Charles Perrault |
 |
Charles Perrault (1628 – 1703), was a leading intellectual in Parisian seventeenth century society. He could never have guessed that his name would live on as a teller of traditional children’s stories!
Perrault was a lawyer and worked for the French king for a time. He always wrote verse and in 1671 became a member of the prestigious Academie Francaise where there was huge debate about whether modern literature was better or worse than ancient literature. Perrault spoke up for modern literature and yet it was to tales of magic and fantasy that he turned his interest. He had turned a few traditional fairy tales into verse when, in 1687, he published under the name of his ten-year-old son, a little volume of eight stories: Stories, or Tales from Times Past, with Morals. There was an additional title on the frontispiece: Tales of Mother Goose. Still no one knows quite why Perrault saw a traditional tale-teller as ‘Mother Goose’, but the frontispiece of the book showed an old peasant woman sitting by a fire, with children around her listening to her stories. This image has been used ever since.
The stories were an immediate success, and over the years the first eight tales were put together with Perrault’s earlier fairy-tale verses and other traditional tales, including those retold by other writers. Perrault retold many magical stories, including: Puss in Boots, Tom Thumb, Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. It was the first time some of these stories had been written down. So Perrault the intellectual preserved for the future some of the most famous stories of all time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
