Literary. Where do the plots come from. "The Secret of Charles Perrault"

In Perrault's tales, three main elements can be traced in various combinations: the folklore basis itself - in the plots and sometimes in the verbal and stylistic design; a peculiar bourgeois coloring - in the moral teachings and in many details of the everyday nature; and finally, the aristocratic striving for grace - in the description of many scenes and motives, and especially in the nature of the presentation. The plots of Charles Perrault's fairy tales can be conditionally divided into two groups: fairy tales about children who flee from evil pursuers and always pay with good for the harm done to them ("Little Boy", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Cinderella"), and romantic stories about love ("Sleeping Beauty", "Bluebeard"). Animals in fairy tales speak human language, which is one of the hallmarks of a folk tale. The indissoluble unity of the two narrative plans - the fabulous and the real - is one of the characteristic features of the tales of Charles Perrot. Thanks to the unity of the fantastic and the real, his works are easily perceived and understood by both adults and children. Charles Perrault (12.01.1628, Paris - 16.05.1703, ibid.) - French writer, member of the French Academy (1671). He was born into the family of an official, received a law degree, and held a prominent official post. The first work of Perrault - the parody poem "The Walls of Troy, or the Origin of Burlesque" - appeared in 1653. He also turned to poetic burlesques and satyrs later (satire "Apology of Women", 1694).

Perrault entered into a polemic on aesthetic issues with the largest theorist of French classicism Nicolas Boileau. In 1687, Charles Perrault read his poem "The Age of Louis the Great" at the French Academy. In the poem, in strict accordance with the instructions of Boileau, reality was transformed in the light of the ideal, the reign of Louis XIV, which came just at that time to a deep decline, was depicted as the most beautiful and perfect throughout history. But Perrault allowed himself to go further. He argued that the modern era is no worse than antiquity, the "new" people are not inferior to the "ancients" either in the sciences, or in the arts, or in crafts: Around the poem a dispute flared up, called the "dispute between the ancient and the new." Boileau stood at the head of the "ancients", and Perrault at the head of the "new". Responding to criticism from opponents, Perrault released in 1688-1697. four-volume treatise "Comparison of the ancients and the new in the arts and sciences"). It argues that in literature, as well as in life, there is progress, so there is no need to rely on the authority of the ancients, on ancient art, creating the art of modern times. Referring to the second volume (1691) of ancient fairy tales, Perrault writes a significant phrase: "The Milesian stories are so childish that it is too much honor to oppose them to our fairy tales of Mother Goose or about Donkey Skin."

The writer turns to the genre of fairy tales in order to move from theory to practical proof of his innocence. In 1691, he anonymously published the tale "Griselda". This is the first, still timid experience. The tale is an adaptation of Boccaccio's novella that concludes The Decameron (10th novella of the 10th day). It is written in poetry, in it Perrault does not break with the principle of plausibility, there is still no magic fantasy here, as well as the flavor of the national folklore tradition. The tale is too salon-aristocratic in nature. This is not surprising: the popularity of fairy tales in the aristocratic salons of the second half of the 17th century provided this genre with a subsequent brilliant literary fate. Three years later, Perrault published Amusing Desires, a short poetic story in the spirit of medieval fablio. Obviously, he continues to search for his genre, his approach to reality and art. In the same 1694, the fairy tale "Donkey's Skin" appears. 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 almost nothing fantastic in the tale, fairies appear in it, which violates the classicistic principle of plausibility. Releasing poetic tales in 1695, Perrault wrote in the preface that they are higher than the ancient ones, because, unlike the latter, they contain moral instructions. Criticizing ancient fairy tales, he noted: “These are not the fairy tales composed by our ancestors for their children, they told them not with such grace and adornment as the Greeks and Romans decorated their myths; they have always been very careful that their tales contain a praiseworthy and instructive morality. Everywhere in them, virtue is rewarded and vice is punished. They all strive to show how beneficial it is to be honest, patient, judicious, hardworking, obedient and what evil befell those who are not like that. "

The Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, published anonymously in the Gallant Mercury magazine (1696), for the first time fully embodied the main 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, moralizing - only to adults, and moral lessons are not devoid of playfulness and irony. In a fairy tale, fantasy from a secondary element turns into a leading one, which is already noted in the title (the exact translation is “Beauty in the sleeping forest”). However, science fiction is devoid of popular naivety and is colored with graceful irony. So, almost in the spirit of "The Golden Pot" by Hoffmann, fairies are described at the beginning of the tale.

Time and space in Perrault's tales are conventionally fabulous. Only Sleeping Beauty contains specific timelines. Perrault writes: "The prince helped the princess to get up, she was completely dressed and very luxurious, but he was careful not to tell her that her dress was like her grandmother's, and that she had a high collar, which were worn under King Henry IV ..." If you remember that Henry IV ruled at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries, and the princess slept for a hundred years, it turns out that the story takes place at the very moment when it is written, at the end of the 17th century. So Perrault combines the world of fairy tales and the world of contemporary reality.

In The Sleeping Beauty, the writer violates the unity of the plot development: after the story of the awakening of the princess, only the story of the persecution of the princess and her children by the mother-in-law follows only externally connected with the first. In folklore, these motives are rarely found together. All the more obvious is Perrault's desire to violate another immutable law of classicist poetics.

The world famous "Tales" by Perrault were first published in 1697 simultaneously in Paris and The Hague under the title "Tales of My Mother Goose, or Stories and Tales of Bygone Times with Moral Teachings"). The collection includes fairy tales in prose: "Sleeping Beauty", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Bluebeard", "Puss in Boots", "Fairies", "Cinderella, or the Crystal Shoe", "Rike with a Tufted", "Boy-s -finger ". In the folklore of the French and other European peoples, one can find fairy tales, very reminiscent of the works of Perrault. Thus, the plot of "Sleeping Beauty" exists in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Arabic, Ukrainian, Belarusian folklore, its oldest record was found in the text of the old French knightly novel "Perseforest" (XIV century). There is a similar tale in the collection of fairy tales by Gian Batista Basile "Pentameron" (1634-1636). Basile, as well as his predecessor, Giovanni Francesco Straparola, in the collection Pleasant Nights (1550-1553) has a record of the tale of Puss in Boots. Basile wrote down both the plot and Cinderella.

However, there are cases when Perrault's Fairy Tales are the most ancient source of text - such is, for example, the fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood”. It is possible that it is from Perrault's fairy tales that these plots fall into folklore (in the folklore of subsequent centuries they become widespread), and the folklore treatment is sometimes very different from the original source. So, in Perrault's story, Little Red Riding Hood's story ends with her death in the mouth of a wolf. In the folk tradition, the ending of the fairy tale is happy: hunters appear and save Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother.

Stronger folklore motives in Perrault's tale "Puss in Boots". The cat, like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, is endowed with speech and quick-wittedness, but not with the ability to shape-shift (unlike the cannibal). He can begin to act only in boots (compare the role of clothing details in the images of Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Donkey Skin). The cat is a "director of life" and in this capacity (like the Boy with a Thumb) takes an intermediate place between positive characters - sorceresses (in "Sleeping Beauty", "Cinderella") and negative characters - a wolf and Bluebeard, is opposed to positive non-magical characters, waiting for help from above (Princess, Cinderella). The image of the Cat grows into a myth and becomes a symbol of every person who actively intervenes in his own destiny, helps others, which elevates himself.

