eventually received a law degree. He bought a lawyer's license, but soon left this position and became a clerk to his brother architect Claude Perrault.
He enjoyed the confidence of Jean Colbert, in the 1660s he largely determined the policy of the court of Louis XIV in the field of arts. Thanks to Colbert, Charles Perrault in 1663 was appointed secretary of the newly formed Academy of Inscriptions and Fine Arts. Perrault was also the Comptroller General of the royal buildings. After the death of his patron (1683), he fell out of favor and lost the pension he was paid as a writer, and in 1695 he lost his secretary position.
1653 - first piece Charles Perrault - the parody poem "The Wall of Troy, or the Origin of Burlesque" (Les murs de Troue ou l'Origine du burlesque).
1687 - Charles Perrault reads his didactic poem "The Age of Louis the Great" (Le Siecle de Louis le Grand) at the French Academy, which marked the beginning of a longstanding "dispute about the ancient and the new", in which Nicolas Boileau becomes Perrault's most fierce opponent. Perrault opposes the imitation and long-established worship of antiquity, arguing that contemporaries, the "new", surpassed the "ancients" in literature and in the sciences, and that this is proved by the literary history of France and recent scientific discoveries.
1691 – Charles Perrault first addresses the genre fairy tales and writes "Griselde". This is a poetic adaptation of Boccaccio's novella that concludes The Decameron (10th novella of the 10th day). In it, Perrault does not break with the principle of plausibility, there is still no magic fantasy here, just as there is no national flavor folklore tradition... The tale is of a salon-aristocratic character.
1694 - the satire "Apologie des femmes" and a poetic story in the form of medieval fable "Amusing desires". At the same time, the fairy tale "Donkey's skin" (Peau d'ane) was written. It is still written in poetry, sustained in the spirit of poetic short stories, but its plot is already taken from a folk tale, which was then widespread in France. Although there is nothing fantastic in a fairy tale, fairies appear in it, which violates the classicist principle of plausibility.
1695 - releasing their fairy tales, Charles Perrault in the preface he writes that his tales are higher than the ancient ones, because, unlike the latter, they contain moral instructions.
1696 - The “Gallant Mercury” magazine anonymously published the “Sleeping Beauty” fairy tale, which for the first time fully embodied the features of a new type of fairy tale. It is written in prose, and poetic morality is attached to it. The prose part can be addressed to children, the poetic part - only to adults, and moral lessons are not devoid of playfulness and irony. In the fairy tale, fantasy from a secondary element turns into a leading one, which is already noted in the title (La Bella au bois dormant, the exact translation is "Beauty in the sleeping forest").
Perrault's literary activity falls at a time when the fashion for fairy tales appears 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 tales, others pay tribute to the old tales that have come down in the retelling of grandmothers and nannies. Writers, seeking to satisfy these requests, write down fairy tales, processing stories familiar to them from childhood, and the oral fairy tale tradition gradually begins to pass into written.
1697 - published a collection of fairy tales " The Tales of Mother Goose, or Stories and tales of past times with moral teachings ”(Contes de ma mere Oye, ou Histores et contesdu temps passe avec des moralites). The collection contained 9 fairy tales, which were literary adaptation of folk tales (believed to have been heard from the nurse of Perrault's son) - except for one (Riquet-crest), composed by Charles Perrault himself. This book widely glorified Perrault outside the literary circle. Actually Charles Perrault introduced folk tale into the system of genres of "high" literature.
However, Perrault did not dare to publish the tales under his own name, and the book he published bore the name of his eighteen-year-old son, P. Darmankour. He feared that with all his love for "fairy-tale" entertainments, writing fairy tales would be perceived as a frivolous occupation, casting a shadow with its frivolity on the authority of a serious writer.
It turns out that in philological science there is still no exact answer to the elementary question: who wrote the famous fairy tales?
The fact is that when the book of fairy tales of Mother Goose first appeared, and it happened in Paris on October 28, 1696, the author of the book was designated in a dedication to a certain Pierre D Armandour.
