The Topsy-Turvy World of Beast Literature, revisited

27 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Beast Literature, Myths

Tags

C. S. Lewis, fantasy, Harry Potter, J. R. R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, The Wind in the Willows

Mr Toad jailed because he stole a car. (Photo credit: The Telegraph)

Kenneth Grahame‘s The Wind in the Willows, illustration by Arthur Rackham

The Wind in the Willows, by Philip Mendoza, 1983

http://www.illustrationartgallery.com/acatalog/info_MendozaW45.html

(Photo credit: Philip Mendoza, Illustrations, Posters)

NB. This post was published in October 2011. It has been rewritten as the line between the mythical and the mythological is growing thinner.

The Wind in the Willows

(see the video at the bottom of this post)

It would appear that animals are indeed everywhere. We find mythological, mythical, zoomorphic and theriomorphic animals in the most ancient texts, but they also inhabit recent literature. Where older texts are concerned, India seems our main source, but mythological and mythical animals are migrants. They travel from culture to culture, and they endure.

In the Bible, we find archangels, good angels, bad angels and Lucifer: the devil himself! As well, the Bible warns that we must not trust appearances. In Matthew 7:15, we read:

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

Literature

Literature is home to an extraordinary number of ravenous wolves. In La Fontaine’s fables, we have a wolf who eats a lamb, “Le Loup et l’Agneau,” and other wolves. In fairy tales, Little Red Riding Hood loses her grandmother to a wolf.

And, as strange as it may seem, literature is also home to the zoomorphic (hybrid) and theriomorphic (deified) animals featured in mythologies, but reappearing along with new fantastic beasts in medieval Bestiaries, including Richard de Fournival’s Bestiaire d’amour, c. 1290.

arthur-rackham-the-wind-in-the-willows-1940-it-was-a-golden-afternoon-the-smell-of-the-dust-they-kicked-up-was-rich-and-sastifying

The Wind in the Willows, by Arthur Rackham

(Photo credit: Encore Editions and Google Images)

High Fantasy Literature

Finally, literature is home to more or less recent high fantasy works featuring fantastic beasts, many of which are mythical (list of legendary/mythical creatures) or mythological (list of mythological creatures). Certain fantastical beasts are found in medieval bestiaries, where they are considered as “real.”

J. R. R. Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) is the author of The Hobbit, 1937, the high fantasy The Lord of the Rings trilogy, written between 1954 to October 1955, and the mythopoeic Silmarillion, published posthumously, in 1977, by Tolkien’s son Christopher and Guy Gavriel Kay. Tolkien taught English literature at Oxford and, among other works, he drew his inspiration from Beowulf for what he called his legendarium.
C. S. Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963), a friend of Tolkien, is the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, written between 1949 and 1954. Narnia is a fictional place, a realm. Previously, Lewis had published a collection of letters entitled The Screwtape Letters, 1942. Earlier still, Lewis had written his three-volume science-fiction Out of the Silent Planet, a trilogy written between 1938 and 1945 and inhabited by strange figures. C. S. Lewis created Hrossa, Séroni, Pfifltriggi, new creatures who live in outer space, but his cosmology includes angels and archangels. C. S. Lewis’ brother, W. H. Lewis, wrote The Splendid Century, Life in the France of Louis XIV (online), a superior history of seventeenth-century France. He became his brother’s secretary.
As for J. K. Rowling (b. 1965), she is the author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Quidditch Through the Ages (both supplements to the Harry Potter series, 2001), The Tales of Beedle the Bard (supplement to the Harry Potter series, 2008) and the Harry Potter series, which contains several fantastic/al beasts.

Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them

In these books, written by scholars and well-educated authors, new lands are created as well as new beasts, but these works also feature beasts borrowed from antiquity and various medieval bestiaries, and not necessarily the loftier ones. The books I have mentioned were immensely successful, which shows the importance of fantasy in the human mind. We need imaginary worlds, worlds we cannot navigate without a map, topsy-turvy worlds.

Topsy-Turvy Worlds

What I would like to emphasize is this blog is the topsy-turvy world of beast literature and the comic text. In Reynard the Fox, not only do animals talk, but they are an aristocracy. Humans are mere peasants.

As for the theriomorphic,[i] creatures of mythologies (Pan), briefly mentioned above, they are deified beasts attesting that Beast Literature is indeed an “upside-down” world. Transforming zoomorphic creatures into deities is an inversion of “the natural order of things.” Anthropomorphism presents us with an a world upside-down. With respect to the monk-bishops of the Ysengrimus, Jill Mann writes:

I have said that the Ysengrimus confronts us with a ‘world upside-down’, but in fact the world is turned upside down not once but twice. For the poet sees the real world as already a world-upside-down’. The bishop should be a shepherd to his flock; if he preys on them — acting instead like a wolf — he is inverting the natural order of things.[ii]

The Ysengrimus is the birthplace of Reynard the Fox where the fox is called Reinardus. It is a 6,574-line poem in elegiac couplets, written by Nivardus of Ghent in 1148-49 and translated into English by Jill Mann.

Underworlds, middle-earths, etc.

We also have underworlds. Greek mythology has an Underworld whence one cannot escape, as the three-headed zoomorphic Cerberus guards its entrance.

Tolkien created a “middle-earth” and C. S. Lewis, worlds in outer space. The Judeo-Christian hell is also an underground world. Moreover, how ironic it is that Richard de Fournival should use animals in a courtly love bestiary.

Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows

However my favourite underworld can be found in Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows (1908). The Mole and the Rat get lost in the woods during a snow storm. They see a mat and beyond the mat a door that leads to the Badger’s underground residence. After dinner, the Mole, the Rat, the Otter, who arrives later, and Badger, their host, sit by the fire and the Badger praises his underground world where he is sheltered from both the cold and the heat:

The Badger simply beamed on him. ‘That’s exactly what I say,’ he replied. ‘There’s no security, or peace and tranquillity, except underground. And then, if your ideas get larger and you want to expand–why, a dig and a scrape, and there you are! If you feel your house is a bit too big, you stop up a hole or two, and there you are again! No builders, no tradesmen, no remarks passed on you by fellows looking over your wall, and, above all, no WEATHER.[iii]

This statement is very comical, but it is not “innocent.”

Conclusion

I doubt very much that one of my readers will bump into a centaur, or Pan walking down a street. At one level, these are not “real” creatures. However they live in the imagination of a vast number of individuals all over the world. The success of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is an eloquent testimonial to the continued need to fantasize and it demonstrates that legendary creatures, mythical or mythological, have survived. Moreover, these creatures, the unicorn and the dragon in particular, are widely known. The unicorn is the Qilin in China. He may be the Hebrew Bible’s Re’em. Be that as it may, they become metaphors: “hungry as a wolf,” “clever as a fox,” and good friends.

In 1909, Theodore Roosevelt, then US president, wrote to Grahame to tell him that he had “read it [The Wind in the Willows] and reread it, and have come to accept the characters as old friends.” (See The Wind in the Willows, Wikipedia)[iv]

The reports of explorers and travellers

Yesterday, I spent several hours looking at Medieval Bestiaries and found the centaur, the griffin, the unicorn, the yale, etc. depicted as “real.” Authors who wrote early natural histories often relied on the reports of travellers to faraway lands who did not have a camera and may not have been good draftsmen. The unicorn could be our rhinoceros. This may be one of the many ways legends grow.

The ‘horned’ shepherd god Pan = panic

“The Piper at the Gates of Dawn”

Kenneth Grahame‘s The Wind in the Willows

illustration by Arthur Rackham

(Photo credit: The Guardian)

______________________________

[i] “The animal form as a representation of the divine…”

Kurt Moritz Artur Goldammer, “religious symbolism and iconography.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.

Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 26 Aug. 2013.

<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/497416/religious-symbolism>.

[ii] Jill Mann, “The Satiric Fiction of the Ysengrimus,” in Kenneth Varty, editor, Reynard the Fox: Social Engagement in the Beast Epic from the Middle Ages to the Present (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000), p. 11.

The Ysengrimus is the birth place of Reynard the Fox where he is called Reinardus. It is a 6,574-line poem in elegiac couplets, written by Nivardus of Ghent in 1149.

[iii] The Wind in the Willows is a Project Gutenberg [EBook # 289]. When looking for Project Gutenberg ebooks, it is best to use the Gutenberg link: http://www.gutenberg.org.

[iv] “First edition of The Wind in the Willows sells for £32,400”. The Guardian. Retrieved 19 November 2012.

Kenneth Grahame’s Mr Toad,

illustration by Ernest Shepard

(Photo credit: James Gurney)

31 October 2011

Revised on 26 August 2013

WordPress

Anthropomorphism and Zoomorphism

25 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Beast Literature, Myths, Symbols and Emblems

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

anthropomorphism, Bestiaries, heraldry, La Fontaine, mythical animals, mythological animals, symbols and emblems, the Griffin, The Physiologus, zoomorphism

Griffin fresco in the “Throne Room,” Palace of Knossos, Crete, Bronze Age.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Griffin

The red Griffin “rampant” (crawling) was the coat of arms of the dukes of Pomerania and survives today as the armorial of West Pomeranian Voivodeship (historically, Farther Pomerania) in Poland. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When the griffin or other mythical/mythological animal is featured on a crest in a climbing position, he is called “rampant.”