Supporters of the mythological school saw hidden folklore symbolism in Perrault's tales: Sleeping Beauty - a dying and resurrecting nature; Little Red Riding Hood - the dawn, which is destroyed by the Sun (wolf), or the May Queen, while the wolf personifies winter; the story of Bluebeard's wives is associated with the initiation of girls into the sacraments of marriage; the story of Puss in Boots reproduces the rite of elevation to the royal rank; the plot of "Fairies" is connected with the celebration of the New Year; traces of the initiation rite are found in the fairy tales "Rike with a tuft" and "Boy-with-a-finger". The mythological interpretation of fairy tales is of certain interest, but it does not take into account that Perrault, most likely, did not even suspect about the possibility of such an interpretation of his works. If in those folklore sources on which he relied, ancient rituals and beliefs can indeed be recorded in a transformed, fabulously symbolic form, then at the time of Perrault, the court society for which fairy tales were created, perceived the world completely differently. Perrault's tales have folklore origins, but a literary nature; they appeared during a period of acute aesthetic struggle and became an important argument in this struggle.

The struggle between the "ancient" and "new" gave birth to a fashion for fairy tales. In 1696 Lhéritier de Villaudon published her fairy tale "The Artful Princess, or The Adventures of Vostrushka". Two years later, the Countess d'Onua released a four-volume collection of fairy tales, New Fairy Tales, or Fairies in Fashion, and Fairy Tales.

In 1700 Boileau acknowledged the correctness of the "new". The aesthetic controversy was won by Perrault and his associates. But, as time has shown, this was only the beginning of a long aesthetic discussion, which in the 18th century was related to the formation of both educational and pre-romantic aesthetics. Perrault largely contributed to the formation of educational ideals in literature and art, ridiculing in his work blind imitation and excessive worship of ancient authors. However, the very foundations of classicist aesthetics were not destroyed; this proves once again that in the field of literature the educational ideal was based on the aesthetics of classicism. It is no coincidence that Perrault quickly reconciled with his main opponent Boileau. The latter wrote to Perrault: "In essence, we adhere to the same views on the respect that should be shown to our century, only we do not reason in the same way on this score." Nevertheless, in the writings of Perrault, the pathos of novelty is clearly revealed - an essential feature of the transition periods marked by a reassessment of values, a change in cultural landmarks.

Perrault's Fairy Tales did not lose their appeal after the picture of literary life changed. How can this be explained? Perrault's tales are imbued with humanism, belief in the best properties of human nature. Love in them is ideal, friendship and devotion appear as integral qualities of kind and honest people. It is characteristic for Perrault to associate his faith in a person with children (Boy-with-a-finger), with those who are poor (the owner of Puss in Boots), not endowed with beauty (Riquet with a tuft). In Cinderella, Perrault created a myth about the transformation of a poor and unprepossessing, but hardworking girl into a beautiful princess. For the 17th century, this fairytale motif was very democratic. Later, the "Cinderella myth" became one of the stereotypes of bourgeois culture, separating from Perrault's fairy tale. In the fairy tale, however, he breathes with mental health, purity, high humanity.

In the second half of the twentieth century, the plots of Perrault's tales unexpectedly became the basis for the psychoanalytic interpretation of human

relationships. American psychologist Eric Berne, developing the so-called transactional (scenario) analysis, considered Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Little Red Riding Hood as some models that make it possible to understand what games people play in their everyday behavior.

Perrault created a number of eternal character images and eternal plot images. His influence spread not only to various types of art, but also to the culture of everyday life.

In fact, the fairy tales of Mother Goose became the first book in the world written for children. Before that, no one specially wrote books for children ...

Charles Perrault's inexplicable silence has given rise to two main scientific versions about the authorship of fairy tales.

First, the book was written by Perrault himself, but on principle he decided to consolidate the glory of fairy tales for his beloved son. The second version - the tales were really written by the youngest son of Perrault, the brilliant young man Pierre Perrault, and the writer father only literally processed the works of his son.

The fate of Pierre himself was terrible.

After the triumphant success of the book, he immediately entered the close circle of the Princess of Orleans, but unfortunately, six months later, in a vulgar street fight, he stabbed his weatherman Guillaume Coll, the son of a certain Marie Fourier, a carpenter's widow, with a sword. The murder of a commoner with a noble sword was at that time an absolutely immoral act. There could be no question of any closeness to the royal court now. Pierre ended up in jail, and the widow started a multi-stage trial against the culprit. After all, the murderer's father, the favorite of the palace, the president of the French academy Charles Perrault was very rich and recently acquired the ancient castle of Rosier near the city of Troyes on the banks of the Seine. Calling on all his connections and money for help, the father barely rescued his son from prison and urgently bought him the rank of lieutenant in the royal regiment. Pierre went to the front of the next French battle, where he died at lightning speed.

The death of first his son, and then of Charles Perrault himself, forever carried the secret of authorship to the grave of centuries. For some time, the fairy tales of Mother Goose, by inertia, were still published under the name of Pierre D Armankour, but in 1724, 10 years after the death of the writer, the general opinion prevailed that the fairy tales were still written by Charles Perrault Sr. They are still published under this name.

The 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 Perrault's fairy tales.

"The influence of Charles Perrault ... is so great that if you ask someone today to tell you a typical fairy tale, he will probably tell you one of the French: "Puss in Boots", "Cinderella" or "Little Red Riding Hood"". (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Charles Perrault came from a wealthy Parisian family. His grandfather was a merchant in Turin. His father Pierre received an excellent education and was a lawyer for the Paris Parliament. He met his wife Puckett Leclerc in his parish, in the church of Saint-Etienne du Mont. Puckett came from a noble family and brought her husband a good dowry, including the village of Viry (now the city of Viry-Chatillon), where the family left in those days when the plague was raging in Paris.

Charles was the youngest child in the family. He had a twin brother, François, who lived only six months and thus Charles became not the sixth, but the fifth son of the Perrault family. The rest of the brothers lived quite long and eventful lives at that time: Jean was a lawyer, Pierre was the general tax collector of Paris, Claude was a physician and architect, the author of the project of the famous Louvre gallery, Nicolas was a doctor of divinity at the Sorbonne.

It should be noted that the Perrault family was very religious. They were close to Jansenism, maintained an acquaintance with Blaise Pascal (although in many respects Charles's views did not coincide with him), defended representatives of this trend in court. And Charles Perrault, already in his mature years, published two poetic works on biblical themes: "Creation and Adam" and "Saint Paul".

Portrait of Louis XIV with his family

Charles collected taxes and wrote poetry. In 1653 they already appeared in print. In addition, his older brothers introduced him to a high society salon, whose visitors were eminent authors.

But "... all the talents will not adorn you in the least, since there is no godmother in stock to thunder."

Such a "godmother" for Charles Perrault for many years was the powerful Minister of Finance J.-B. Colbert .

Jean-Baptiste Colbert - statesman under Louis XIV, chief intendant of finance, royal buildings, fine arts and factories. He worked 15 hours a day, did not pay attention to the court world, the opinions of the world, walked to the king ...

Under him, Charles took the post of general secretary in the Intendants of the royal buildings and supervised the work of the tapestry workshop, and even made drawings for them himself;

Another reason for the French academician to turn to fairy tales was the dispute "about the old and the new", the instigator of which was Perrault himself. He opposed the dominance of ancient images in literature and art, the tales he published were supposed to be a confirmation that folk wisdom is in no way inferior to antique book samples. However, he never put his signature on the fairy tales ...

This is, in short, the story of Charles Perrault. And what about his tales?

His first poetic tale "Griselda" was published in 1691 and the members of the French Academy were the first to hear it. This is how the tale begins to make its way into the upper world. Not a courtly and gallant story, not a love story, but a fairy tale in the sense of the word that readers of later times are used to investing in it.