However, in Paris they quickly learned the truth. Under the magnificent pseudonym D Armankourt hid none other than the youngest and beloved son of Charles Perrault, nineteen-year-old Pierre. For a long time it was believed that the writer’s father took this trick only in order to introduce the young man into the upper world, specifically in the circle of the young Princess of Orleans, niece of King Louis-Sun. After all, the book was dedicated to her. But later it turned out that young Perrault, on the advice of his father, was recording some folk tales, and there are documentary references to this fact.
In the end, he completely confused the situation Charles Perrault.
Shortly before his death, the writer wrote a memoir, where he described in detail all the more or less important affairs of his life: the service with the Minister Colbert, editing the first General Dictionary of the French language, poetic odes in honor of the king, translations of the fables of the Italian Faerno, a three-volume study on the comparison of ancient authors with new creators. But nowhere in his own biography, Perrault did not mention a word about the authorship of the phenomenal fairy tales of Mother Goose, about a unique masterpiece of world culture.
And yet he had every reason to put this book in the register of victories. The book of fairy tales had an unprecedented success among the Parisians of 1696, every day in the shop of Claude Barben there were sold 20-30, and sometimes 50 books a day! This - on the scale of one store - was never dreamed of today, perhaps even in the bestseller about Harry Potter.
During the year, the publisher repeated the circulation three times. This was unheard of. First, France, then the whole of Europe fell in love with the magical stories about Cinderella, her evil sisters and a crystal slipper, re-read the terrible tale about the Knight Bluebeard, who killed his wives, supported the courteous Little Red Riding Hood, which was swallowed by the evil wolf. (Only in Russia did the translators correct the ending of the tale, in our country the woodcutters kill the wolf, and in the French original the wolf ate both the grandmother and the granddaughter).
In fact, the fairy tales of Mother Goose became the world's first book written for children. Before that, no one wrote books for children on purpose. But then children's books went like an avalanche. The phenomenon of children's literature itself was born from Perrault's masterpiece!
Huge merit Perrault in what he chose from the mass of the people fairy tales several stories and recorded their plot, which has not yet become final. He gave them a tone, climate, style, characteristic of the 17th century, and yet very personal.
At the heart of perrault's tales - the famous folklore plot, which he presented with his inherent talent and humor, omitting some details and adding new ones, "ennobling" the language. Most of all these fairy tales suitable for children. And it is Perrault who can be considered the ancestor of children's world literature and literary pedagogy.
"Fairy Tales" contributed to the democratization of literature and influenced the development of the world fairy tale tradition (brothers V. and J. Grimm, L. Tik, G. H. Andersen). In Russian, Perrault's tales were first published in Moscow in 1768 under the title "Tales of Sorceresses with Moralities." Operas Cinderella by G. Rossini, The Castle of the Duke Bluebeard by B. Bartok, the ballets The Sleeping Beauty by P. Tchaikovsky, Cinderella by S. Prokofiev and others have been created based on the plots of Perrot's fairy tales.
Where:Moscow, st. Vozdvizhenka, 3/5, Russian State Library, Book Museum
When:April 7 - May 16, 2017
Who is the author of the fairy tales "Cinderella", "Sleeping Beauty", "Little Red Riding Hood"? Ridiculous question, you say: every child knows they wrote them. great storyteller, children's writer Charles Perrault. But behind the pages of "The Tales of My Mother Goose" secrets and riddles are hidden: the name of Charles Perrault on the cover of "Fairy Tales ..." first appeared only 27 years after the publication of the first edition of the book, and they were not intended at all for children's reading. And Charles Perrault has never been a children's writer.
Fabulous detective
The 320th anniversary of the publication of the first book, which brought fashion to fairy tales, raised them to the heights of great literature - "Stories and Tales of Bygone Times with Teachings" ("Tales of My Mother Goose") - is dedicated to a mini-exhibition, which is now being held in the Museum of the Book Russian State Library.
