I am still unwell. I believe my illness is pericarditis, the first diagnosis. It may have been a reaction to a Covid vaccine. Vaccines may cause Pericarditis and Myocarditis, but it remains best to be vaccinated.
People suffering from pericarditis are usually prescribed colchicine. I was not. Colchicine may have been all I needed. I was prescribed corticosteroids and morphine in Magog. Pericarditis is extremely painful. So, this medication is appropriate temporarily.
In his Buffon des enfants, Félix Lorioux followed in Buffon’s footpath. Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, (1707-1788) was a scientist. He classified his animals, and so did Lorioux. However, our second image shows a winged creature. It is a rooster and it may well be the emblematic coq gaulois (as in Gallic), the rooster of France. In 1870, France, under the French Second Empire, attacked Prussia. Self-proclaimed French Emperor Napoléon III was taken prisoner at the Battle of Sedan. The Franco-Prussian War was a bitter defeat for France. When it signed the Treaty of Frankfurt, in 1871, France gave Germany billions of francs in war indemnity, as well as most of Alsace and parts of Lorraine. (See Franco-Prussian War, Wikipedia.) I suspect, therefore, a soupçon of nationalism in Lorioux’s Les Oiseaux de chez nous (Our Birds) and Les Insectes de chez nous (Our Insects). France was again declared a republic, the French Third Republic, which lasted until 1940.
Le Buffon des enfants par Félix Lorioux: Les InsectesLe Buffon des enfants par Félix Lorioux: Les InsectesLe Buffon des enfants par Félix Lorioux: Les Insectes
Anthropomorphism
Lorioux’s insects are not only French; they are also anthropomorphic, or humans in disguise. Our insect musician, just above, has a dressed insect audience. Also, look at the image below this paragraph. It also has an audience. If they are dressed like human beings, animals are closer to children. Taming his animals reflects Lorioux’s insight into the nature of children. Here, Lorioux exemplifies a child’s need to identify with the animals of illustrations. One also senses that Lorioux was influenced by the very talented and numerous English illustrators of his age or nearly so.
Le Buffon des enfants par Félix Lorioux: Les Insectes
Conclusion
The Internet has a limited number of illustrations by Loriaux. I will have to purchase books Lorioux published. Le Buffon des enfants was Lorioux’ finest achievement. Consequently, Le Buffon des enfants is a good example of Lorioux’s immense talent. The main, if not the only, source of Loriaux’s pictures featuring birds and insects is: https://animationresources.org/illustration-felix-loriouxs-fantastic-worlds/ It is an admirable site. Lorioux’s use of pink is most fortunate. What insects are seeking in blushing flowers is their nectar.
We are leaving language laws and medicine in Quebec. My next post is about French illustrator Félix Lorioux (1872–1964).
I wanted to publish it today, but my current illness is stubborn. I must spend a week or so in Sherbrooke, but I will be returning to my friend’s home. The company of friends and readers is precious. So is the magic of this season.
Love to everyone 💕
Cendrillon by Félix Lorioux
“The Fox and the Crow” by Félix Lorioux (Pinterest)
In an earlier post, I mentioned that Pierre Séguier owned the French collection (Paris) of the Oxford-Paris-Londres Bible. Pierre Séguier was one of a handful of individuals who ruled France in the seventeenth century. He purchased the Paris selection of the Bible moralisée. However, he also conducted the trial of Nicolas Fouquet, France’s Superintendant of Finances (1653-1661). (See RELATED ARTICLES.)
In the same post, I described our four Bibles as paradox literature. That paragraph is no longer part of my post. I may have erased it mistakenly or it may have been removed. It could wait. Paradox literature is defined as follows:
In literature, the paradox is an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unexpected insight. It functions as a method of literary composition and analysis that involves examining apparently contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to reconcile them or to explain their presence.
Yes, there is a paradox. God used an instrument that man would create: the compass. The artists who illuminated the Creation depicted tools that would make sense to their contemporaries, not to mention the artists themselves. In fact, these examples showed that man was creative. God Himself had to be recognizable. The four depictions of God we have seen could be understood by the humblest among us. Northrop Frye writes that:
Present things are related to past things in such a way that cognition becomes the same thing as re-cognition, awareness that a present effect is a past cause in another form.