"The Tales of Mother Goose" appears four years later, on October 28, 1696. The full title of the collection: "The Tales of My Mother Goose, or Stories and Tales of Bygone Times with Teachings." The book was inexpensively published, with simple illustrations, and sold out in 20, 30, and sometimes 50 copies a day. The reason for this was not only the fact that these magical stories were well known to both commoners and nobles, but also the fact that these tales were as modernized as possible and reflected not only ancient legends, but also modern customs and mores of the writer.

So, Sleeping Beauty. We all remember well the story of how three fairies came to the christening of a young princess, one of whom lacked a gold device. It is interesting that modern researchers indicate a specific place where these fabulous events could take place. This is the Yousset castle located on the banks of the Loire

The differences between the French and German canons do not end there. For example, in Grimm's version, after the unfortunate prick of the princess, all the inhabitants of the kingdom fall asleep, while at Perrault, the king and queen, as befits responsible reigning persons, continue to be awake, although, naturally, they do not live to see their daughter awaken.

In addition, the goal of Monsieur Charles was a kind of promotion of folklore plots among the nobility, so he diligently cleansed them of everything coarse and vulgar, stylized them as courtly literature and filled them with signs of his time. The heroes' manners, clothing and meals perfectly reflected the nobility of the 17th century.

So, in "Sleeping Beauty" the cannibal demands to serve her children's meat invariably "with Robber sauce"; The prince, who woke the beauty, notices that she is dressed old-fashioned ("her collar is upright"), and the woken herself turns to the prince in the tone of a languid capricious lady ("Oh, is that you, prince? You kept yourself waiting").

By the way, few people remember that prince Perrault did not rush to kiss vulgarly... Finding the princess, he "approached her with trepidation and admiration and knelt down beside her." And even after awakening, our heroine and her gallant gentleman did nothing reprehensible, and talked about love for four hours, until they woke up the whole castle

The very origins of the plot of "Sleeping Beauty" are lost in the depths of the Middle Ages. One of the oldest adaptations belongs to the Italian Giambattista Basile, who published in 1636 one of the first (although not as epochal as "The Tales of Mother Goose ...") collections of "Pentameron" fairy tales (apparently, as a response to the famous "Decameron"). Basile's heroine is called Thalia.

The tale begins quite traditionally - with the evil curse of the witch and the sleeping pill of the spindle. True, they don't bother much with the princess, they put her on the throne and put her in an abandoned forest hut. After a while, as it should be, a hunting foreign king stumbles upon the hut, but finding a sleeping beauty, he does not behave at all courteously ... In fact, the tale says - "he collected the fruits of love" and ... drove away. The beauty quietly became pregnant and after the due date gave birth to twins. The magic "anesthesia" was so strong that she woke up not from childbirth, but only when the baby mistakenly began to suck her finger and the poisoned tip of the spindle popped out. And then the king decided to visit again for the "fruits of love".

Seeing Talia with children, he finally ... fell in love, and began to visit them more often. And since our hero was a married man, his wife, suspecting treason, caught Talia with the children and ordered to make meat cutlets from the kids for hubby, and throw his mistress into the fire. Obviously, the chef took pity on the kids, slipped the lamb, and as a result, instead of Thalia, they burned an evil wife over a low fire. Next - moral: "Some are always lucky - even when they sleep."

Now it is clear how much Charles Perrault has ennobled the tale. The image of an eternally young maiden in a lethargic dream, waiting for her beloved, turned out to be so attractive that he constantly wandered around literature in different guises.

Suffice it to recall the folk tale "Snow White", "The Sleeping Princess" by V. Zhukovsky, "The Dead Princess and the Seven Bogatyrs" by A. Pushkin, the song of the NAUTILUS group "Polina's Morning" and much, much more.

There is a dark entrance under the mountain.
He goes there quickly.
Before him in the gloom of sad
The crystal coffin is swinging
And in a crystal coffin that
The princess sleeps in eternal sleep. "
(A. Pushkin "The Tale of the Dead Princess ...")

"... Sleepy eyes are waiting for the one who will enter and turn on the light in them, Polina's morning lasts a hundred billion years ... And all these years I hear her chest swaying, And from her breath the glass fogged up in the windows, And I do not regret that this is my path is endless - In her crystal bedroom it is constantly light ... ". (I. Kormiltsev "Polina's Morning")

Cinderella

The famous shoes in the Grimm version are gold. However, at Perrault they were at first far from crystal, but trimmed with fur. Some believe that this fur was the famous Russian sable, and in translations they write "sable shoes". However, it so happened that over time, the word "vair" ("fur for the edging"), according to the principle of a damaged phone, was transformed into "verre" ("glass"). As a result, comfortable and soft shoes turned into exquisite by ear, but completely sadistic in practice "crystal shoes". Gold ones, however, are not much more convenient.

But for Grimm, the motive of Cinderella's escape from the ball looks much more logical. The beauty here was frightened not by the clock striking, but by the prince's attempts to find out whose daughter she was. When a messenger with shoes comes to the Cinderella family, mischievous sisters still manage to try them on, for which one of them ... chops off her finger, and the other - heel! However, the liars are exposed by two doves singing:

"Look, look,
And the slipper is covered in blood ... ".

The misadventures of the sisters do not end there. If in Perrault's courtly narration Cinderella not only forgives them, but also suits their personal life ("... married two noble courtiers"), then the "populists" Grimm reprisals against the heroine's oppressors is inevitable.

"And when it came time to celebrate the wedding, the treacherous sisters also appeared - they wanted to flatter her and share her happiness with her. And when the wedding procession went to church, the eldest was on the right hand of the bride, and the youngest on the left; and the pigeons pecked at each of And then, when they were returning back from the church, the eldest walked on the left hand, and the youngest on the right; and the pigeons of each of them pecked out one more eye "...

By the way, in recent years, information has been circulating in the media that the most ancient version of Cinderella appeared from the pen of the 9th century Chinese writer Chuan Chengshi. Like, he has a stepmother, and fur shoes, and a husband-emperor as a reward. Here and the heroine's miniature leg (one of the Chinese canons of female beauty) comes in handy.

Be that as it may, "Cinderella" will still invariably be associated with Charles Perrault, as "Snow White" - with the Grimm brothers. And for more than three centuries this seemingly simple plot has been a source of inspiration and consolation to millions of women on planet Earth. In the depths of their souls, each of them has the hope that they will find their "prince", despite all the troubles in life.

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By chance, she went for a walk in the same forest where she met Prince Rike, so that she could think freely about what to do. Walking there in deep thought, she suddenly heard a dull noise under her feet, as if some people were walking, running, fussing. Listening carefully, she made out the words; someone said: "Bring me that pot", and someone else: "Give me this pot", and the third: "Put the wood on the fire." At the same moment, the earth opened, and under her feet the princess saw a large kitchen filled with cooks, cooks and all kinds of people needed to prepare a magnificent feast. A crowd of twenty or thirty people separated from them; these were nerves, they went to one of the alleys, settled there around a long table and, with spike needles in their hands, in hats with fox tails on their heads, together set to work, singing a harmonious song. The princess, surprised by this sight, asked them for whom they were working. "This, madam," answered the most prominent of them, "this is for Prince Rike, tomorrow is his wedding." The princess, even more surprised and suddenly remembering that today is one year since the day she promised to marry Prince Rike, almost fell. She did not remember this because, making a promise, she was still a fool, and having received the mind that he gave her from the prince, she forgot all her stupidity.