Anthropomorphism

Æsopic, Libystic and Sybaritic fables

Anthropomorphism was defined in my post on Vaux-le-Vicomte. Moreover, Milo Winter’s illustrations for “The North Wind and the Sun” provide examples of elements disguised as human beings. Fabulist Jean de La Fontaine used anthropomorphism: animals, elements, vegetation, mountains. In some fables, he featured humans and who were viewed as morally inferior to animals. The Man and the Snake (The Man and the Adder or L’Homme et la Couleuvre [X.1]) is an example of the use of an inferior human being in a fable. Fables featuring beasts only are called Æsopic. Those featuring human beings interacting with beasts are called libystic, and those featuring humans only are sybaritic fables.[I]

The Use of Anthropomorphism

a fox is a fox is a fox

The word Æsopian refers to a language that can only be understood by people other than insiders. Nineteenth-century Russian satirist Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedri was the first to use the term æsopian language. Animals speak and do no speak. In the end, as eloquent as he may be, a fox is a fox is a fox. Gertrude Stein’s “a rose is a rose is a rose” captured the spirit of anthropomorphism. Whether they are used as a carpe diem or a memento mori, roses are roses are roses.

In 1997, in his review of Marc Fumaroli‘s Le Poète et le Roi, Jean de La Fontaine en son temps, Charles Rosen wrote that “[w]ith La Fontaine’s Fables, we do not have to burrow far under the surface to recognize a discreet opposition to the grandeur of style and the servile obedience wanted by the court, an opposition never openly expressed but manifest on every page.” (The New York Review of Books, “The Fabulous La Fontaine,” (18 December 1997.)[II] Fables feature speaking animals, but readers know that animals do not speak just as Louis knows he is not a lion. Therein lies the wizardry of beast fables.

Animals as Types

In the preface to his translation of Aesop’s fable, Townsend writes that

“The Fox should be always cunning, the Hare timid, the Lion bold, the Wolf cruel, the Bull strong, the Horse proud, and the Ass patient” and all of this, “by mutual consent.”

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21/21-h/21-h.htm#link2H_PREF

Zoomorphism: Hybrid Anthropomorphic Creatures

However, certain legendary or mythical animals as well as mythological animals are hybrid creatures who combine the features of humans and those of an animal or combine the features of several animals. Zoomorphic animals are also anthropomorphic, or humans in disguise.

Well-known animals that combine human and animal features are centaurs and the Minotaur. Centaurs have the torso of a man or a woman, but their lower body is that of a horse. The Minotaur, he is the son of Pasiphaë and a bull. He is therefore a hybrid animal that is kept in a labyrinth built by Dædalus. The Minotaur is slain by Theseus who finds his way through the labyrinth using Ariadne‘s thread. Theseus also slays a centaur. Zoomorphic animals may belong to a mythology, in which case they have lineage and ancestors. Interestingly, angels have wings, but they are otherwise identical to human beings.

Usually, mythologies tell a story that explains origins. They are etiological narratives. In children’s literature, etiological narratives are called “pourquoi” (why) stories. Rudyard Kipling‘s Just So Stories (1902) are “pourquoi” narratives. However, some legendary creatures, such as the phoenix, appear to straddle both categories, the mythical and the mythological. The distinguishing factor could be the degree of symbolism attributed to the animal. The more symbolic the animal, the more mythical. By and large, mythical animals are zoomorphic and have no lineage. Relatively few are not featured in etiological narratives, such as the Bible and and many inhabit the medieval bestiary. Bestiaries are allegorical.

Zoomorphic Beasts

The dragon, the griffin, and the unicorn are zoomorphic animals combining the features of many animals. They are legendary or mythical animals, rather than mythological beasts. However, both the griffin and the phoenix do belong to certain mythologies. It may be legitimate to separate the dragon, the griffin, the phoenix and the unicorn from other zoomorphic animals in that all four are likely to appear as symbols, but so do other legendary animals. The phoenix, who rises from his own ashes, is a symbol of rebirth. The unicorn appears in the Bible, but he is not listed in Donald Ray Schwartz’s Noah’s Ark, the Hebrew Bible.[III] The Western unicorn cannot be captured by a person other than a virgin. He is therefore emblematic of chaste love. In children’s literature, he is often described as an animal who missed the boat: Noah’s Ark. (See Unicorn, Wikipedia.)

The dragon‘s characteristics change from culture to culture. He is feared in the West, but not in China.
The griffin, shown at the top of this post, a lion mostly, with the head of an eagle, is a guardian. In antiquity, he was a symbol of divine power and a guardian of the divine.
The unicorn has one horn and plays various roles from culture to culture. In Western culture, he is, as mentioned above, “emblematic of chaste love and faithful marriage.”
Given that he rises from his own ashes, the phoenix is a symbol of rebirth and very popular.

The Order of the Dragon was created to defend Europe against the invading Ottoman Turks in the 15th century. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A phoenix depicted in a book of mythological creatures by F. J. Bertuch (1747-1822).

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Other Zoomorphic Animals

Other relatively well-known zoomorphic animals, combining animal features only, are Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology, or Cerberus/Kerberos, the three-headed dog who guards the entrance to the underworld. In The Tale of Cupid and Psyche, Psyche is told how to avoid him, which enables her to fetch beauty from Persephone without dying. Locksmiths and businesses that provide alarm systems often name their store or company Cerberus/Kerberos.

There are medieval love bestiaries, such as Richard de Fournival‘s Bestiaire d’amour (ms 12469 Bibliothèque nationale de France). In medieval bestiary, animals are used allegorically. In fact, animals inhabiting medieval bestiaries are allegorical figures and they are usually the same from author to author. They are as described by Pliny the Elder (23 CE – 25 August 79 CE), Isidore of Seville, etc. or as described in the 2nd century CE Physiologus. (See Physiologus, Wikipedia.) However, the unicorn and the griffin are often featured on coats of arms, shields, helmets, and blazons in heraldry. (See Zoomorphism, Wikipedia.)

High Fantasy Literary Works and other Literary Works

The phoenix appears in J. K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003), in which we also find the griffin Albus Dumbledore. As well, the Harry Potter series features Cerberus/Kerberos. The griffin, however, had been used previously. For instance, he appears in Dante Alighieri‘s (c. 1265–1321) Divine Comedy and in John Milton‘s Paradise Lost. In C. S. Lewis‘ popular Chronicles of Narnia, we find a centaur.

They are also featured in children’s literature. Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows is a children’s novel, but such works are best understood by adults if poorly illustrated.

Werewolf by Lucas Cranach the Elder (Gotha, Herzoglishes Museum)

Other Roles

metamorphosis
the werewolf, le loup garou
animal ancestry

Therianthropic animals, humans that transform themselves into beast and vice versa can be looked upon as zoomorphic creatures. There are therianthropic beings in fairy tales, which is usually the result of a curse. A fine example is Beauty and the Beast. Enchantment is central to fairy tales. But shapeshifting animals bring to mind the werewolf (le loup-garou), a lycanthrope, rather than fairy tales.

Beast literature is not an animal counterpart of fairy-tales.

The above shows, among other factors, to what extent humans see commonality with animals, but not as in Darwinism.

_________________________

[I] Jan M. Ziolkowski, Talking Animals: Medieval Latin Beast Poetry, 750 – 1150 (The University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), p. 18.

[II] Marc Fumaroli, Le Poète et le Roi, Jean de La Fontaine en son siècle (Éditions de Fallois, 1997).

[III] Donald Ray Schwartz, Noah’s Ark, an Annotated Encyclopedia of every Animal Species in the Hebrew Bible (Jason Aron Inc.: Northvale, New Jersey, Jerusalem, 2000).

Camille Saint-Saëns (9 October 1835 – 16 December 1921)

Le Carnaval des animaux

Camille Saint-Saëns (Thomas/Doumène)

The Yale, The Bern Physiologus

© Micheline Walker
25 August 2013
WordPress

The North Wind and the Sun

23 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Æsop, Fables, Jean de La Fontaine

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

anthropomorphism, AT 298, Gutenberg [EBook #19994], La Fontaine VI.3, Milo Winter, Phébus et Borée Vl.3

The North Wind and the Sun, Æsop’s Fables

Illustrated by Milo Winter (7 August 1888 – 15 August 1956)

Gutenberg [EBook #19994] (p. 109)

La Fontaine: Phoebus and Boreas; Phébus et Borée (VI.3)

Photo credit: Wikipedia and Gutenberg

Perry Index 46 (Æsop’s Fables)

Aarne-Thompson (Aarne-Thompson-Uther) type 298 (Wind and Sun)

or ATU type 298

Alishman: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0298.html

Milo Winter

(Photo credit: Gutenberg)

The Wind and the Sun: Æsop

The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said, “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin.”

So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair.

Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.

Kindness effects more than severity.[i]

Gentleness does more than Violence

This seems a very innocent fable to which La Fontaine has given a lovely moral: “Plus fait douceur que violence.” (“Gentleness does more than violence.”)