Northrop Frye [2]
So, we have created myths, stories (mythoi) of causality.
_________________________ [1] Rescher, Nicholas. Paradoxes:Their Roots, Range, and Resolution. Open Court: Chicago, 2001. [2] Northrop Frye, Creation and Recreation (University of Toronto Press, 1980), p. 59.
Love to everyone 💕
Haydn: Die Schöpfung Hob. XXI:2 / Erster Teil – 1A. Einleitung: “Die Vorstellung des Chaos”
This may seem to contradict an earlier post on Intellectual Property, but it doesn’t.
One copies, but one names one’s source. My post on Coronavirus can be shared.
Would that we could listen time and again to Smetana’s “Moldau.” Played on the harp by a lovely young woman, it is heavenly. But the spectrum of heavenly music is rather wide.
Prince Riding an Elephant, painting by Khem Karan, 16th–17th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
This is such a cheerful painting. It’s a watercolour, but an opaque watercolour. After stretching his wet paper, the artist allowed it to dry before applying colours.
“Prince Riding an Elephant” is simply delightful.
Today, I am posting images depicting a playful Islam. Some of these images you have already seen. They are simply favourite images.
Pour St Moritz by George Barbier (Photo credit: Google Images)
I have been trying to understand the conflict in the Middle East, but had to pause because reports I read seemed to contradict one another.
It therefore occurred to me to send you an amusing post.
The Monvel are a dynasty. Bernard is the son of Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel (18 October 1850 – 16 March 1913), but he had cousins who where also illustrators and designers. George Barbier (1882–1932) was a first cousin who made illustrations for fashion magazines. He may be the better-known Boutet de Monvel. Pierre Brissaud (23 December 1885–1964) was also a first cousin.
However, the most sophisticated and wealthiest was Bernard Boutet de Monvel (9 August 1881 – 28 October 1949) who travelled back and forth between Paris and New York to decorate homes. He was enormously talented and elegant. Bernard was killed in the plane crash that also took the life of Ginette Neveu (11 August 1919 – 28 October 1949) and her brother, her accompanist. Ginette Neveu was one of the best violinists ever. World boxing champion Marcel Cerdan, Édith Piaf‘s partner at the time, was another victim of the crash.
Bernard Boutet de Monvel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A Golden Age of Illustration
France didn’t have a Golden Age of illustration, at least not for children’s literature. However, it had a golden age of fashion illustrators whose pochoirs (stencils) appeared on the cover of French magazines and other magazines, such as Vogue. Particularly famous was George Barbier who is associated mainly with La Gazette du bon ton. George Barbierand Pierre Brissaud were Bernard’s first cousins. All were illustrators, but none had the sophistication of Bernard Boutet de Monvel. Bernard was a work of art as a person and slightly précieux. His portrait of The Maharaja of Indore seems a reflection of Bernard Boutet de Monvel, the artist.
The Maharaja of Indore by Bernard Boutet de Monvel, c. 1934 (Photo credit: Google Images)
Fashion and the Ballets Russes
In other words, France had its Golden Age of illustrators, but only Louis-Maurice, Bernard’s father, was mainly an illustrator of children’s literature, not his son nor his nephews, George Barbier and Pierre Brissaud. They illustrated fashion magazines and worked for the BalletsRusses, as did Pablo Picasso.
My posts on the Boutet de Monvel dynasty generated an interest in pochoirs. Reproductions are now available from various companies.
For the moment, however, we will glimpse the art of British artists, some of whom had been or were members of the Arts and Crafts movement (1890 – 1920) or had benefited from the broadening of objects and styles considered artistic introduced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, founded in 1848. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood conferred acceptability to areas of the visual arts that had seemed marginal in earlier years, such as history painting and the illustration of books, children’s literature especially, and artwork that was reproduced, or prints.
Such movements broke with the constraints of academic painting and introduced a democratization of art. The “beautiful” could be found in a piece of textile or wallpaper, the decoration of a room, or to put it in a nutshell: design. Given the breadth of this subject, I will show art by Walter Crane, Arthur Rackham and Sir John Tenniel. This particular post is an illustrated introduction.