Before she had time to walk thirty steps, continuing the walk, Rike stood in front of her with a crest, full of courage and splendor, in fact, like a prince preparing for a wedding. "You see, madam," he said, "I have sacredly kept my word and I have no doubt that you, too, came here to fulfill your promise and make me the happiest among people by giving me your hand." "I confess to you frankly," the princess replied, "I have not yet made a decision, and I do not think that I will ever make the decision that you would like." “You surprise me, madam,” Rike said to her with a crest. “I believe,” the princess replied, “and, of course, if I were dealing with a rude or stupid person, I would be in great difficulty. The word of the princess is sacred, he would have told me, and you must marry me, since you promised me; but I am talking to the smartest man in the whole world, and therefore I am sure that you will be convinced. You know that when I was still a fool, I still did not dare to marry you then, so how do you want now, having the mind that you gave me and from which I became even more discriminating than was before, I made a decision that I could not make even at that time? If you really were going to marry me, then in vain you saved me from my stupidity and taught me to understand everything. "

“If a stupid person,” objected Rike with a tuft, “would be allowed, as you just said, to reproach you for betraying your word, then why, madam, you do not allow me to do the same, although it is about the happiness of my life? What is the point in making smart people in a worse position than those who have no mind at all? Are you saying this, you, who has so much intelligence and who so wanted to grow wiser? But let's get back to business. Apart from my ugliness, what do you dislike about me? Are you dissatisfied with my family, my mind, my disposition, my behavior? " “Not at all,” the princess answered, “I like everything about you that you have just listed.” "If so," said Rike with a tuft, "I'll be happy because you can make me the nicest of mortals." - "How can this be?" - said the princess. “It will be,” answered Prince Rike, “if you love me so much that you wish it, and so that you, madam, do not doubt, know: from the very sorceress who on my birthday gave me a magical gift and allowed me to endow another a person who pleases me, you also received a gift - you can make a handsome man whom you love and whom you want to deserve this grace. "

"If so," said the princess, "I sincerely wish you to become the most beautiful and most amiable prince in the whole earth, and as far as I can, I bring you beauty as a gift."

Before the princess had time to utter these words, Prince Rike had already turned into the most beautiful, slender and most amiable person she had ever seen. Others claim that the enchantment of the sorceress had nothing to do with it, that only love produced this transformation. They say that the princess, having thought about the constancy of her admirer, about his modesty and about all the wonderful properties of his mind and his soul, stopped noticing how ugly his body is, how ugly his face; that his hump began to seem to her now nothing more than the posture of a self-important man, that in his terrible limp she now began to see only a manner of behaving a little crookedly, and this manner delighted her. They also say that his eyes seemed to her even more brilliant because they had braids, as if in them she saw an expression of passionate love, and his big red nose had for her some kind of warlike, heroic character.

Be that as it may, the princess promised him to marry him immediately, if only he received the consent of her father. The king, having learned how high his daughter placed Prince Rike, who was also known to him as a very careful and wise prince, was glad to see him as his son-in-law. The wedding was celebrated the next day, as Rike had foreseen with the tuft, and in accordance with his orders, which he had already given long before.

One thing follows from the tale,

But rather the most faithful were:

Everything that you and I loved

For us, beautiful and clever.

ANOTHER MORAL

In another object, nature itself

Infused grace and shine of this kind

How can art compete with her?

But the heart cannot ignite all this,

Until love quietly helps

With its invisible embellishment.

Tom Thumb

There once lived a woodcutter with his wife, and they had seven children, all boys; the oldest was only ten years old, and the youngest only seven. It would seem strange that the woodcutter had so many children in such a short time, but his wife did not hesitate and each time brought him twins.

These people were very poor, and their seven children were a big burden for them, because none of the boys could yet earn a living. They were also saddened by the fact that the younger was very weak and was always silent; they thought it was foolishness that what was really a sign of intelligence. He was very small in stature, and when he was born, he was no more than a finger, which is why they began to call him: A boy with a finger.

At home he endured insults from everyone and always found himself guilty. Meanwhile, he was the most intelligent and reasonable of the brothers, and if he spoke little, he listened a lot.

It was a hard time, and such a great famine began that these poor people decided to get rid of their children. One evening, when the boys had already gone to bed, the woodcutter, whose heart sank with longing, said to his wife, sitting with her by the fire: “You see that we can no longer feed our children; I can't stand it if they starve to death in front of my eyes, and decided to take them to the forest tomorrow and throw them there, but it's easy to do: while they amuse themselves - knitting brushwood - we just need to run away, so that they have us did not see ". - “Ah! - exclaimed the woodcutter's wife, - will you really lead and abandon our children? " In vain did her husband prove to her their great poverty, she did not agree: she was poor, but she was their mother.

Photo-1L "The influence of Charles Perrault ... is so great that if you ask someone today to tell you a typical magical story, he will probably tell you one of the French:" Puss in Boots "," Cinderella "or" Little Red Riding Hood " . (D.R.R. Tolkien)

The cult English storyteller of the 20th century was not mistaken. And half a century after his statement, the situation has not changed. In 2004, the British cinema chain UCI conducted a survey among children on the topic of their favorite fairy tale. The results of the survey did not particularly surprise anyone: the first place was taken unconditionally by a poor but promising stepdaughter with an influential godmother, followed by a beauty who had been lying in suspended animation for a hundred years, and the 5th place was taken by a young fashionista talking with wolves. In another poll (conducted among adults), the list is already headed by "Little Red Riding Hood". It turns out that 80% of Europeans, 60% of Americans and 50% of Australians remember this tale by heart.

If we add Puss in Boots, Bluebeard and Little Boy to the above-mentioned masterpieces, it becomes clear that they owe their fame to the Frenchman Charles Perrault, who at the end of the 17th century not only recorded and published these folklore fairy tales, but also truly canonized, legalized and "promoted" them in an elite society. Folk tales have finally become literature, not nanny tales. What is the true role of Perrault in the processing of these plots that have entered the flesh and blood of Western culture? What metamorphoses have they experienced over several centuries of existence?

Photo-2R Tales at the court of His Majesty

"Do not confuse you at all,

Kohl wise thought luminaries,

Tired of bending backs over a book,

They listen to the fairy tales of the good fairy ... ".

(C. Perrault)

Perhaps it will surprise someone, but before Perrault, folklore and elite noble culture existed without actually intersecting. Of course, noble ladies and gentlemen amused themselves with fantasy, but it was of a completely different kind - more about knights, their exploits and lovers (like the courtly poems of the Arthur cycle). The "peasant fables" were too coarse and vulgar, and therefore unworthy of refined taste. And so Perrault, himself to the depths of his soul adored these "nanny" tales, volunteered to justify the folklore genre in front of a noble audience, to introduce the folk tale into high society.

In 1696 he makes the first test - he publishes the fairy tale "The Sleeping Beauty" in the "Gallant Mercury" magazine. Without a signature. "The Audience at Court" is more than successful, and next year Charles publishes a full-fledged collection - "Tales of Mother Goose, or Stories and Tales of Bygone Times with Teachings", which he signs ... with the name of his 11-year-old son and dedicates to his daughter Louis XIV. The author went to this hoax for a reason - well, it is not serious for a respectable 69-year-old man to entertain the respectable audience with such "nonsense"! Under the name of Charles Perrault, the tales were published only after the death of the author.

Photo-4L "Your Royal Highness!

No one will think it strange that a child was pleased to compose the fairy tales that made up this collection, but it will surprise you that he took the audacity to present them to you. However, Your Royal Highness, whatever the disparity between the simplicity of these stories and the enlightenment of your mind, if you carefully consider these tales, you will see that I am not as worthy of blame as it might seem at first. All of them are full of a very reasonable meaning and that is revealed to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how much the readers delve into it. In addition, since nothing distinguishes the true breadth of the mind so much as its ability to rise to the greatest objects and at the same time to condescend to the smallest ... ... who better should know how peoples live, if not those individuals who heaven intended to lead them! The desire to find out this led valiant men, moreover, husbands who belonged to your family, to poor huts and hovels, in order to see closely and with their own eyes the remarkable things that are being done there, for such knowledge seemed to them necessary for the fullness of their enlightenment. "(Perrault d 'Amancourt, and in fact Charles Perrault, from the preface to fairy tales)

Perrault justified himself in vain. The enlightened public appreciated this "nonsense", and fairy tales became no less popular than gallant novels. However, Perrault himself did everything possible to prevent the rejection of the nobility from the "grassroots" culture.