Charles Perrault (French Charles Perrault; January 12, 1628, Paris - May 16, 1703, Paris) was a poet famous in France during the "sun king" of Louis XIV, a critic of the era of classicism, a member of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Medals (Academy of Inscriptions and Fine Literature ), academician of the French Academy, public figure and ... author of fairy tales. True, these fairy tales - "Griselda", "Ridiculous desires" and "Donkey's skin" - were in verse, and Charles Perrault did not hide his authorship. But he never called himself the author of "The Tales of My Mother Goose". In 1796, they were presented to Princess Louise Elisabeth of Orleans by Pierre Darmancourt, son of Charles Perrault, on his own behalf.
Was a nineteen-year-old boy the author of these tales? Each of the eight stories - "Cinderella", "Sleeping Beauty", "Ricky with a Tufted", "Puss in Boots", "Boy-with-Thumb", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Bluebeard", "Fairy Gifts" - was accompanied by two morals explaining the moral contained in the tale. And researchers believe that the young man could not write such sermons. For example, the moralizing to the fairy tale about Little Red Riding Hood (by the way, the fairy tale did not have a happy ending in the original: the wolf just ate a trusting and overly talkative girl) sounded like this: “When a beauty and a young girl willingly listen to everyone, they will soon deceive her. And then, in the same way, soon it can happen, as in this tale it is written: that the wolf will eat it; for wolves are not all wild, there are many kinds of them. They seduce many handsome and trusting girls with their gentle words, trying to please with their courtesy and cheerful appearance in front of other girls. They escorted them to their homes, and sometimes to bed. Such carers, such hypocrites should be removed more than others, if someone does not want to be deceived. " (Tales of sorceresses: With moralizing / Translated from the French [Lev Voinov]. - St. Petersburg: Senate type., 1781).
Charles Perrault. Puss in Boots: A Tale for Children / with Painted Pictures. - M .: chromolite. A. V. Morozov, type. Bakhmetev, 1873 (reg. 1872). - 6 p., 6 p. color silt
It is believed that Charles Perrault, having given his book to Pierre, helped his son make a career at court, take a place in the retinue of the Princess of Orange - and this was a great way to draw attention to young man... Other experts believe that Pierre Darmancourt himself wrote down the tales that the nurse told him, and his father only helped him - with advice and literary processing. Another option - a classicist, an "immortal" academic, a respected literary figure could not stoop to a low genre, which was a folk tale, and spoke under the name of the one who has nothing to lose.
Be that as it may, in 1697 "The Tales of My Mother Goose" was published - first in France, and then in Holland. The book was so popular that the publisher repeated the circulation three times within a year! The fairy tale became fashionable, burst into the literary salons of high society and ceased to be a low genre. However, the secret of the real author of fairy tales has remained a secret. Pierre Darmancourt died in 1699, his father died in 1703, but Charles Perrault never mentioned "History and Tales of Bygone Times with Teachings" when listing his works.
Publishers began to include in the collection "Donkey's Skin" and "Griselda" by Perrault, tales of followers and imitators (for example, "Beauty and the Beast" by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbeau de Villeneuve or her version by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont). The book instantly spread throughout the world, translated into many languages. Often the author was not indicated at all - just as his name was not on the very first edition of 1697. And in 1727 the name of Charles Perrault firmly established itself on the covers - and it is him that we, without a doubt, call the author of fairy tales beloved from childhood.
Charles Perrault. Puss in Boots: A Tale for Children / with Painted Pictures. - M .: chromolite. A. V. Morozov, type. Bakhmetev, 1873 (reg. 1872). - 6 p., 6 p. color silt
Not trinkets at all!
Head of the sector of museum and exhibition work of the research department of rare books (Museum of books), curator of the exhibition Maria Borisovna Zolotova says: “The meaning of our exhibition is to remind of this wonderful date and show how these tales were diverse in different editions and how they looked different at different times. We wanted to show the book in all forms, types and forms - publications for adults, for older children and for toddlers. " In the exposition of the mini-exhibition, there was a place for scientific editions of fairy tales with commentaries and prefaces by literary critics - and for toy books. Different translations, different publishers and publishing houses, pre-revolutionary publications, publications of the Soviet period and recent times ... And all these are rarities, each of which is interesting in its own way and beautiful in its own way.