Tenniel, White Rabbit, dresses as herald, blowing trumpet (37)
Tenniel, White Rabbit checking watch (2)
A Mad Tea-Party,Alice in Wonderland by Sir John Tenniel (25) (Courtesy ofThe British Library)
Town mouse and country mouse by Arthur Rackham (Photo credit: Google Images)
Centuries of Childhood
acceptance of childhood
moralistic literature
oral tradition
As it flourished, the illustration of children’s literature reflected a major transformation. Childhood was not born until recently, which can be explained, at least in part, by the high mortality rate among children. Too few reached adulthood. Besides, children’s literature had been put into the service of education. It was didactic and moralistic, or so people thought. (See Philippe Ariès and Centuries of Childhood, Wikipedia.) It was as though children were born tainted with the original sin, a condition baptism did not correct fully.
In literature, Æsopic fables flourished long before Beatrix Potter (Peter Rabbit). There are several illustrators of Æsopic fables who are also, to a large extent, illustrators of Jean de La Fontaine. Jean de La Fontaine retold a large number of Æsopic fables that had been taken away from the realm of oral tradition beginning with Latin author Phædrus (1st century CE) and Greek author Babrius (2nd century CE). (See Phædrus [fabulist], Wikipedia.) These were supposedly didactic, but the Horatian ideal, to inform and to delight, was not always served. Children were delighted and did not necessarily identify with the careless behaviour of a mere grasshopper. The tale was not about the behaviour of children; it was about the behaviour of a grasshopper. Children knew the difference.
Illustrations have solid roots in Western culture. Jean de France, duc de Berry paid a fortune for his illustrated Très Riches Heures. But it could well be that Japonism triggered the British Golden Age of illustration and its large European counterpart. Japan had isolated itself in the 17th century (1633–39). No one could enter or leave Japan under penalty of death. That period of Japan’s history is called the Sakoku period, which ended in 1853 with the forcible entry of the Black Ships of Commodore Matthew Perry.
However, as of 1860, Europe was flooded with Japanese prints. As prints, these were not the unique works of art Europeans created (beginning with the 8th-century Book of Kells). After the invention the printing press, certain books were still illuminated by hand. But, as of 1501, printers no longer left room on a page for an illustrator to illuminate a printed text. The hand-painted printed books produced during the period that spans the invention of printing and the demise of hand-painted books are called incunabula(les incunables).
Contrary to Europeans, the Japanese printed their artwork and these were considered by Europeans to be genuine artwork, despite duplication. Even Vincent van Gogh could afford a Japanese print of which he liked both the style and the subject matter. He did not learn a printing technique, but Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Mary Cassatt did. Art had become affordable and it spread to design, to use a broad term. Moreover, certain artists’ Japonism consisted in including the objects of the Orient in their paintings: white and blue porcelain, fans, screens… Many artists also liked the beau idéal Japan proposed.
Ironically, appreciation of Japan’s beau idéal contributed to the emergence of Art Nouveau, Art Deco and, eventually, modernism. Art Nouveau flourished during the golden years of illustration. However, the most significant element Japonism brought to European art was an acceptance of art reproduced: prints.
Japanese artists reproduced their art, called ukiyo-e, using wood block printing. Consequently, they did not adhere to the notion that a work of art should be unique and original. Apprenticeship consisted in attempting to master the art of one’s master. For Japanese artists, beauty was not a matter of taste. They supported the concept of a beau idéal, which meant that, in their eyes, beauty was one of a kind, but not the artwork.
Prints
It is in this respect, the acceptability of prints, that Japonism paved the way for the golden age of illustrations (see Illustration, Wikipedia). Many of us do purchase original art, but a reproduction can provide the same pleasure as the original. Such is the case of my beloved Child Händel. It is an inexpensive copy of a painting by Margaret Isabel Dicksee, but I like it. So did Walter Shaw Sparrow and Ralph Peacock who either compiled, the former, or, the latter, wrote a chapter of Women Painters of the World (Gutenberg [EBook #39000]).
As it happens, a poster by Toulouse-Lautrec may cost millions. Several copies were made, but few are available and the art of Toulouse-Lautrec is considered beautiful by a large number of art lovers. Although beauty is in the eye of the beholder, there is a significant degree of unanimity with respect to the beauty of certain works of art.