“The North Wind and the Sun” is not so innocent a fable and it constitutes good advice to parents, to individuals who interact with other individuals, i.e. all of us, and to nations. It is the diplomatic approach. According to Wikipedia, South Korea’s Sunshine Policy was rooted in this Æsopic fable. I rather like Walter Crane‘s “True strength is not bluster.” (See The North Wind and the Sun, Wikipedia)

But in Wikipedia, one can also read a story according to which Sophocles (497/6 BC – winter 406/5 BC) asked a boy to have sexual intercourse with him. The boy did as he was told. He laid on his cloak but, after the act, he fled with Sophocles’ cloak which Sophocles had used to cover himself and the boy.[ii] Euripides (c. 480 – 406 BC), who had also engaged in sexual intercourse with the same boy, made a joke out of this event. The joke reached Sophocles who ridiculed Euripides in an epigram mentioning Euripides’ indiscretions with a woman other than his wife and alluding to the North Wind (Borée FR), and the Sun (Phébus FR).

It was the Sun, and not a boy, whose heat stripped me naked;

As for you, Euripides, when you were kissing someone else’s wife

The North Wind screwed you. You are unwise, you who sow

In another’s field, to accuse Eros of being a snatch-thief.[iii]

The above story is probably apocryphal. But given that Sophocles and Euripides, two dramatists, lived in the 5th century BCE, we know that “The North Wind and the Sun” is an old fable. Æsop lived in c. 620–564 BCE. This fable is probably of Eurasian provenance.

As for the illustrations, they provide us with a good example of anthropomorphism. The elements, the wind and the sun, are humans in disguise. They speak.

Phébus et Borée, by Jean-Baptiste Oudry

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Professor D. L. Alishman lists five tellings of this fable, under Wind and Sun (ATU type 298)

The Wind and the Sun (Æsop)
Phœbus and Boreas (Jean de La Fontaine) Phébus et Borée (VI. 3) or The North Wind and the Sun (VI.3)
The Wind and the Sun (India) Folklore of the Santal Parganas
The North Wind and the Sun, in Ambrose Bierce, Fantastic Fables (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1899), p. 181.
Brer Rabbit Treats the Creatures to a Race (Joel Chandler Harris, The Tales of Uncle Remus)

______________________________

[i] Joseph Jacobs, translator, The Fables of Æsop (London and New York: Macmillan and Company, 1894), no. 60, pp. 142-143.
[ii] See Greek Love, Wikipedia.

[iii] Eros is the Greek god of love and Cupid, the Roman god of desire. Venus is the Roman goddess of love and beauty.

The North Wind and the Sun:
http://www.nfb.ca/film/north_wind_and_sun_fable_by_aesop/

23 August 2013

WordPress

Vaux-le-Vicomte: Fouquet’s Rise and Fall

20 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in France, History, Literature

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

Alexandre Dumas, Colbert, Jean de La Fontaine, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Louis XIV, Nicolas Fouquet, The Man with the Iron Mask, The Three Musketeers, Vaux-le-Vicomte

Vaux-le-Vicomte: Nicolas Fouquet’s Castle

Nicolas Fouquet, by Sébastien Bourdon (Musée national du château de Versailles) (Photo credit: Larousse)

Nicolas Fouquet

The story of the “City Rat and the Country Rat,” or “Town Mouse and Country Mouse” is not insignificant. Our country mouse is as poor as the peasants who paid the astronomical bill Louis XIV ran up building Versailles. But Louis had seen Vaux-le-Vicomte, the castle Nicolas Fouquet, the “Superintendent of Finances,” had built for himself and Louis XIV was not about to be housed in humbler dwellings than the magnificent château owned by his “surintendant des Finances,” a patron of Jean de La Fontaine, and various authors and artists.

Nicolas Fouquet,[i] marquis de Belle-Île, vicomte de Melun et Vaux (27 January 1615 – 23 March 1680) was “Superintendent of Finances” in France between 1653 and 1661. A lawyer by training, he had risen to prominence rapidly and had been named “Superintendant of Finances,” a position Italian-born Cardinal Jules Mazarin (14 July 1602 – 9 March 1661), who ruled France, could not deny him. Fouquet knew that Mazarin was using his own position as “Prime Minister” to amass wealth, while the “country mice” of France lived in abject poverty.

Le chancelier Séguier, by Charles Le Brun (1655)

(Photo credit: Larousse)

Vaux-le-Vicomte

Nicolas Fouquet’s château, Vaux-le-Vicomte,[ii] had been built by the future architect of Versailles: Louis Le Vau, and was decorated by Versailles’ future painter Charles Le Brun, who owed his training as an artist to a powerful individual, le chancelier Séguier.[iii] As for the grounds, they were designed by landscape artist André Le Nôtre. Fouquet had therefore assembled the team that would later build Louis XIV’s castle at Versailles, a community where his father, King Louis XIII, a composer, had a hunting lodge he used as his main residence. Fouquet also owned Belle-Île-sur-Mer, a fortified island where he could live if ever he needed a safe haven. As well, Fouquet had bought several private properties in Paris, “hôtels” or “hôtels particuliers,” and, in 1651, a widower, Fouquet married a very wealthy Spanish woman, Marie de Castille.

A Feast

In 1661, shortly after Louis XIV ascended the throne, Fouquet hosted a fête that could not be rivalled and that convinced Louis XIV, first, that Fouquet was using public funds for private purposes and, second, that he, the King, needed a castle that would be more beautiful than the castle of a mere “subject,” at any cost.

François Vatel, maître d’Hôtel

The fête was a great success. François Vatel, Louis II de Bourbon-Condé‘s future maître d’hôtel served the finest of foods, including tropical fruit grown in Fouquet’s green house, an orangerie, located on his estate. Louis XIV would ask architect Jules-Hardouin Mansart (16 April 1646 – 11 May 1708) to build an orangerie at Versailles.

Molière and Lully

Moreover, on 17 August 1661, dramatist Molière premièred Les Fâcheux, a comedy and a ballet, at Vaux-le-Vicomte. The king loved to dance and had discovered a composer who could provide the appropriate music, Italian-born Giovanni Battista Lulli, renamed Jean-Baptiste Lully (28 November 1632 – 22 March 1687). Molière was one of Fouquet’s protégés, but he was also a friend of Louis XIV.

Louis XIV in Lully‘s Ballet de la nuit, 1653 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Louis XIV, by Hyacinthe Rigaud, 1701 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fouquet Arrested and Jailed

Louis quickly suspected embezzlement (malversation de fonds publics) on the part of Nicolas Fouquet, abolished the position of Superintendant of Finances, arranged for Fouquet to accompany him to Nantes where D’Artagnan, whose full name was Charles Ogier de Batz de Castelmore, Comte d’Artagnan (c. 1611 – 25 June 1673), one of his Musketeers (les mousquetaires de la maison militaire du roi de France), took the very wealthy Fouquet into custody. Famed and prolific novelist Alexandre Dumas, père (24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870) used D’Artagnan as the leading figure in his Trois Mousquetaires (1844).

This festive event sealed Fouquet’s fate.Whether or not justice was served, we may never know, but in December 1664, after a three-year trial, Nicolas Fouquet was found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to banishment, a sentence commuted to life imprisonment. (See Fouquet, Wikipedia.) Fouquet died at Pignerol (now Pinerolo), in 1680. Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who coveted a place as a member of the Conseil du Roi, assembled the material that would serve to destroy Fouquet, a possible rival. Unlike Louis XIII, who let France be governed by prime ministers: Cardinal Richelieu, replaced, in 1642, by Cardinal Jules Mazarin, Louis XIV did not want a prime minister.

The Three Musketeers , by Maurice Leloir, 1894 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Athos, Porthos, Aramis & D’Artagnan”

The Man with the Iron Mask, c. 1872 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Interestingly, Fouquet served his sentence in the same prison as the man with the iron mask (l’homme au masque de fer), whose identity has yet to be determined, but who was Fouquet’s man-servant for a short period. Rumour has it that the man in the iron mask may have been Louis XIV’s father. Louis XIII is unlikely to have fathered a son. As noted above, he preferred to live with friends in his hunting lodge at Versailles, where Louis XIV, would have his castle built.

Fouquet as patron of the Arts: Jean de La Fontaine

Jean de La Fontaine, the author of Le Songe de Vaux, tried to help his patron and, as a result, he was not “elected” to the Académie française until 1682. In fact, under Louis XIV, a candidate was not “elected” to one of the forty seats of the Académie, les quarante immortels; one was appointed by the King himself. The Académie française was established by Cardinal Richelieu (9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642) in 1635. It perished in 1793, during the French Revolution, but was reestablished by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1803.

Vaux-le-Vicomte had been a lesson to La Fontaine who set about writing fables that he called “a comedy immense,” cultivating a discreet form of congeniality with his peers and hosts. I believe he was the rustic rather than the city rat. Between the lines of his fables, he painted a fresco of his era. However, he did so using anthropomorphism. His animals, the elements, the trees, all were humans in disguise and stereotypes, which protected the fabulist. The Lion may be king, but the King is not a lion and would not want to be. Imagine the ridicule Louis XIV would have brought unto himself, if he had allowed anyone to think that he was an animal, La Fontaine’s lion. La Fontaine therefore wrote

Une ample comédie à cent actes divers

Et dont la scène est l’univers.

Le Bûcheron et Mercure (V.i; V.1)

Thus swells my work—a comedy immense

Its acts unnumbered and diverse,

Its scene the boundless universe.