Folk tales were "ennobled" as much as possible - cleansed of everything coarse and vulgar, stylized as courtly literature and filled with signs of the times. The heroes' manners, clothing and meals perfectly reflected the nobility of the 17th century.

Photo-3R So, in "Sleeping Beauty" the cannibal demands to serve her children's meat invariably "with Robber sauce"; the prince, who woke the beauty, notices that she is dressed old-fashioned ("her collar is upright"), and the woken herself turns to the prince in the tone of a languid capricious lady ("Oh, is that you, prince? You kept yourself waiting"). By the way, Perrault's prince did not rush to kiss vulgarly. Finding the princess, he "approached her with awe and admiration and knelt down beside her." And even after awakening, our heroine and her gallant gentleman did nothing reprehensible, and talked about love for four hours, until they woke up the whole castle. Plus, not all the inhabitants of the kingdom plunge into a magical dream at Perrault. The king and queen, as befits the reigning persons, continue to be awake, however, the awakening of the daughter, of course, is not caught.

The little boy after his adventures becomes a "royal courier", and the surviving wife of Bluebeard disposes of the cruel hubby's wealth quite practically.

"Some of them she used to marry her sister Anna for a young nobleman ...; the other part - to deliver the captain's rank to her brothers, and the rest - to get married herself ...". (C. Perrault "Bluebeard") All of Perrault's positive heroes are well-mannered, gallant in a noble manner and are expressed almost exclusively by "high calm." However, in fairy tales there is also an image of the life of the common people. So, the peasants of that time, who fell into complete poverty, did often take their children to the forest and abandon them to their fate (as in "The Boy with a Thumb"), and the deprived YOUNGER son of the miller could well dispose of his "inheritance" as he was going to do in a fairy tale - eat a cat, and make a clutch out of his skin.

"... with teachings ..."

"I could make my fairy tales more pleasant if I allowed myself other liberties with which they are usually enlivened; but the desire to please readers never tempted me so much that I decided to break the law that I set myself - not to write anything that would offend chastity or decency. " (C. Perrault)

To introduce folk tales into the high society, it was not enough to refine their style and surroundings. It was necessary to prove that folklore also carries a moralizing principle, that "good fellows lesson" about which Pushkin wrote. And although I do not really like direct moralizing, it is clear that such a step was necessary for Perrault.

Photo-5R "The reception that the public gave to the compositions that compose this collection, as they received them separately, serves as a certain guarantee that they will not make an unfavorable impression on her when they all appear together. There were, however, people, who assume importance and have sufficient insight to see in them only fairy tales written for fun and about subjects of little importance, and they treated them with contempt; but to our satisfaction it turned out that people endowed with good taste judge They were pleased to note that these knick-knacks are not at all knick-knacks, but contain useful morality, and that the playful storytelling was chosen only so that they would act on the reader's mind with greater pleasure, together both teaching and entertaining That should have been enough for me not to fear the reproach that I was looking for frivolous amusement. " (C. Perrault)

As a result, Perrault, like fables, supplied each fairy tale with one (and sometimes two) poetic morals. True, these morals are addressed mainly to adult readers - they are graceful, playful, and sometimes, as they say, have a "double bottom".

Some of them are quite unexpected. So, in the first moral of the fairy tale "Bluebeard" Perrault does not so much reproach the cruel husband as mock the feminine trait - to poke your nose where you should not, and in the second morality - he sneers at the husbands who are pushed around by their wives.

Photo-6R "Yes, curiosity is a scourge.

It confuses everyone

On the mountain was born to mortals.

There are thousands of examples, just a little:

A woman's passion for immodest secrets is funny:

After all, it is known that it got dear,

Lost in an instant both taste and sweetness. "

"If there is a little mind in my head,

To interpret the gibberish of the worldly,

You will understand easily - such a story

Only in a fairy tale can we read.

There are no fierce men in the world today:

There are no such prohibitions in sight.

The current husband, even though he is jealous,

Julit around his wife as a loving cockerel,

And even if his beard is piebald,

You just can't figure it out - it's in whose power? "

In morality to The Sleeping Beauty, he cautiously criticizes the ladies' desire to quickly jump out in marriage.

"Wait a little for my husband to turn up,

Handsome and rich also,

It is quite possible and understandable.

But for a hundred long years, lying in bed, wait

It's so unpleasant for the ladies

That no one can sleep ... ".

And "Little Red Riding Hood", according to Perrault, is a good warning to young girls about the cunning of cheats and seducers.

Photo-7R "Little kids have a reason

(And especially for girls,

beauties and spoiled girls),

Meeting all kinds of men on the way,

You can't listen to insidious speeches, -

Otherwise, the wolf can eat them.

I said: wolf! Wolves are countless

But between them there are others

Dodgers so wicked

That, sweetly exuding flattery,

The maiden's honor is guarded

Accompany their walks home,

They take them bye-bye through dark alleys ...

But the wolf, alas, than it seems more modest,

So he is always more cunning and more terrible! "

We meet the most vivid manifestation of courtly morality in Cinderella. By the way, not so long ago I read that this famous fairy tale, together with "Snow White," was ostracized by some rabid feminists. The "fault" of these works was allegedly that they teach girls that it is "profitable to be beautiful". Such a statement is not only stupid, but also fundamentally wrong. The creepy stepdaughter, to whom no one pays attention, differs from her sisters (by no means ugly) not in the volume of her chest and waist (although, of course, she is "potentially" beautiful), but in modesty, patience, a kind heart and truly courteous courtesy ( it is not for nothing that at the ball Cinderella sits down with her sisters, shower them with pleasantries and shares "oranges and lemons that the prince gave her"). Beauty is, rather, a magical Gift - an external reward for internal (in Perrault's case, courtly) virtues. By the way, this was also noticed by the psychologist E. Bern.

"The teachings with which Charles Perrault accompanied the story of Cinderella were, in our opinion, Parental instructions. The author spoke of a happy gift, which is more than the beauty of the face; the charm of this gift surpasses everything else. This is what the fairy gave Cinderella. She is so caring for her. instructed, so taught noble manners that Cinderella became a queen.The last three provisions describe the real Parental model received by Cinderella from a fairy: this is an exact model of raising a lady, which we have already mentioned.Charles Perrault makes another conclusion - about the need for parental permission in if a child is destined to accomplish something important in his life. He spoke about the fact that a person undoubtedly needs intelligence, courage and nobility. But none of these virtues will manifest itself in life if a person does not receive a blessing from wizards and prophets. " (E. Berne, "People Who Play Games")

And I would advise feminists to read another wonderful (though not so well-known) tale by Perrault "Rikke with a tuft", dedicated to the problem of the relationship between beauty and the mind. In it, a beautiful, but extremely stupid princess and an intelligent, but ugly prince, thanks to love, loyalty and nobility, seem to share their virtues. Not so, I must say, and a fairy tale ...

"Although beauty is a great virtue in a young lady, nevertheless the youngest daughter always had greater success than the eldest. At first, everyone rushed to the beauty to look at her, to admire her, but soon everyone went to the one who was smart, because it was pleasant to listen to her ... The eldest, although she was very stupid, noticed this and would not regret giving all her beauty, if only to be half as smart as her sister. "

"- ... You know that when I was still a fool, I still did not dare to marry you, - so how do you want that now, possessing the mind that you gave me ... I made a decision that I could not accept even at that time. "

"- ... you should know: from the very sorceress who on my birthday rewarded me with a magical gift and allowed me to endow any person I like with the mind, you also received a gift - you can make a handsome man whom you love and whom you want to deserve this favor" ...