Early Illustrators
Jean de La Fontaine‘s Fables were illustrated from the moment they proved successful. As well, given that many were rewritings of Æsopic fables, the stories they told had the merit of being familiar. La Fontaine had several illustrators, the most famous of whom is Gustave Doré. But Doré’s illustrations are monochrome. Wood engravings and etchings, an intaglio technique, may be coloured, but prints are often monochrome art. (See Wood engravingand Etching, Wikipedia.)
However, we are beginning with John Tenniel, Arthur Rackham, and Walter Crane. Walter Crane illustrated The Baby’s own Æsop. (See Gutenberg [EBook #25433] and Laura Gibbs’ mythfolklore.net.aesopica). Early illustrations were not coloured. Gustave Doré‘s, illustration of La Fontaine are monochrome pieces. Prints, such as the oriental prints that flooded Europe after the Sakoku period, could be coloured, in which they differed substantially from monochrome prints. Both Arthur Rackham and Sir John Tennielproduced monochrome as well as coloured illustrations and both illustrated Lewis Carroll‘sAlice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
They and Walter Crane are our artists, as space and the nature of weblogs do not allow me to feature Beatrix Potter—who illustrated the books she wrote, the Peter Rabbit stories, Kate Greenaway, and others. All are listed at the foot of this post. Pictures can be found by clicking on the name of the artist. Their work may also be seen at Wikimedia.org. Write the name of the artist and specify Wikimedia.org. However, the art of other illustrators may be shown in future posts.
Sir John Tenniel engaged in nonsense art and Lewis Carroll, in literary nonsense, but Carroll did not write limericks. Nonsense is an umbrella term and, although limericks can be used in children’s literature, they may be not suitable for children. Unlike Walter Crane’s The Baby’s own Æsop, “Hercules and the Waggoner” a fable by Æsop and La Fontaine, and Rudyard Kipling’s “Small boy of Quebec,” which is witty and delightfully naïve, limericks may be crude. But Walter Crane produced Toy Books inspired by Japanese art.
Toy Book by Walter Crane (Gutenberg [EBook #25433])
The Little Red Riding Hood by Walter Crane (Gutenberg [EBook #19993])
Conclusion
I must close this very incomplete post, but we have seen a significant expansion of the areas that could be considered legitimate art, from illustrations to design. Japonism played a role in this expansion and it also played a role in the democratization of art as did the Arts and Crafts movement.
The Fox and the Crane, by Walter Crane (1845–1915)
Photo credit: Gutenberg [eBook #25433]), p. 19
Perry Index 426
Aarne-Thompson Classification Systems 60 (now ATU [Uther])
You have heard how Sir Fox treated Crane:
With soup in a plate. When again
They dined, a long bottle
Just suited Crane’s throttle:
And Sir Fox licked the outside in vain.
THERE ARE GAMES THAT TWO CAN PLAY ATCover Page: Baby’s Own Æsop
Photo credit: Gutenberg [eBook #25433]
(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)
Walter Crane: a Limerick
We are still in the “‘Golden Age’ of British illustration”[i] (see Arthur Rackham, Wikipedia). Walter Crane (1845–1915) created illustrations for Baby’s Own Æsop (1887), Æsop‘s Fables adapted for children. The above illustrations are examples of Art Nouveau (curves…). Famed engraver W. J. Linton (7 December 1812 – 29 December 1897) provided Walter Crane with the limericks, which does not mean he is their author. To the best of my knowledge, the limericks are anonymous. In Æsop and Jean de La Fontaine, the crane is a stork. Consequently, these are functions.
As for the text, it is a limerick version of the Æsopic fable “The Fox and the Stork” and Jean de La Fontaine’s retelling. Limericks are five-line poems and, typically, nonsensical, which is not the case with “The Fox and Crane.” The fable has simply been adapted for children. Limericks can be learned easily and then recited. Their rhyme scheme is AABBA and their meter, the tri-syllabic anapest: two short and a long. Interestingly, the shortened text is inserted in the illustration, suggesting the growing importance of illustrations. Therefore, the limericks have a dual purpose. They suit children and allow for large illustrations.