The Woodman and Mercury (V.i; V.1)

Conclusion

Fouquet’s story is well-known. Absolutism would not allow transgressions. Not only was Fouquet jailed for the remainder of his life, but the possessions he cherished were seized. Under Louis XIV, the only person who could keep a king humble was Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, whose sermons are famous and who emphasized that all of us are mere mortals: memento mori.

____________________
[i] Nicolas Fouquet

http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/personnage/Nicolas_Fouquet/187131 (FR)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Fouquet

[ii] “Vaux-le-Vicomte”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 20 Aug. 2013

<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/624201/Vaux-le-Vicomte>.

[iii] Portrait du chancelier Séguier

http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/oeuvre/Portrait_du_chancelier_S%C3%A9guier/181324 (FR)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_S%C3%A9guier

Vaux-le-Vicomte

images

20 August 2013

WordPress

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

18 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Fables, Literature

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Aesop's Fables, Bidpai, carpe diem, Horace, Jean de La Fontaine, Odo of Cheriton, sources, The Baldwin Project, The Project Gutenberg, Walter of England

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, by Milo Winter, from

The Æsop for Children

(Photo credit: The Gutenberg Project [EBook #19994])

Classification

Aesop’s Fable (Perry Index 352)
Aarne-Thompson (Aarne-Thompson-Uther) type 112
Aarne-Thompson (Aarne-Thompson-Uther) type 112 & 113B (Romania)

Texts

Aesop’s Fables: The Project Gutenberg [EBook #11339])
Horace: The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace, translated into English verse by John Conington; 4th edition (London: George Bell and Sons, 1874), Satires, book 2, no. 6, pp. 84-86 (scroll down to “One day…).

La Fontaine: The City Rat and the Country Rat (1.I.9) (EN)
La Fontaine: Rat de ville et le rat des champs, Le (1.I.9) (FR)

The Town and Country Mouse, by John Rae

Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks

(Photo credit: The Project Gutenberg [EBook #24108])

The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse

Style, rather than Subject Matter

There are folk tellings of this fable (the oral tradition), but when Jean de La Fontaine (8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695) wrote Le Rat de ville et le rat des champs (City Rat and Country Rat I. 9), The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse entered the learned tradition. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, La Fontaine’s Fables “rank among the greatest masterpieces of French literature.”[i]

However, the mostly Aesopic Town Mouse and Country Mouse entered literature long before La Fontaine was introduced to Æsop’s Fables. Horace (8 December 65 BCE – 27 November 8 BCE) could be credited with giving this folktale its literary status. It is one of his Satires (book 2, number 6, lines 77-115) and it resembles La Fontaine’s City Rat and Country Rat (1, 9). Interestingly, La Fontaine’s fable features two rats rather than mice. It would be my opinion that he chose to feature rats to embellish his fable. The word “rat” is shorter (one syllable or pied) than the word “sou-ris” (two syllables). Be that as it may, in both retellings of the narrative, the rustic mouse or rat decides to return to his humble but peaceful country life, when “a sudden banging of the doors” (Horace) forces our fellows to hide. Horace’s country mouse does not want to live in fear.

Then says the rustic: “It may do for you,

This life, but I don’t like it; so adieu:

Give me my hole, secure from all alarms,

I’ll prove that tares and vetches still have charms.”

Horace (scroll down to “One day…)

Sources and Dissemination

There have been many retellings of Aesop’s Fables, beginning with Roman fabulist Phædrus (c. 15 BCE – c. 50 CE).[ii] Aesop was also retold in Greek, by Babrius. As for The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse in particular, it appears we owe its dissemination throughout Europe to 12th-century Anglo-Norman writer Walter of England‘s translation of the fable into Latin.[iii] Fabulist Odo of Cheriton[iv] (c. 1185 – 1246/47, Kent) also contributed to the spread of the fable to various European countries.Spanish author Juan Ruiz inserted a Town Mouse and Country Mouse in his Libro de Buen Amor or Book of Good Love. Walter of England may also have inspired several manuscript collections of Æsop’s fables in Italian, including the Esopi fabulas by Accio Zucca. (See The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, Wikipedia)

La Fontaine’s Sources

La Fontaine, however, seems to have drawn his material from Swiss writer Névelet whose Mythologia Æsopica Isaaci Nicolai Neveleti was published in Frankfurt in 1610. Névelet was La Fontaine’s usual source. Moreover, given his knowledge of Latin and resemblances between the two texts, we can assume La Fontaine was familiar with Horace’s The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. In both fables, our two country fellows, a rat and a mouse, flee when they hear “fearful knocking” at the door (La Fontaine).

La Fontaine: Twelve Books of Fables in three Collections (recueils)

Le rat de ville et le rat des champs is the ninth fable of La Fontaine’s first book of fables (1.I.9) La Fontaine wrote twelve short books of fables which he published in three collections (recueils): 1668 (six books), 1678 (five books), 1694 (twelfth book). His first recueil, or collection, contains mainly Æsopic fables transmitted from generation to generation in an oral tradition until, as mentioned above, Latin author Phaedrus translated Æsop’s fables into Latin and author Babrius, into Greek. Phaedrus’ book of fables is a Project Gutenberg publication [EBook #25512].

D. L. Alishman gives us a list of retellings of the Æsopic Town Mouse and Country Mouse:

Æsop’s: The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse (oral tradition)
Horace: The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
La Fontaine: The City Rat and the Country Rat (Fables, book I, fable 9.)
The Romanian: The Story of the Town Mouse and the Field Mouse (types 112 and 113B.)
The Norwegian: The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, by Arthur Rackham, 1902

(Photo credit: The Project Gutenberg [EBook #11339])

La Fontaine’s The City Rat and The Country Rat

A city rat, one night,

Did, with a civil stoop,

A country rat invite

To end a turtle soup.

On a Turkey carpet

They found the table spread,

And sure I need not harp it

How well the fellows fed.

The entertainment was

A truly noble one;

But some unlucky cause

Disturbed it when begun.

It was a slight rat-tat,

That put their joys to rout;

Out ran the city rat;

His guest, too, scampered out.

Our rats but fairly quit,

The fearful knocking ceased.

“Return we,” cried the city,

To finish there our feast.

“No,” said the rustic rat;

“Tomorrow dine with me.

I’m not offended at

Your feast so grand and free,

“For I have no fare resembling;

But then I eat at leisure,

And would not swap, for pleasure

So mixed with fear and trembling.”

La Fontaine (I.ix) or (I.9)

Horace’s version can be read by clicking on The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. La Fontaine’s version and translation can also be read by clicking on the appropriate title: Le Rat de ville et le rat des champs, or The City Rat and the Country Rat (1.I.9).

Other Versions

Variants listed above by D. L. Alishman differ from one another. For instance, in some retellings of the Town Mouse and Country Mouse, a cat, rather than dogs or a noise at the door, scares the mice away. But the moral of the fable is almost the same in all its retellings, that moral being that it is best to eat more frugally if the cost of eating finer and more abundant meals is a source of endangerment. Neither the country mouse nor the country rat want to eat watching their back. I like the wording Odo of Cheriton has given the moral of his Town Mouse and Country Mouse:

“I’d rather gnaw a bean than be gnawed by emotional fear.”

Philosophical Fables

La Fontaine’s City Rat and Country Rat could be considered as “philosophical,” or meditative, which the word “philosophical” meant in 17th-century France. For example, this fable could describe the fate of aristocrats under absolutism. After the Fronde (1648-1653), Court was no longer a “natural” environment for aristocrats who nevertheless spent a great deal of money to keep a house and carriage near Versailles. They hoped to be noticed and, consequently, be invited to attend the king’s lever (getting out of bed) and coucher (getting into bed). But Louis XIV feared aristocrats and would not give them power. Therefore, their best option was to return to their home away from Versailles and its intrigues, which they seldom did.

However, as told by La Fontaine, the fable does not reflect in any direct way the circumstances of French aristocrats after the Fronde (1648 and 1653).

But his chief and most comprehensive theme remains that of the traditional fable: the fundamental, everyday moral experience of mankind throughout the ages, exhibited in a profusion of typical characters, emotions, attitudes, and situations.[v]

Horace: a Carpe Diem

Horace’s telling of The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse is more overtly “philosophical” than La Fontaine’s City Rat and Country Rat (1: 9).For instance, Horace, who coined the term carpe diem, has included a “gather ye roses while ye may” in his Town Mouse and Country Mouse:

Come down, go home with me: remember, all

Who live on earth are mortal, great or small:

Then take, good sir, your pleasure while you may;

With life so short, ’twere wrong to lose a day.

Horace, Satires, book 2, no. 6, pp. 84-86

Conclusion

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse can be read at several levels.It is a palimpsest. Surprisingly, fables often possess an unsuspected depth, especially if they have an Eastern origin, which is the case with many of Aesop’s fables and fables published in La Fontaine’s second collection of fables (1678). According to Wikipedia’s entry on The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, it resembles a fable by Bidpai entitled The Lean Cat and the Fat Cat (The Baldwin Project). La Fontaine’s second collection of fables (1678) was written after he had read the Fables of Bidpai, published in France as the Livre des lumières ou la Conduite des roys, 1644). La Fontaine’s second collection, five short books, therefore reflects an Eastern source.

However, La Fontaine’s one wish was to create little comedies.