(C. Perrault "Rikke with a tuft")

Charles Perrault

(1628 - 1703)

Was born on January 12. The great merit of Perrault is that he chose several stories from the mass of folk tales 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.

Among the storytellers who "legalized" the tale in serious literature, the very first and honorable place is given to the French writer Charles Perrault. Few of our contemporaries know that Perrot was a venerable poet of his time, an academician of the French Academy, the author of famous scientific works. But world fame and recognition of his descendants brought him not his thick, serious books, but the 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 Aries notes, Perrot's school biography 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.

After college, Charles took private lessons in law for three years and eventually received a law degree.

At twenty-three, he returns to Paris and begins his career as a lawyer. 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 widespread hobbies of secular society, comparable only to reading detective stories by our contemporaries. Some prefer to listen to philosophical tales, while others pay tribute to the old tales that have come down in the retelling of grandmothers and nannies. Writers, trying 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.

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. Darmancourt. 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.

Perrault's tales are based on the well-known 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 tales were suitable for children. And it is Perrault who can be considered the ancestor of children's world literature and literary pedagogy.

Charles Perrault: the childhood of a storyteller.

The boys sat down on a bench and began to discuss the current situation - what to do next. One thing they knew for sure: they would not return to a boring college for anything. But you have to learn. Charles heard this from childhood from his father, who was a lawyer for the Paris Parliament. And his mother was an educated woman, she herself taught her sons to read and write. When Charles entered college at the age of eight and a half, his father checked his lessons every day; he had great respect for books, teaching, and literature. But only at home, with his father and brothers, was it possible to argue, defend his point of view, and in the college it was required to cram, it was only necessary to repeat after the teacher, and God forbid, argue with him. For these disputes, Charles was kicked out of class.

No, no more to go to the disgusted college! What about education? The boys racked their brains and decided: we will study ourselves. Right there in the Luxembourg Gardens, they drew up a routine and from the next day began to implement it.

Bauraine came to Charles at 8 am, they studied together until 11, then had dinner, rested and studied again from 3 to 5. The boys read ancient authors together, studied the history of France, studied Greek and Latin, in a word, those subjects that they would have taken and in college.

"If I know anything," Charles wrote many years later, "I owe it exclusively to these three or four years of study."

We do not know what happened to the second boy named Boren, but the name of his friend is now known to everyone - his name was Charles Perrault. And the story that you just learned happened in 1641, under Louis XIV, the "sun king" during the time of curled wigs and musketeers. It was then that the one whom we know as a great storyteller lived. True, he himself did not consider himself a storyteller, and sitting with a friend in the Luxembourg Gardens, he did not even think about such trifles.

The essence of this dispute was as follows. In the 17th century, the opinion still reigned that ancient writers, poets and scientists created the most perfect, the best works. The "new", that is, Perrault's contemporaries, can only imitate the ancients, they are still unable to create anything better. The main thing for a poet, playwright, scientist is the desire to be like the ancients. The main opponent of Perrault, the poet Nicolas Boileau, even wrote a treatise "Poetic Art", in which he established "laws" how to write each work, so that everything was exactly like that of ancient writers. It was against this that the desperate debater Charles Perrault began to object.

Why should we imitate the ancients? he wondered. Are modern authors: Cornel, Moliere, Cervantes worse? Why cite Aristotle in every scholarly work? Is it lower than Galileo, Pascal, Copernicus? After all, the views of Aristotle have long been outdated, he did not know, for example, about blood circulation in humans and animals, did not know about the movement of planets around the Sun.

Creation

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 academic. He was a lawyer, the first clerk of the French finance minister Colbert.

When Colbert created the Académie de France in 1666, one of its first members was Charles's brother, Claude Perrault, whom Charles had recently helped to win a competition for the Louvre facade. A few years later, Charles Perrault was also admitted to the Academy, and he was assigned to lead the work on the "General Dictionary of the French Language".

The history of his life is both personal and public, and politics, mixed with literature, and literature, as it were, divided into what has glorified Charles Perrault for centuries - fairy tales, and what has remained transitory. For example, Perrault became the author of the poem "The Age of Louis the Great", in which he glorified his king, but also the work "The Great Men of France", voluminous "Memoirs" and so on. In 1695, a collection of poetic fairy tales by Charles Perrault was published.

But the collection "Tales of Mother Goose, or Stories and Tales of Bygone Times with Teachings" was released under the name of Charles Perrault's son Pierre de Armcourt - Perrot. 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 literature, academician and storyteller, in the 1724 edition of the book "The Tales of Mother Goose" (which, by the way, immediately became a bestseller), the authorship was first attributed to one Charles Perrault ... 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, for the first time in Russia is described in such detail in the book by Sergei Boyko "Charles Perrault ".

Charles Perrault (1628-1703) was the first writer in Europe to make folk tales the property of children's literature. Interest in oral folk art, unusual for a French writer of the “century of classicism,” is associated with the progressive position that Perrault took in the literary polemics of his time. In 17th century France, classicism was the dominant, officially recognized trend in literature and art. Followers of classicism considered the works of ancient (ancient Greek and especially Roman) classics in all respects exemplary and worthy of imitation. At the court of Louis XIV, a real cult of antiquity flourished. Court painters and poets, using mythological plots or images of heroes of ancient history, glorified the victory of royal power over feudal disunity, the triumph of reason and moral duty over the passions and feelings of an individual, glorified the noble monarchical state, which united the nation under its auspices.

Later, when the absolute power of the monarch began to come into ever greater contradiction with the interests of the third estate, opposition sentiments intensified in all areas of public life. Attempts were made to revise the principles of classicism with its unshakable "rules", which managed to turn into a dead dogma and hindered the further development of literature and art. At the end of the 17th century, a dispute broke out among French writers about the superiority of ancient and new authors. Opponents of classicism claimed that new and newer authors are superior to the ancients, if only by the fact that they have a broader outlook and knowledge. You can learn to write well without imitating the ancients.

One of the instigators of this historical controversy was Charles Perrault, a prominent royal official and poet, elected in 1671 as a member of the French Academy. Coming from a bourgeois-bureaucratic family, a lawyer by training, he successfully combined his official activities with literary activities. In the four-volume series of dialogues "Parallels between the ancients and the new in the arts and sciences" (1688-1697), Perrault urged writers to turn to the depiction of modern life and modern customs, advised them to draw plots and images not from ancient authors, but from the surrounding reality.

To prove his case, Perpo decided to start processing folk tales, seeing in them a source of interesting, lively stories, "good morality" and "characteristic features of folk life." Thus, the writer showed great courage and innovation, since fairy tales did not appear at all in the system of literary genres recognized by the poetics of classicism.

In 1697, Charles Perrault, under the name of his son Pierre Perrault d'Armancourt, published a small collection entitled "The Tales of My Mother Goose, or Stories and Tales of Bygone Times with Teachings." The collection consisted of eight fairy tales: "Sleeping Beauty", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Bluebeard", "Puss in Boots", "Fairies", "Cinderella", "Rike with a Tufted" and "Little Boy". In the following editions, the collection was replenished with three more fairy tales: "Donkey's Skin", "Funny Desires" and "Griselda". Since the last work is a typical literary story in verse for that time (the plot is borrowed from Boccaccio's Decameron), we can assume that Perrault's collection consists of ten fairy tales. 3. Perrault followed folklore plots quite accurately. Each of his tales was able to be traced back to the primary source that exists among the people. At the same time, presenting folk tales in his own way, the writer clothed them in a new artistic form and in many respects changed their original meaning. Therefore, although Perrault's tales retain a folklore basis, they are works of independent creativity, that is, literary tales.