“The Fox and the Stork,” by Æsop
In Æsop’s fable, the crane (la grue) is a stork (la cigogne) and the limerick, a genuine fable. It is number 426 in the Perry Index and type 60 and AT type 60. The following is V. S. Vernon Jones’ translation of Æsop’s “The Fox and Stork.” [eBook #11339]
A Fox invited a Stork to dinner, at which the only fare provided was a large flat dish of soup. The Fox lapped it up with great relish, but the Stork with her long bill tried in vain to partake of the savoury broth. Her evident distress caused the sly Fox much amusement. But not long after the Stork invited him in turn, and set before him a pitcher with a long and narrow neck, into which she could get her bill with ease. Thus, while she enjoyed her dinner, the Fox sat by hungry and helpless, for it was impossible for him to reach the tempting contents of the vessel.
« Le Renard et la Cigogne » (I.18)
“The Fox and the Stork” (I.18)
Old Mister Fox was at expense, one day,
To dine old Mistress Stork.
The fare was light, was nothing, sooth to say,
Requiring knife and fork.
That sly old gentleman, the dinner-giver,
Was, you must understand, a frugal liver.
This once, at least, the total matter
Was thinnish soup served on a platter,
For madam’s slender beak a fruitless puzzle,
Till all had passed the fox’s lapping muzzle.
But, little relishing his laughter,
Old gossip Stork, some few days after,
Returned his Foxship’s invitation.
Without a moment’s hesitation,
He said he’d go, for he must own he
Never stood with friends for ceremony.
And so, precisely at the hour,
He hied him to the lady’s bower;
Where, praising her politeness,
He finds her dinner right nice.
Its punctuality and plenty,
Its viands, cut in mouthfuls dainty,
Its fragrant smell, were powerful to excite,
Had there been need, his foxish appetite.
But now the dame, to torture him,
Such wit was in her,
Served up her dinner
In vases made so tall and slim,
They let their owner’s beak pass in and out,
But not, by any means, the fox’s snout!
All arts without avail,
With drooping head and tail,
As ought a fox a fowl had cheated,
The hungry guest at last retreated.
You knaves, for you is this recital,
You’ll often meet Dame Stork’s requital.
Jean de La Fontaine
(Photo credit: La Fontaine, ancien site officiel)
(Photo credit: La Fontaine, ancien site officiel)
The Deceiver Deceived or “le trompeur trompé ”
The structure of this fable is that of the “deceiver deceived” or “trompeur trompé.” The fox, as host, serves the crane (la grue) her meal on a flat plate. So the crane, as hostess, serves the fox (le renard) his meal in an urn. Molière used this structure in shorter plays (one to three acts) known as farces, as opposed to grandes comédies (five acts). These shorter plays resemble French medieval farces and facéties as well as comedies belonging to the Italian commedia dell’arte, an improvised comic form where the characters were stock-characters or archetypes, i.e. they always played the same role in plays following the same formula, or plot, as in “Harlequin” Romances.
In short, “The Fox and the Crane” is a farce; a trick played on one character is played on the trickster. It is as though “The Fox and the Stork” were reversed into “The Stork and the Fox,” a mirror image æsthetics.
The Moral of “The Fox and the Stork”
At its simplest level, the moral of this fable is that what harm we do unto others can be done to us. The trickster may expect retaliation (lex talionis),[i]but not of a military nature. So this fable is a cautionary tale. The stork having been fooled by the fox, the fox can expect anything, and it is fooled the stork.
Yet, what this fable has to teach is an all-encompassing rule. It is the “do not do unto others what you do not wish others to do unto you.” According to Wikipedia,
“[t]he moral drawn is that the trickster must expect trickery in return and that the golden rule of conduct is for one to do to others what one would wish for oneself.”
Wikipedia emphasizes the universality of this rule (see Golden Rule). Let’s scroll down to the Sanskrit tradition.
“In Mahābhārata, the ancient epic of India, comes a discourse where the wise minister Vidura advises the King Yuddhiśhṭhira thus, ‘Listening to wise scriptures, austerity, sacrifice, respectful faith, social welfare, forgiveness, purity of intent, compassion, truth and self-control – are the ten wealth of character (self). O King aim for these, may you be steadfast in these qualities. These are the basis of prosperity and rightful living. These are highest attainable things. All worlds are balanced on dharma, dharma encompasses ways to prosperity as well. O King, dharma is the best quality to have, wealth the medium and desire (kāma) the lowest. Hence, (keeping these in mind), by self-control and by making dharma (right conduct) your main focus, treat others as you treat yourself.’”