But the predominant note is that of la gaieté, which, as he says in the preface to the first collection, he deliberately sought to introduce into his Fables. “Gaiety,” he explains, is not that which provokes laughter but is “a certain charm . . . that can be given to any kind of subject, even the most serious.”[vi]

La Fontaine was a loyal friend, but he was not a crusader. He knew from experience that “might is right.” He had been a protégé of disgraced Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances in France from 1653 until 1661. Consequently, although La Fontaine’s fables have depth, the language he uses is light-hearted.

To the grace, ease, and delicate perfection of the best of the Fables, even close textual commentary cannot hope to do full justice. They represent the quintessence of a century of experiments in prosody and poetic diction in France.[vii]

Tiny Gallery

Gustave Doré (6 January 1832 – 23 January 1883)

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Milo Winter (7 August 1888 – 15 August 1956)

(The Project Gutenberg [EBook #19994])

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

(Photo credit: The Baldwin Project)

Sources

The Baldwin Project (excellent)

Gutenberg (EBook #11339], Æsop’s Fables, translated by V. S. Vernon Jones, introduction by G. K. Chesterton, illustrations by Arthur Rackham

Gutenberg [EBook #19994], The Æsop for Children, adapted by W. T. (William Trowbridge) Larned, illustrated by Milo Winter

Gutenberg [EBook #24108] Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks, adapted by W.T. (William Trowbridge) Larned, illustrated by John Rae

Joseph Jacob‘s translation

Névelet: Isaaci Nicolai Neveleti’s (Frankfurt, 1610)

Townsend, George Fyler: (Gutenberg [EBook #21]), 2013 [2007]

Victoria and Albert Museum, “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse”

_________________________

[i] “Jean de La Fontaine“. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.

Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 16 Aug. 2013

<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/326307/Jean-de-La-Fontaine>.

[ii] The Fables of Phaedrus are a Project Gutenberg publication [EBook #25512] (2008)

[iii] Gualterus Anglicus is Walter of England’s Latin name.

[iv] Odo of Cheriton‘s fables are an online publication. The “House Mouse and the Field Mouse” is number 26, p. 87.

[v] “Jean de La Fontaine“. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.

Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 17 Aug. 2013

<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/326307/Jean-de-La-Fontaine>.

[vi] Britannica, loc. cit.

[vii] Britannica, loc. cit.

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, by John Rae

(Photo credit: The Project Gutenberg [EBook #24108])

Jacques Offenbach (20 June 1819 – 5 October 1880)

Jacqueline’s Tears

Jacqueline Dupré OBE (26 January 1945 – 19 October 1987), cello

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, by John Rae

(Photo credit: The Project Gutenberg [EBook #24108])

17 August 2013

WordPress

Edgar Degas: Eclecticism

14 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

Dreyfus Affair, Edgar Degas, Impressionism, landscapes, pastels, Realism, Social Realism, Valery-sur-Somme

B each with Sailing Boats, 1869 (pastel)

Beach at Ebbe, 1870 (pastel)

(Please click on the smaller images to enlarge them.)

The Edgar Degas (19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917) we know depicted ballet dancers. In fact, for many of us, dancers were Degas’ only subject matter, which is understandable as these were the works we were shown. Yet, he also depicted horse racing and café scenes. Moreover, he was a fine portrait artist, a skill he perfected during a three-year stay with relatives in Naples, Italy, beginning in 1856. At that time, he was also considering a career as historical painter and produced a few historical paintings.

Degas’ main subject was indeed the human figure, especially women. “Ballet dancers and women washing themselves would preoccupy him throughout his career.”[i] So would milliners, laundresses, cabaret singers and prostitutes. As Degas claimed, he was a “realist” and, earlier in his career, a social realist, as in literary realism.

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica,

“As part of his own process of engaging with modernity, he [Degas] self-consciously aligned himself with Realist novelists such as Émile Zola and Edmond and Jules Goncourt, drafting illustrations for their novels and briefly adopting a similar social descriptiveness.”[ii]

Yet, Degas would later cast away “the certainties of a state-controlled, historical culture for an art of individual crisis, even approaching the nihilism of the following generation.”[iii] Moreover, the Dreyfus Affair would elecit, on Degas’ part, a “violently anti-Semitic response” that estranged former friends.[iv]

Degas: Seascapes, Landscapes & Valery-sur-Somme

Early Outdoors Scenes

But let us return to our subject matter: the eclectic Degas. We know that he made fun of en plein air (outdoors) painters, but the above paintings prove that he devoted at least one season, 1869, to “plein-air” art. Moreover, Degas’ depictions of horses and horse racing scenes are outdoors works. Finally, Degas left seascapes, landscapes, and depictions of Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, shown below. The above paintings, two pastels, are early works depicting beaches. These are therefore very luminous works. Moreover, they could be classified as Impressionist works. The colours are muted, varied, and sea and sky nearly blend in “Beach with Sailing Boats.” In the upper part of these pastel seascapes, Degas has used a darker colour. He therefore presents a painterly rather than linear sky scape.

Sky Study, 1869

Later Outdoors Scenes

In later “plein-air” works, his subject matter changed and his works darkened accordingly. Yet, he did not change his selection of colours to a significant extent. In “Plowed Field,” shown below, as one looks up, one sees little beads: blue, mauve, dark green and silver. They illuminate his art. Here the sky is not a principal subject matter. Trees dominate “Plowed Field,” a mostly linear pastel. “Plowed Field” is reminiscent of the nineteenth-century Russian lyrical landscapes of artist Alexei Savrasov (24 May 1830 – 8 October 1897). It is also reminiscent of the “mood” landscapes created by Isaac Levitan (30 August 1860 – 4 August 1900; aged 39).

Plowed Field, 1890 (pastel)

From the point of view of composition, “Plowed Field,” now above, is a gem. It features a lovely curve that begins with the largest tree, on the right side of the artwork. Degas usually placed his subject matter relatively far from the middle of his artwork. We also see curves running in opposite directions. However, we have a dark main line directly beneath the trees. I love the effect created by the very pale, silvery, beads. There is considerable movement in this painting. It is as though the trees were performing pirouettes.

Saint-Valery-sur-Somme

Degas also depicted the houses of Saint-Valerie-sur-Somme, a small community in northern France. In “Houses at the Foot of a Cliff (Saint-Valery-sur-Somme),” we have an oil painting featuring a coloured sky, but the main compositional elements are three lines: 1) a slightly broken diagonal line and, underneath, 2) a horizontal line, traced above the blue-roofed cottages and running the entire width of the canvas, beneath the cottages, 3) another diagonal line running in a direction opposite the upper diagonal line. We do not see a vanishing point, but almost. There is movement is this painting, as in “Plowed Field.”

Houses at the Foot of a Cliff (Saint-Valery-sur-Somme), 1898 (oil)

rue-quesnoy-saint-valery-sur-somme_jpg!Blog

Rue Quesnoy, Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, 1898 (pastel)

“Rue Quesnoy” also features lines: two narrowing vertical lines, flanked by houses and a broken and playful third line, a horizontal line consisting of trees slightly above the horizon. Again, we sense movement in Degas’ work. He guides and pleases the eye.

Our Masterpiece

But our masterpiece remains a female figure, a pastel inserted at the bottom of this post, a dancer adjusting her slipper: lines against a flat-coloured background, an example of Japonism, except that he shows a shadow. In this work, less is more.

“Artists were especially affected by the lack of perspective and shadow, the flat areas of strong color, and the compositional freedom gained by placing the subject off-centre, mostly with a low diagonal axis to the background.” (See Japonism, Wikipedia)

“The prints were collected by such painters as Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and other artists. The clarity of line, spaciousness of composition, and boldness and flatness of colour and light in Japanese prints had a direct impact on their work and on that of their followers.”[v]

Conclusion

Once known mainly for his depiction of ballet dancers, Degas’ choice of subject matter was much broader and always appealing, even when his representation of the human form, the female figure, did not embellish his models. His art is figurative, not abstract, but his strength lies, to a large extent, in the structure of his art, or in the lines behind the figures. A successful artist during his own lifetime, he was admired by artists who followed him, including Picasso, and he remains not only a favourite but also a model, which makes him a classic.

________________________________________

[i] “Edgar Degas”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 13 Aug. 2013
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/155919/Edgar-Degas/235481/Realism-and-Impressionism>.

[ii] “Edgar Degas”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 13 Aug. 2013
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/155919/Edgar-Degas/235483/Final-years>.

[iii] “Edgar Degas”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 13 Aug. 2013
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/155919/Edgar-Degas/235481/Realism-and-Impressionism>.

[iv] “Edgar Degas”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 13 Aug. 2013
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/155919/Edgar-Degas/235483/Final-years>.

[v] “Japanism”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 13 Aug. 2013
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/301314/Japanism>.