In the preface, Perrault argues that fairy tales are "not trinkets at all." The main thing in them is morality. "All of them aim to show what are the advantages of honesty, patience, foresight, diligence and obedience and what troubles befall those who deviate from these virtues."

Each of Perrault's fairy tales ends with a moralizing in verse that artificially brings the fairy tale closer to the fable, a genre accepted with some reservations by the poetics of classicism. Thus, the author wanted to "legitimize" the fairy tale in the system of recognized literary genres. At the same time, ironic moralizing, not related to a folklore plot, introduces a certain critical tendency into a literary fairy tale - with the expectation of sophisticated readers.

Little Red Riding Hood was unreasonable and paid dearly for it. Hence the moral: young girls should not trust the "wolves".

To little kids, not without reason (And especially to girls, Beauties and spoiled girls), On the way meeting all kinds of men, You can't listen to insidious speeches, - Otherwise, the wolf can eat them ...

Bluebeard's wife almost fell prey to her immoderate curiosity. This gives rise to the maxim:

A woman's passion for immodest secrets is amusing: It is known that what has gone dearly, Will instantly lose both taste and sweetness.

Fairy-tale characters are surrounded by a bizarre mixture of folk and aristocratic life. Simplicity and artlessness are combined with secular courtesy, gallantry, wit. Healthy practicality, a sober mind, dexterity, resourcefulness of the plebeian prevail over aristocratic prejudices and conventions, over which the author never ceases to make fun of. With the help of a clever rascal, Puss in Boots, the country boy marries the princess. The brave and resourceful Boy with a finger defeats the man-eating giant and breaks out into the people. The patient hard worker Cinderella marries a prince. Many fairy tales end in "unequal" marriages. Patience and hard work, meekness and obedience receive the highest reward from Perrault. At the right moment, a good fairy comes to the aid of the heroine, who perfectly copes with her duties: she punishes vice and rewards virtue.

Magical transformations and happy endings are from time immemorial characteristic of a folk tale. Perrault, with the help of traditional motives, expresses his thoughts, colors the fairy fabric with psychological patterns, introduces new images and realistic everyday scenes that are absent in folklore prototypes. The Cinderella sisters, having received an invitation to the ball, dress up and preen. “I,” said the eldest, “I will wear a red velvet dress with lace trim.” there will be. " They sent for a skilled craftswoman to fit them in double-frilled caps and buy flies. The sisters called Cinderella to ask her opinion: she had good taste. " There are even more everyday details in The Sleeping Beauty. Along with the description of various details of the palace life, housekeepers, maids of honor, maids of honor, gentlemen, butlers, gatekeepers, pages, footmen, etc. are mentioned here. Sometimes Perrault reveals the dark sides of his contemporary reality. At the same time, his own moods are guessed. The woodcutter and his large family live in poverty and starvation. Only once did they manage to have a hearty supper, when "the lord who owned the village sent them ten crowns, which they owed them for a long time and which they no longer hoped to receive" ("Little Boy"). Puss in boots intimidates the peasants with the loud name of an imaginary feudal lord: “Good people, reapers! If you do not say that all these fields belong to Monsieur Marquis de Caraba, you will all be crushed finely, like meat for a pie. "

The fairy-tale world of Perrault, for all its seeming naivety, is complex and deep enough not only to captivate the imagination of a child, but also to influence the adult reader. The author has invested in his tales a rich store of life observations. If such a fairy tale as "Little Red Riding Hood" is extremely simple in content and style, then, for example, "Rike with a Tuft" is distinguished by a psychologically subtle and serious concept. The witty small conversations of the ugly Rike and the beautiful princess give the author an opportunity to reveal in a relaxed and entertaining form a moral idea: love ennobles a person's heroic traits.

Subtle irony, graceful style, cheerful lectures of Perrault helped his fairy tales to take a place in "high" literature. Borrowed from the treasury of French folklore, "The Tales of My Mother Goose" returned to the people, polished and faceted. In the master's treatment, they lit up with bright colors, healed a new life.

Some famous works:

"The Walls of Troy, or the Origin of Burlesque" 1653 parody poem - the first work

The Age of Louis the Great, 1687 poem

"Parallels between the ancients and the new in matters of art and sciences", vol. 1-4, 1688-97 dialogues

"The Tales of My Mother Goose, or Stories and Tales of Bygone Times with Teachings" 1697

"Sorceresses" (fr. Les Fees)

Cinderella (fr. Cendrillon)

"Puss in Boots" (fr. Le Chat botte)

"Little Red Riding Hood" (French Le Petit Chaperon rouge) folk tale

"Boy - with a finger" (fr. Le Petit Poucet) folk tale

"Donkey skin" (fr. Peau d "Ane)

The Sleeping Beauty (fr. La Belle au bois dormant)

"Riquet - crest" (French Riquet a la houppe) Charles Perrault (French Charles Perrault) (January 12, 1628, Paris - May 16, 1703, ibid.) - a famous French writer - storyteller, poet and critic.

Conclusions:

So what moral can I take from the works of Charles Perrault?

I would like to check myself, whether I understand Perrault's tales, as the author himself understood them, or not. So for now I am writing from a philistine point of view. And, first of all, I share my impressions and emotions of one of the modern mothers, which I am.

Reading in Russian, I can only judge Perrault by translations, and, unlike the original, there can be a great variety of them. For myself, I try to at least determine whose translation I would like to give my child.

So that's about translations. Take Dore's book with illustrations. It was called “The Tales of Mother Goose”. And at the end of each tale there were poems. I remember that when I read them, I was very surprised at what the writer really wanted to say ...

The above morality for "The Little Boy" interested me greatly. I also rummaged around and found teachings for other fairy tales.

For example, to "Little Red Riding Hood" (mother, grandmother, daughter - already, it seems, is a completely modern beginning).

First translation:

“Little kids have a reason

(And especially for girls,

beauties and spoiled girls),

Meeting all kinds of men on the way,

You can't listen to insidious speeches, -

Otherwise, the wolf can eat them.

I said: wolf! Wolves are countless

But between them there are others

Dodgers so wicked

That, sweetly exuding flattery,

The maiden's honor is guarded

Accompany their walks home,

They are escorted by - by - by the dark back streets ...

But the wolf, alas, than it seems more modest,

So he is always cunning and more terrible! "

Second translation option:

From this saying it becomes clearer:

It is dangerous for children to listen to evil people,

Especially for girls

Both slender and beautiful-faced.

Not a miracle or a miracle at all

To get the wolves on the third course

To the wolves ... but not all of them

They are inherently frank.

Another friendly, respectable,

Without showing your claws,

As if innocent, quiet,

And he himself for the young girl

All the way to the porch, he strives on his heels

But who does not know and how not to understand us,

That all wolves are more dangerous than a flattering wolf.

There is no longer any need to comment. After reading this lesson, we see that Perrault is primarily addressing young girls, not children.

From this it becomes clear why the wolf invites Little Red Riding Hood to bed. Dora has a vivid and memorable scene: Little Red Riding Hood and a wolf with a cap on his head in bed, close-up. But Dore's illustrations go to these fairy tales, first of all, as to works for adults.

And here in the "children's" illustration by B. Dekhterev: Little Red Riding Hood is going to lie down next to ... a real wolf. (As a child, I did not have a book with his illustrations, so when I so clearly saw in the engraving Dora a close-up of a girl with a wolf under one blanket, I was very surprised, and for the first time I read the entire text as if anew. : maybe Little Red Riding Hood is blind? After all, you can see that there is a wolf (not even dressed).