For the first time "Tales ..." were translated into Russian in 1768. You will not see the first edition at the exhibition, unfortunately, it is not in the collection of the Russian State Library. But you will see the second: “Tales of sorceresses: With moralizing / Translated from the French [by Lev Voinov]. - St. Petersburg: Senate. type., 1781 ". This collection includes nine fairy tales: "Fairy tale 1. About a girl in a little red cap", "Fairy tale 2. About charmed girls", "Fairy tale 3. About a man with a blue beard", "Fairy tale 4. About a beauty sleeping in the forest", " Fairy tale 5. About the cat in spurs and boots "," Fairy tale 6. About the pot in which the ashes are kept "," Fairy tale 7. Ricket in the scythe "," Fairy tale 8. About the Boy with a finger "," Fairy tale 9. From the skillful a letter from the princess to the Countess Murat "(the author of the last tale is Marie-Jeanne Léritier de Villandon).
There is no author's surname on the 1781 edition. But the collection of 1825 is signed: “Fairy tales, or Pleasant occupation from nothing to do. / Works. Perolta; From which operas and ballets presented at the imperial theaters are taken; Translated from the French Imperial Moscow Theater by the actor Baranov. - Moscow: In the printing house of August Semyon, 1825 ". Take a closer look at this book monument: handmade paper, hand-set, hand-painted illustrations.
Charles Perrault. Puss in Boots: A Tale for Children / with Painted Pictures. - M .: chromolite. A. V. Morozov, type. Bakhmetev, 1873 (reg. 1872). - 6 p., 6 p. color silt
On one showcase - “Six fairy tales. A Gift for Kind Children ”, the 1845 edition (“ Cinderella ”is called very funny in this collection -“ Chumichka ”) and the famous 1867 edition of Matvey Osipovich Wolf's printing house“ Perrot's Fairy Tales ”. The translator of fairy tales was Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, he also owns the preface to the publication, and the illustrations are based on magnificent engravings Gustav Dore.
Here is what Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev writes in the preface: “Perrot's tales deserve an honorable place in children's literature. They are cheerful, entertaining, easy-going, not burdened with either excessive morality or an author's claim; they still feel the spirit of folk poetry, which once created them; in them there is precisely that mixture of the incomprehensible-miraculous and the ordinary-simple, the sublime and the funny, which makes distinctive feature real fabulous fiction ".
This book is addressed, rather, to adults, as well as a serious, with scientific commentary edition of 1936 by the Leningrad publishing house Academia. But there are more children's books at the exhibition "Not at all trinkets" - toy books, fairy tales with illustrations by Vladimir Mikhailovich Konashevich, Pyotr Aleksandrovich Alyakrinsky, Georgy, Alexander and Valery Traugotov, signing "G. A. V. Traugot ". A book published in 1996 by the Vedo publishing house "Puss in Boots and Eight fairy tales Charles Perrault ”is interesting because it was illustrated by children - students of the Children's Art Gallery in Volgograd.
The title of the exhibition is taken from the statement of Charles Perrault about fairy tales. This is what this great man, who gave impetus to the development of literature for children, said: “... These trinkets are not trinkets at all, but contain useful morality, and [...] the playful storytelling was chosen only so that they act on the mind the reader with greater pleasure, together and teaching and entertaining. "
Charles Perrault. Little Red Riding Hood / Perrault S. - Baku: People's Commissariat of Education of the Azerbaijan SSR, 1940 .-- p .: ill.
Little Red Riding Hood: / [toy book based on the tale of C. Perrault]. - [M .: T-va ID Sytin, early XX century]. - l. : ill.