Degas in a Green Jacket, Self-Portrait, 1856 (oil) (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

Antonio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741),

The Four Seasons, Spring

Gidon Kremer (born 27 February 1947), violinist

London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Claudio Abbado

Dancer Adjusting her Sandal, 1890 (pastel)

(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

13 August 2013

WordPress

Edgar Degas’ Apparent Serenity

10 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Alan Gowans, Degas' female nudes, Edgar Degas, genre painting, Impressionism, the Bellilli family, the industrial revolution, Tony Emery

The Tub (Le Bain), by Edgar Degas, 1886 (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

Edgar Degas (b. Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas [19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917])

We associate the art of Edgar Degas with portraits, the depiction of ballet dancers, horses, horse racing, and people engaged in everyday activity (genre painting). We also know that he taught Mary Cassatt to make etchings. It proved extremely useful as Cassatt would later make prints using drypoint. In 1890, Cassatt visited the Paris Japanese Arts Exhibition of 1890 (wood-block ukiyo-e prints), held at the École des Beaux-Arts. That exhibition had such an impact on artist Mary Cassatt that she decided to devote the following year to making prints. In short, Cassatt and Degas were very good friends.

Degas’ Apparent Serenity

When I started studying the fine arts, our teacher, Tony Emery, told the class that Degas’ lovely depictions of ballerinas expressed not serenity, but a rather dark view of the world. Another teacher, Professor Alan Gowans[i] made similar statements. The ballet dancer is “the perfect symbol of a rigidly organized society.” Degas was “commenting of the human condition.”[ii] The industrial revolution had transformed humans into robot-like workers who performed the same motion in a repetitive manner, as did ballet dancers.

Remember William Blake‘s (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) “dark Satanic Mills.” The “dark Satanic Mills” may have been Blake’s response to “orthodox churches of the establishment,” (see The Gardian) but it was also a response to the industrial revolution. Humans working in factories were like the machines they used to produce “goods.” In this regard, Professor Gowans points to three paintings: “The Bellilli Family,” “The Cotton Merchants” (1863), and “The Milliners’ Shop.” In “The Bellilli family,” we sense rigidity. In “The Cotton Merchants,” human beings stand behind the cotton. In “The Milliners’ Shop,” the milliner sits behind the “hats and hat racks.” They completely “dominate the milliner herself.”[iii]

(Please click on the smaller images to enlarge them.)

cotton-merchants-in-new-orleans-1873.jpg!HalfHD

The Bellilli Family, by Edgar Degas, 1867 (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

The Cotton Merchants, by Edgar Degas, 1873 (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

The Milliners’ Shop, by Edgar Degas 1884 (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

Professor Gowans also refers to Degas’ “handling of the nude.” Degas’ bathers are depicted “climbing awkwardly and unobtrusively in and out of bathtubs, having their hair dried, and so on…” (See Woman Leaving Her Bath.)[iv] For my part, however, I rather like the painting featured at the top of this post, but other portraits of nudes are less flattering. Degas tended to paint anonymous human beings. We see the back of their head or body. However, his paintings are consistent with genre painting. He captures his subjects in medias res, in the midst of things (Horace).

Woman in a Bath Sponging her Leg, by Edgar Degas, 1884 (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

The Tub (Le Bain), by Edgar Degas, 1886 (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

Biographical Notes

Degas was born, in Paris, to a wealthy family. His mother was a Creole and he had family, a brother, an uncle and other relatives, in Louisiana. Degas visited with them after the Franco-Prussian War. He was in New Orleans in 1872-73, living at his uncle’s home. After his father’s death, he learned that his brother René had incurred an enormous debt. Degas therefore sold the family home in Paris as well as the artwork he had inherited. He would, however, become an avid collector when he started selling his own artwork.

In 1853, Degas enrolled in the Faculty of Law at the University of Paris, where he was not an enthusiastic student. He did however have a studio in the family’s home. To begin with, he was therefore mostly self-trained and did not enter the École des Beaux-Arts until he met Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) who encouraged him to pursue a career in the fine arts. So, two years after enrolling in the Faculty of Law, he entered l’École des Beaux-Arts where he was a student of Louis Lamothe. Later, in 1861, he visited his childhood friend Paul Valpinçon, in Normandy, where he made studies of horses. Horse racing would become the subject matter of many of his paintings.

Schools

Degas disliked being called an Impressionist. In fact, other artists, such as Mary Cassatt and Édouard Manet, were artists whose artwork had been rejected by the Salon, the official exhibition of Paris’ École des Beaux-Arts. They were the refusés. There was only one Salon des refusés, in 1763. Consequently, it may be useful to revisit Impressionism. It was not a genuine “school,” except for a common wish to suggest or evoke, a wish stemming, to a large extent, from the invention of photography as well as Japonisme. The ukiyo-e (“pictures of the floating world”) prints artists and art lovers collected were mass-produced prints.

racehorses-before-the-stands-1872_jpg!HD

Racehorses before the Stands, by Edgar Degas, 1872

Chevaux de courses devant les tribunes

(Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

However, Degas would make fun of artists who worked en plein air. Moreover Degas preferred to be described as a realist. He may in fact have known “naturalist,” writers, the most prominent being French author Émile Zola, its founder. We have reached a point in the history of art where there occurred a blending of the visual arts, literature and music. During Degas’ lifetime, Émile Zola was a key figure among French writers and intellectuals. But unlike Zola, who wrote the famous J’Accuse during the Dreyfus affair, blatant anti-Semitism on the part of the French military and the French clergy — the latter apologized, Degas had no sympathy for Jews nor, for that matter, anyone else.

Progressive Blindness

At the age of 35, Degas started losing his eyesight and died a nearly blind man. As he aged, he grew into an embittered individual which may have been caused by the progressive loss of his most precious sense: sight, not to mention skepticism as to his condition, the skepticism the deaf face: “he or she hears when he or she wants to.” One thinks of Ludwig van Beethoven (baptized 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) whose hearing was impaired beginning with the “Eroica,” Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major (Op. 55), first performed on 7 April 1805, when he was 35.

So, according to two of my teachers, Degas was one of the first artists to depict the profound sense of alienation that characterizes modern “man,” i.e. men and women. In such cases, magical realism, the ability to fantasize, falls short of a human being’s needs.

I will conclude by pointing out that reception is a factor in the description and classification of works of art. For many of us, Degas’ dancers are graceful and carefree young women who have the innocence of his fourteen-year-old little dancer, featured below.

fourteen-year-old-little-dancer.jpg!HalfHD

Fourteen-year Old Little Dancer, 1881

(Photo Credit: Wikipaintings)

_____________________________

[i] Alan Gowans, The Restless Art, A History of Painters and Painting 1760 – 1960 (Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1966), p. 209.

[ii] Gowans, loc. cit.

[iii] Gowans, loc. cit.

[iv] Gowans, loc. cit.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893)

“Swan Lake” Op. 20, (composed in 1875–1876)

Armonie Symphony Orchestra

The Star Dancer on Stage,

L’Étoile

pastel, 1878

(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

10 August 2013

WordPress

Cupid and Psyche, or Magical Realism

07 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Literature

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Apuleius, Cupid and Psyche, Jocabus de Voragine, Magic Realism and Idealism, Marc Chagall, metamorphoses, The Golden Ass, The Golden Legend, Winged Creatures

The Fiddler, by Marc Chagall, 1913 (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

Marc Chagall (6 July 1887 – 28 March 1985)

Cupid and Psyche as Magical Realism

Mythology and Magical Realism

According to Professor Matthew Strecher’s magic realism is “what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe.”[1] Magical Realism is a main characteristic of Latin-American literature, but it has gained adherent elsewhere and it is not new. It present readers with a juxtaposition of what is usually considered the “real,” the “unreal,” and the “surreal.” An angel just may enter a room and play a role in a fictitious text. (See Magic Magic Realism, Wikipedia,)

The author of Wikipedia’s entry on magic realism states that “[t]his critical perspective towards magical realism as a conflict between reality and abnormality stems from the Western reader’s dissociation with mythology, a root of magical realism more easily understood by non-Western cultures.” (See Magic realism, Wikipedia)

Marc Chagall

In the visual arts, Marc Chagall (6 July 1887 – 28 March 1985) presents us with better examples of what could be called “magical realism,” whatever “school” his paintings are attached to. In the so-called “real” world, people seldom float in mid-air. But the world is not always real and the human imagination pushes its limits. We know that angels do not exist, but we nevertheless make room for them. In fact, we swear on the Bible, in which, ironically, angels dwell.

Apuleius’ Golden Ass

Apuleius‘ (c. 125 – c. 180 CE) Golden Ass is a novel, the first novel we have inherited in its entirety from Greco-Roman antiquity. First entitled Metamorphoses, the novel was renamed by Augustine of Hippo (St. Augustine). It is rather lewd, but The Tale of Cupid and Psyche isn’t, and mere mortals mix with immortal gods. This may confirm that magical realism has replaced mythology, but it may not.

It consists of a frame story and inner stories called “digressions.” One of these digressions, the third, The Tale of Cupid and Psyche, belongs to mythology and is a distant forerunner of magical realism in that its dramatis personæ includes mortals and immortals who mingle informally. Venus, the immortal Roman goddess of love, whose Greek counterpart is Aphrodite, is featured next to Psyche’s father and seems a mere mortal.

Paris through the Window, by Marc Chagall, 1913 (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

The Birthday, by Marc Chagall, 1915 (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

The Tale of Cupid and Psyche

In The Golden Ass, Lucius is transformed into a donkey, which normally is not possible. Metamorphoses belong to a realm most would look upon as “unreal.” It is fantasy. Yet Ovid‘s (20 March 43 BCE – 17/18 CE), Metamorphoses is one of Western culture’s most influential books. Human beings do not float in mid-air, with the exception of astronauts, nor can they fly, but the human imagination can imagine another reality and that reality possesses a form of “truth.”