In the book on which Turgenev's translation appears, Little Red Riding Hood simply stands next to the bed and throws back the canopy. And, accordingly, there is no "bed scene" in the illustrations for this publication by A. Vlasova. This version of translation and illustrations to the text seems to me more suitable for children. I would choose him.

After all, the moral of the tale is understandable without this action. And it is still relevant to this day. Perhaps this is one of the most instructive fairy tales for modern children: in no case speak to strangers, and especially (!) Do not be simple-minded, do not tell them where you are going, who you are, where your grandmother lives and other details that some bad people can use to harm you. "Don't talk to strangers, don't turn off the road!"

Young girls in our time are no longer learning from fairy tales. In our country, the fairy tale has passed entirely into the property of children, and, perhaps, also of their parents and literary critics.

I completely skip how E. Bern interpreted the fairy tale - for our conversation is exclusively about children.

What a heated debate over the name of Charles Perrault! Just addictive. I would like to participate.

Indeed, one can find different translations and interpretations of the same tale. Or you can simply not take them so critically. After all, a critical article and such deep reflections negate the beauty of a fairy tale.

In fairy tales there is never any direct morality, but only a "hint". And what is the "hint"? in my opinion, that something very good can happen in the life of an ORDINARY person, that EVERYTHING WILL BE GOOD, After all, fairy-tale characters are far from ideal in all fairy tales, people saw themselves in them: ORDINARY people with disabilities. After all, if you analyze fairy tales like that, then why is Little Red Riding Hood better? After all, the feeble old woman lived alone (there were no neighbors even), her daughter strangely took care of her, sending her little granddaughter with food. But this analysis is for psychologists, who in any situation see the problem or can see it.

And in my opinion, a fairy tale is a fascinating story that teaches something, scares, and entertains.

The world itself used to be more cruel (although ours is not perfect). Death was familiar. More people were dying from disease, hunger, wars ... And in the fairy tale there was hope for a miracle, that your life would just change for the better. After all, the prince fell in love with Cinderella, although she was dirty. And our bummer - Emelya married a princess. This is magic! This does not happen in life. And there is a fairy tale for a dream!

But everyone chooses for himself what to read to the child. There are many genres and each has a fan base. You just don't have to treat the fairy tale like that! And if you want "correct" works with morality, then you need to read other literature. For example, the Otchiy Dom publishing house publishes the Orthodox Children's Library series. All the stories in it are moralizing, kind and good, and they also have a miracle. But here it is a miracle from God, and not just like that.

Returning to the episode described earlier. Regarding invention and fabulousness now, in our time, the question seems to have already been resolved. And the moral side - the teachings that this fairy tale carries in itself?

The parents described in it are deeply antipathetic to me. I have nothing to justify their actions. And they do it two times. If after the first time they kind of repented of what they did. Then, in spite of their regrets, they repeated everything, as the first time.

And all this very much resembles the plots of modern crime reports reported on television: when an alcoholic mother took her daughters into the forest and returned home ...

There is no condemnation of the actions of such parents in the work itself!

And what about the episode in which the Ogre slaughtered all his daughters ?! And the Boy with a Thumb is to blame for this. But the Ogre's daughters were still daughters of his wife, who showed great sympathy for the boys, in every possible way protected them from her husband. It turns out that the Boy with a Thumb repaid her with black ingratitude. And the Ogre's wife herself is in a strange situation. The phrase "the woman got scared and gave everything that she had, because the Ogre, although he ate small children, was a good husband and she loved him" - just a quote from a modern program about maniacs (there wives and acquaintances also say that their husband and relative is a maniac - was a very good husband and person).

The result of the tale: “A boy with a thumb provided for his entire family. He got a place for both the father and the brothers, and thus made them all available. And he himself soon received a court position. " Some careerist and rascal just - this Boy with a finger! And he began his career by provoking murders and robbing.

An interesting case turns out. Fairy tales are familiar from childhood and are known almost by heart. But having opened the book “Charles Perrault. Big Book of Fairy Tales "(publishing house" Exmo "with illustrations by Y. Nikolaev) or" Charles Perrault. Fairy Tales ”(of the same publishing house with illustrations by A. Vlasova), I suddenly discover that I myself have never read Perrault.

I really didn't. Because at a time when children are introduced to fairy tales through reading books and watching cartoons, I still could not read. And then, when I learned, there was no desire to read Perrault's tales, because "everything was known so."

… And here I am for the first time reading about the Boy with a Thumb. I compare the translation-retelling of I. Turgenev in the book "Eksmo" (series "The best storytellers of the world") - this appears in the bibliographic description on the back of the title - and the translation in the gift edition with a gold edge (of the same publisher) - the translator is not indicated there, but according to the text, this is the same translation by I. Turgenev, slightly edited by someone.

... “Having eaten plenty, the woodcutter (what a word - you can't pronounce it!) And says:

Oh, somewhere now our poor children? How gloriously they would have eaten the leftovers! And we are all, we are the reason for everything! After all, I told you that we will cry afterwards! "

This is how the heroine of a fairy tale laments after she and her husband took the children to the forest for certain death, in the book "Fairy Tales" (I repeat that this book contains the name of Turgenev as a translator and narrator). In the "Big Book of Fairy Tales" there is no "woodcutter", instead of her - "wife". But the rest of the text in this passage remains unchanged.

Presenting his translations of Perrault from French into Russian, this is what their author Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev wrote in 1867 (these fairy tales with engravings by G. Dore were published by the publishing house of the famous Mavriky Osipovich Wolf). “Perrault's fairy tales are especially popular throughout Europe; they are relatively less known to Russian children, which is probably due to the lack of good translations and publications. Indeed, despite its somewhat scrupulous Old French grace, Perrault's tales deserve a place of honor in children's literature. They are cheerful, entertaining, easy-going, not burdened with either excessive morality or copyright claims; they still feel the spirit of folk poetry, which once created them; in them there is precisely that mixture of incomprehensible miraculous and mundanely simple, sublime and funny, which is the hallmark of a real fabulous fiction. Our positive and enlightened time begins to abound in positive and enlightened people who do not like this particular admixture of the miraculous: raising a child, according to their concepts, should be not only important, but also serious, and instead of fairy tales, he should be given small geological and physiological treatises ... … Be that as it may, it seems to us very difficult and hardly useful for the time being to banish everything magic and miraculous, to leave the young imagination without food, to replace a fairy tale with a story. The child undoubtedly needs a teacher, and he also needs a nanny.

The witty publisher of Perrault's fairy tales, J. Getzel ... in his preface remarks very rightly that one should not be afraid of the miraculous for children. Not to mention the fact that many of them do not completely deceive themselves and, amusing themselves with the beauty and cuteness of their toys, in fact they know very well that this never happened (remember, gentlemen, how you rode on sticks, after all, you they knew that it was not horses under you - but the case still came out completely believable and the pleasure was excellent); but even those children (and these are for the most part the most gifted and intelligent heads) who unconditionally believe all the miracles of the fairy tale are very well able to immediately renounce this faith as soon as the time comes. "Children, like adults, take in books only what they need and for as long as they need it." Getzel is right: this is not the direction in which the dangers and difficulties of child education lie.

We have just said that we believe that one of the reasons for the relative obscurity of Perrault's tales is the lack of good translations and publications. The public is left to judge how satisfactory our translation is ... ”- I quote this text almost entirely as a curious evidence of my era. It seemed to me remarkable also in that it gives its confirmation to the arguments of K. Chukovsky, which he cited in the 1920s in defense of the fairy tale. And how well it is said about the teacher and the nanny!

Perrault (storyteller's brother Charles Perrault) invented the summing device “... an improved version of the rhabdological abacus Perrault... 1770 - Eun ...

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