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"Little Red Riding Hood, come on, friend, The girl instantly took the basket, Suddenly a wolf runs towards her, "Dear baby, how far is it, my friend?" - Pull the string, she hears. Reaches her grandmother with all her strength, He ate his grandmother and ate his granddaughter |
Fortunately, everything worked out well. Hunters walked past from the forest, Little Red Riding Hood is alive again |
Perrault's Tales / S fig. A.P. Apsita. - M.: V.M. Sablin, 1916 .--, 152 p.: Ill., 4 sheets. silt
"The Tales of My Mother Goose, Or the Stories and Tales of Bygone Times with Teachings" is a collection of fairy tales by the French writer Charles Perrault. It was published in January 1697 on behalf of Pierre Perrault d'Armancourt, the 19-year-old son of the writer, and with a dedication to Louis XIV's niece Elizabeth-Charlotte of Orleans, who at that time was 21 years old.
Initially, the collection included eight prosaic tales with poetic morality; when the collection was republished, Perrault added three more poetic tales to it. One of the tales, "The Sleeping Beauty", was published earlier, in 1696, in the magazine "Gallant Mercury" without indicating the author's name. Experts associate the writer's unwillingness to directly declare his authorship with the fact that the famous writer, a member of the French Academy, was somewhat ashamed of his own appeal to the "low", as it was considered at that time, the genre of fairy tales. On the other hand, Perrault's literary hoax made it possible to create an image of a certain audience of storytellers and listeners of fairy tales - young socialites. The collection "Tales of My Mother Goose ..." was a resounding success, followed by many reprints, the book was translated into other languages, it was imitated in France and abroad. The first Russian translation of the collection entitled "Tales of Sorceresses with Preachings" was also made in the 18th century. (1768), one of the fairy tales - "Puss in Boots" - was translated by V.A. Zhukovsky. The most authoritative modern French edition of fairy tales was published under the editorship of Gilbert Rouget in 1967. The modern Russian translation of "The Tales of My Mother Goose ..." by S. Bobrov was published in 1976.
Ch. Perrault created his tales at an advanced age, retiring from business. It is believed that the writer composed them for a children's audience, because his main occupation at that time was raising children. The reader's fate of the collection seems to confirm this conclusion: Perrault's fairy tales are one of the most popular children's readings; there are many editions adapted for children. However, it is characteristic that these publications provide the text of Perrault's fairy tales with alterations and abbreviations: thus, in all fairy tales, humorous, sometimes ironically ambiguous (as in Little Red Riding Hood) morality is usually omitted. (In the same "Little Red Riding Hood" the cruel end is remade, in the fairy tale "The Sleeping Beauty" its second part is usually omitted - the story of the relationship between the princess and the mother of the prince who woke her up - the cannibal, etc.). Obviously, as long as Perrault's texts need to be adapted in a certain way for a child's audience, then his tales were created for an adult, although mainly, perhaps, a young, secularly educated and tasteful reader. At one time A.N. Veselovsky credited the writer with the fact that he “introduced a folk tale into circulation”. However, it should be clarified: Perrault did not record folk tales. as scientists-folklorists would do it later, and created a stylistically verified literary fairy tale, which absorbed both folklore and book - novelistic and novelistic traditions.
Among the followers of Ch. Perrault outside of France already in the XIX century. were L. Tick and E.T.A. Hoffmann, brothers Grimm and Brentano, Andersen and V.A. Zhukovsky, Dickens and A.S. Pushkin. Traditions and motives, gleaned from the writer of the 17th century, are found in the literary tale of the 20th century - from A. France to M. Aimé.
The poetry of Perrault's fairy tales did not leave indifferent musicians, ballet masters, librettists, theater and film directors different countries... There are ballets for almost all the fairytale plots of the collection, several operas and musical comedies, puppet and drama performances, films. Especially noteworthy is the fairy tale "Cinderella", which became the basis of three operas (N. Isaura, D. Rossini, J. Massenet), eight ballets, including the ballet by S.S. Prokofiev (1945), musical comedy by M. Bontempelli and countless theatrical performances and film adaptations. The ballet of the same name by P.I. Tchaikovsky (1890), in whose divertissement the heroes of other Perrault tales are also involved.