It remains, however, that Apuleius’ mythological third digression, The Tale of Cupid and Psyche, is pure fiction. Psyches lives in a world where gods and mere mortals mingle, which is not possible outside fiction. Consequently, The Tale of Cupid and Psyche seems an instance of magical realism avant la lettre, i.e. before the term was coined.

For instance, early in the narrative, Psyches’ father, who would like his unfortunate daughter to find a suitable husband, went to Milet, an ancient Greek city, now found in Turkey, and called Miletus, “to receive the Oracle of Apollo, where he made his prayers and offered sacrifice, and desired a husband for his daughter whose elder daughters are married to kings.” Although Apollo is a Greek god, he replies in Latin and says:

Let Psyches corps be clad in mourning weed

And set on rock of yonder hill aloft:

Her husband is no wight of humane seed,

But Serpent dire and fierce as might be thought.

Who flies with wings above in starry skies,

And doth subdue each thing with firie flight.

The gods themselves, and powers that seem so wise,

With mighty Jove [Jupiter] be subject to his might,

The rivers blacke, and deadly flouds of paine

And darkness eke, as thrall to him remaine.

(Apuleius, The Golden Asse, Book 4, Chapter 22

Translated by William Adlington

The Gutenberg Project [EBook #1666])

Having heard the Oracle, Psyches’ father does take her up a hill and sets her “on rock of yonder hill aloft” where she is left “weeping and trembling,” but is “blowne by the gentle aire and of shrilling Zephyrus, and carried from the hill with a meek winde, which retained her garments up, and by little and little bought her downe into a deepe valley, where she was laid in a bed of most sweet and fragrant flowers.”

Instead of taking her where “she may fall in love with the most miserablest [that word should be reinvented] creature living,” as Venus has asked Cupid, Venus’ son, makes himself invisible and has the wind “Zephyrus” transport her to a “bed of most sweet and fragrant flowers.” Here again, we have an example of magical realism, even if Psyches is “clad in mourning weed,” which suggests that she has died. However, her sisters, mortals, visit her.

The “fairy tale” begins and, after the compulsory tasks—three in most fairy tales—have been performed, Psyches is transformed into a goddess, which may be her rightful self. In the “real” world, she is the victim of envy. In fact, Venus herself, a goddess who mingles with mortals, which is magical realism, is so envious of her that she wants her destroyed. However, In fact, Venus herself, a goddess who mingles with mortals, which is magical realism, is so envious of her that she wants her destroyed. However, as the most beautiful woman in the world, Psyches is an oddity, so her becoming a goddess seems appropriate.

The Golden Legend

We may have forgotten the names of the god and goddesses of mythology. However, the human imagination is such that if mythology did not exist humans would probably invent a replacement, such as magical realism. The bestseller of the Middle Ages was not the Bible, but Jacobus de Voragine’s fanciful Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea), an embellished hagiography or telling of the lives of saints, in general, and martyrs (martyrologies), in particular.

RELATED ARTICLES

The Golden Legend Revisited (12 February 2013)
The Golden Legend: my Missing Paragraphs (6 February 2012)
Jacques de Voragine & the Golden Legend (6 February 2012)

Sources and Resources

Useful Site: http://postcolonialstudies.emory.edu/magical-realism/#ixzz2bIEZd4f8

LIST OF MODERN AUTHORS: Magical Realism

Isabel Allende
Kwame Anthony Appiah
Allejo Carpentier
Syl Cheney-Coker
Kojo Laing
Mario Vargas Llosa
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Toni Morrison
Ben Okri
Salman Rushdie

The Promenade, by Marc Chagall, 1918 (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

[1] Matthew C. Strecher, “Magical Realism and the Search for Identity in the Fiction of Murakami Haruki,” Journal of Japanese Studies, Volume 25, Number 2 (Summer 1999), pp. 263-298, at 267.

http://www.wikiart.org/en/marc-chagall/to-russia-with-asses-and-others

To Russia with Asses and Others, 1912 (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

W. A. Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791)

Piano Concerto n° 23 (Adagio)

The Blue House, by Marc Chagall

(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

6 August 2013

WordPress

Apuleius’ Cupid and Psyche

04 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Love, Metamorphosis, Myths

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Apuleius, César Franck, Cupid and Psyche, Digressions, Fairy Tales and Fables, metamorphosis, Ovid, Picaresque, The Golden Ass, Winged Creatures

waterhouse_psyche_opening_the_golden_box

Psyche opening the Golden Box, by John William Waterhouse (1903)

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

(Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

The Golden Ass is a Project Gutenberg publication: [EBook #1666] Book 4, Chapter 22[i]

Ovid (20 March 43 BCE – CE 17/18) is the author of the Metamorphoses, a fifteen-book Latin narrative written in dactylic hexameter, the “noble verse.”

Apuleius (c. 125 – c. 180 CE) is the author of the Golden Ass (Asinus Aureus) an eleven-book Latin narrative, first entitled Metamorphoses, but renamed The Golden Ass by Augustine of Hippo (St Augustine).

800px-WLA_brooklynmuseum_Wedgewood-Marriage_of_Cupid_and_Psyche

Marriage of Cupid and Psyche (ca. 1773), jasperware by Wedgwood based on the 1st-century Marlborough gem, which most likely was intended to depict an initiation rite (Brooklyn Museum) Photo credit: Wikipedia

Fables

In November 2011, I wrote a post on Apuleius‘ Golden Ass, the only novel that has come down to us from Latin Antiquity in its entirety and which happens to be about metamorphoses. I am revisiting the Golden Ass because we have looked at fables in which a cat and a mouse are metamorphosed respectively into a woman and a maid. In the world of fables, a realistic world, nature will out, so our cat and mouse return to their natural selves.

The Cat Metamorphosed into a Woman (based on Æsop’s Venus and the Cat, The Project Gutenberg [EBook #11339])
The Mouse Metamorphosed into a Maid (based on the Sanskrit Panchatantra)

Other fiction featuring metamorphoses

Fairy tales;
Werewolf stories (lycanthropy).[ii]

Fairy tales are home to metamorphoses. Beast is turned into a beast and will remain a beast until Beauty accepts to marry him as he is, i.e. as Beast. The moment Beauty tells Beasts that she will marry him, a curse is lifted and beast returns to his former princely self. Such is the stuff of fairy tales. But let us look at sources.

Ovid and Apuleius

The theme of metamorphosis is rooted mainly in Ovid‘s Metamorphoses and, to a lesser extent, in Apuleius‘ The Golden Ass, first entitled Metamorphoses. In The Golden Ass, Lucius is accidentally metamorphosed into an animal and that animal happens to be a donkey, which may explain why Augustine of Hippo (St Augustine) “demoted” Apuleius’ Metamorphoses by giving it a different title. Augustine renamed the book The Golden Ass and The Golden Ass it has remained, despite one rather lofty “digression,” the tale of Cupid and Psyche. Psyches, the most beautiful woman in the world, will be metamorphosed into a goddess by the ultimate fairy godmother, the gods of Greco-Roman antiquity assembled.

The Golden Ass

The Outer Story

The Golden Ass combines an outer story and inner stories. The outer story is called a frame story. The inner stories are sometimes called in-set stories. In the case of The Golden Ass, the outer story is a rather lewd account of the transformation of Lucius, as in Lucius Apuleius (Apulée), into a donkey.

Lucius wishes to become a sorcerer, or a witch, so he can transform himself into a bird and is told by his friend Milo that Milo’s wife is a witch who can transform herself into a bird. Lucius watches her metamorphosing herself into a bird and accidentally turns his own person into a donkey. At the end of the novel, after all sorts of trials and tribulations, Lucius retrieves his human form, assisted by Isis, a goddess and a magician.

The Inner Stories or “Digressions” are:

By and large, the inner or in-set stories or tales bear some resemblance to the outer story. The story is different but the tone is that of Lucius, now transformed into a donkey. The exception is Cupid and Psyche. We are transported into a world filled with gods and goddesses, but these gods and goddesses sometimes mingle with mere mortals. We therefore have a taste of magic realism. Professor Matthew Strecher defines magic realism as “what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe.” (See Magic Realism, Wikipedia.)

In psychology the word “psyche” refers to the mind but to a large extent, it also refers to the soul, which is immortal. The “digression,” or in-set tale, is entitled Cupid and Psyche, but Psyche’s name is Psyches. She is the third daughter of a King, a motif which links her to fairy tale protagonists. Moreover, Psyches has two married but jealous sisters, as does Cinderella. However, the third daughter marries a god. Cinderella has to settle for a mere prince.

Consequently, the tale of Cupid and Psyche is a “digression.” The main link between Cupid and Psyche and The Golden Ass is a metamorphosis, except that Psyches does not turn into an animal. On the contrary, her appearance does not change and her story is one of upward mobility. Psyche means soul. She escapes mortality, the human condition, by becoming a goddess. The soul is immortal.

love-and-psyche-1899

Cupid and Psyche, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1889)

(Photo credit: Wikipaintings)

Cupid and Psyche

(quotations, including the spelling, are from [EBook #1666] Book 4, Chapter 22)

The Romans borrowed Greek mythology but changed the name of each god. Venus is the Latin name for Aphrodite.

The story has several variants, but basically it is about jealousy. Venus (Aphrodite), the goddess of love is jealous of a human being, Psyche or Psyches, the third and only unmarried daughter of a King and Queen. She is considered more beautiful than Venus and people travel long distances to see her. Venus is jealous and sends her son Cupid (Eros) to find “the most miserablest creature living” and make him Psyches’ husband.

Meanwhile, Psyches has been placed at the top of a hill as her parents think a man might take her at last. She is not married. Cupid, who has made himself invisible, does not perform his dastardly deed. Psyches is “blowne by the gentle aire and of shrilling Zephyrus” to a castle. They become man and wife: “after that hee had make a perfect consummation of the marriage.” But he only visits during the night and he has directed her not to look at him during his nightly visits.

Psyches is pregnant and misses her sisters, so Cupid allows them to visit. When they arrive, they praise her: “O dear sister Psyches, know you that you are now no more a child, but a mother: O what great joy beare you unto us in you belly?”

Both older sisters are unhappily married and jealous of Psyche who lives in a castle. To get rid of the husband she is not allowed to see, they fool Psyche into thinking that Cupid is a monstrous serpent and must be killed. As her sisters suggest, Psyches carries a candle so she can see Cupid and kill him: “with your bare feet goe and take the lampe, with the Razor in your right hand and with valiant force cut off the head of the poisonous serpent, wherein we will aid and assist you: and when by the death of him you shall be made safe, we wil marry to some comely man.” Psyches sees Cupid and falls in love, but a drop of hot wax falls from the candle and burns Cupid inadvertently. He wakes up and leaves as he had warned he would: “hee commaunded Zephyrus to carry me away from the bounds of his house.”

After she has been abandoned, Psyches goes looking for Cupid. At one point, she seeks the help of Venus, not knowing that Venus is her enemy. Venus asks Psyches to perform impossible tasks, the last of which is deadly. Venus wants Psyches to fetch beauty from Proserpina, Queen of the Underworld, put some of that beauty into a golden box, and return the box to her. Alas, one does not return from the Underworld, which means that Psyches will die if she goes to the Underworld.

Knowing that she must die, Psyches climbs to the top of a tower and is about to throw herself down when the tower starts to speak. She is told how to appease Cerberus

(Kerberos), the three-headed dog who guards the entrance to the Underworld. Proserpina (Persephone) gives Psyches the box, but instead of beauty, it contains infernal sleep. Psyches is curious, opens the box, and lapses into a coma.

By then, Cupid (Éros), who has wings, the equivalent of a magic carpet, has forgiven Psyches and flies to her rescue. A kiss revives her and they then go to Jupiter (Zeus). Cupid asks Jupiter to transform Psyches into a goddess. Jupiter appeases Venus and he then convenes the gods who, after deliberating, grant Cupid’s request. Cupid’s Psyches is therefore transformed into a goddess by drinking ambrosia (“ambroisie,” or Nectar), the drink of Greek gods, and therefore escapes the human condition: mortality.

“And then he [Jupiter] tooke a pot of immortality, and said, Hold Psyches, and drinke, to the end thou maist be immortall, and that Cupid may be thine everlasting husband. By and by the great banket and marriage feast was sumptuously prepared, Cupid sate downe with his deare spouse between his armes: Juno likewise with Jupiter, and all the other gods in order, Ganimedes filled the port of Jupiter, and Bacchus served the rest. Their drinke was Nectar the wine of the gods, Vulcanus prepared supper, the howers decked up the house with roses and other sweet smells, the Graces threw about blame, the Muses sang with sweet harmony, Apollo tuned pleasantly to the Harpe, Venus danced finely: Satirus and Paniscus plaid on their pipes; and thus Psyches was married to Cupid, and after she was delivered of a child whom we call Pleasure.”

Proserpina, by

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1874),

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Comments

Psyche

In Apuleius, Psyche is Psyches and has parents. She seems a human being. Moreover, in mythology, gods lose their godliness through sexual contact, generally, with a mortal being. Psyches is a human being and, therefore, a mortal. So it is not possible for her to be transformed into the mortal she already is. Therefore, Apuleius presents us with a complicated “digression.” Psyches is metamorphosed into a goddess, an immortal being, by drinking ambrosia, and then gives birth to a child named Pleasure. It is all very fanciful. Psyche means the soul and the soul is immortal.

A Fairy Tale: to a certain Extent

The tale of Cupid and Psyche provides us with a template associated with fairy tales: the rags to riches narrative of Cinderella. Psyches becomes a goddess. We also have jealous sisters, not to mention a jealous Venus, a mother-in-law (a stepmother). As for the invisible Cupid, he could well be a monstrous beast, in which case, Cupid and Psyche could be associated with Beauty and the Beast. The tale of Cupid and Psyche is in fact associated with Beauty and the Beast.

“The fairy tales which modern scholars most often discuss in relation to an antecedent myth are those which involve an animal as bride-groom, best known by versions of ‘Beauty and the Beast’.”[iii]

According to the Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, the story of Cupid and Psyche is both a myth and a fairy tale, but the theme is not consistent with fairy tales. Unlike Beauty, Psyches does not have to lift a curse by saying she will marry Cupid. She must perform chores, imposed by Venus, to be reunited with Cupid, but there is no disenchantment, i.e. no curse has turned Cupid into an animal-groom, so no curse has to be lifted.

“In fairy tale versions the question normally ends with a disenchantment motif as the heroine regains her partner by ending the spell which has enchanted him.”[iv]

Conclusion

Although Cupid and Psyche has affinities with fairy tales, it may be prudent not to classify it as such, except loosely. Classifications are helpful, but they should not be a Procrustean bed. The bed would always be too short or too long, and limbs therefore stretched or amputated. In Cupid and Psyche a man, albeit a god, comes to the rescue of a damsel in distress who is despised because she is the most beautiful woman in the world. The story moves forward propelled by a feeling inextricably linked with love which, in literature, may be jealousy.

However, in Cupid and Psyche, the wedding that constitutes the proper ending of fairy tales and comedies seems out of place, but is it? Cupid and Psyche became man and wife after he flew her to her castle: “after that hee had made a perfect consummation of the marriage.” She was not allowed to look at him, but when night fell, he “visited” her. This seems consistent with a myth. However, the tale of Cupid and Psyche is that of a pre-existing union. Consequently, the wedding takes on other virtues. It could well be the official celebration of a threatened marriage. “All’s well that ends well.”

From the point of view of literary history, authors such as Chaucer (the many Tales), Shakespeare, Dante and Boccaccio (The Decameron) were inspired by tales contained in Ovid‘s Metamorphoses. The first translation of the Metamorphoses in English was by William Caxton in 1480. Caxton is also the first English printer. He printed Reynard the Fox. Apuleius’ Golden Ass inspired Laurence Sterne (Tristram Shandy), Henry Fielding (Tom Jones) and Jean de La Fontaine.

Psyche’s Wedding, by Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1895), Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

______________________________

[i] The Golden Asse. Translated by William Adlington, first published 1566. This version is as reprinted from the edition of 1639. The original spelling, capitalisation and punctuation have been retained. [EBook #1666]

[ii] A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or an therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction (e.g. via a bite or scratch from another werewolf). Early sources for belief in lycanthropy are Petronius (c. 27 – 66 BCE) and Gervase of Tilbury (c. 1150 – c. 1228 CE).

(See Werewolf, Wikipedia.)

[iii] John Stephens, “Myth/Mythology and Fairy Tales,” ed. Jack Zipes, The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 330-334.

[iv] Loc. cit.

César Franck (10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890)

Psyché et Éros

William Revelli (12 February 1902 – 16 July 1994)

Micheline Walker

4 August 2013

WordPress

Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss

Antonio Canova (1757 – 1822)

Musée du Louvre

(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

The Last few Days

04 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Sharing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, François Boucher, Haydn, Managing CFS, Rococo, teaching

Woman’s Head, by François Boucher (c. 1750)

François Boucher (29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770)

Rococo artist

Dear Readers,

For the last few days, I have not been well. So it has been impossible for me to write posts. There have been perturbing events in my life and these have triggered a rather severe episode of fatigue. In 1976, I caught a flu from which I never fully recovered. It was the onset of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Most of the time, I can manage this limitation sufficiently to write blogs and, if not assigned an unreasonable workload, it did not prevent me from being a productive university teacher. However, I did not have much of a social life. There wasn’t enough time.

My students often told me that I was the only professor who realized my course was not the only course they took. Obviously, I was pacing myself, which turned out to be helpful to my students. I also prepared my classes long before I taught them so I would always be ready. Would that I could have made better use of the internet. During the years I taught, the internet was not what it has become.

I always taught at least one language course and invited students to do the exercises contained in their textbook so I could tell whether or not they had understood. I did not give them a grade for these exercises, because it was practice. All were corrected and returned the next time I saw them. It was useful feedback and a form of communication with each student. Students who did not understand received private tutoring.

Yesterday, I started writing a blog on “Cupid and Psyche,” a “digression” in Apuleius‘ Golden Ass, but I could not finish it. It will have to be more concise.

Love to all of you.

Micheline

Joseph Haydn (31 March 1732 – 31 May 1809)

“String Quartet for Strings“