—ooo—
“In the best of all possible worlds” (Candide [Leibniz], Voltaire), would the stork or crane have tricked the trickster?
For the English text of Charles Perrault‘s (12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) fairy tales, beautifully illustrated by Gustave Doré, click on fairy tales. For information on William Morris, click on Arts and Craftsor on William Morris.But if you click on this Cinderella, you will see that there are many retellings of Cinderella or Cendrillon. The Brothers Grimm’s Cinderella does not feature a fairy godmother, but Cinderella prays on her mother’s tomb and is helped by all the animals, birds in particular. They bring her the beautiful gowns she wears while dancing with the Prince. However, she does lose a shoe because the prince has put pitch on the steps. On the same website, you may also read that the story of Cinderella is almost as old as the world.
A Fairy tale
Cinderella is a fairy tale, so it belongs to a literary genre and genres share, to a lesser or greater extent, the same narrative structure. With fairy tales, the “hero” goes from rags to riches and does so through the timely intervention of a fairy godmother, or a clever cat. Therefore, the protagonist or hero, is at times rather passive, as is, for instance, Puss in Boots‘ disappointed master. As I pointed out in an earlier post, were it not for his cat, the third son of the miller might not have become a prince. It is the cat who takes him from rags to riches.
Traditionally, the protagonist of fairy tales, i.e. the third son or a Cinderella has a fairy godmother who appears at the opportune moment, i.e. kairos, to transform a Cinderella or some other character, into a beautiful person to whom the opportunity is given to be seen at his or her best. This could suggest a lack of resourcefulness in the central character of a fairy tale, a point we will discuss after writing a summary of the plot.
The Plot: rejected girl needs a fairy godmother, but the shoe fits
This is how the rags-to-riches narrative of Cinderella unfolds.
A widower who has one daughter marries a widow who has two daughters. In Charles Perrault’s version of the fairy tale, the widow’s two daughters are less attractive than Cinderella, so Cinderella is reduced to removing the ashes from chimneys and wears soiled clothes.
There is a ball to which the young women of the land are invited. In fact, in some versions of Cinderella (the Brothers Grimm), there are three balls, or three days of festivities, the number three being the most important number in fairy tales.
When Cinderella arrives in the carriage her fairy godmother has magically fashioned out of a pumpkin, just as she has magically fashioned the horses, the coach, and the magnificent gown Cinderella wears, she is stunning, not to mention the beauty and uniqueness of the slippers she wears, translated as glass but perhaps otherwise crafted: “vair,” a material, is pronounced the same way as “verre,” glass. This matter is one scholars have studied without reaching a consensus.
During the last ball, Cinderella is so enjoying herself that she forgets that midnight is approaching and that, at midnight, she will return to her station as the girl who cleans the ashes out of chimneys. She is running away so fast that she loses one of the slippers or shoes.
So Cinderella may be Cinderella again, but the prince has picked up the shoe and wants all the young women of the land to try it on. Whom will it fit? In Perrault’s version, when her sisters try on the shoe, Cinderella is her shabby self, but the prince has noticed her and he suspects beauty behind deceptive appearances. Cinderella is therefore asked to try on the shoe and the shoe fits. Cinderella is once again transformed into the beautiful young woman she was at the balls and will be the prince’s bride. Matters end the same way in the Brothers Grimm’s Cinderella except that birds blind her two sisters permanently, which is somewhat gruesome.
Origins of “Cinderella”
I will note later that Cinderella is rooted Rhodopis, 700 BCE, in which a slave girl marries the kind of Egypt, but tales often originate in India. However, as we know, the five stories that make up the Pañcatantra, were written in Sanskrit, by Vishnu Sharma and then, in 750 CE, they were translated into Arabic, as Kalīlah wa Dimnah, by Persian scholar Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa’.However there were other translations of the Pañcatantra, and other tales, before it was translated by Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa’. Furthermore, Vishnu Sharma may have taken his content, or subject matter, from an oral tradition. I will therefore be cautious as there may be a more ancient Cinderella, than Rhodopis.
Immediate sources
But Perrault did not draw his material directly from an ancient source. Cinderella was part of the tales of Giambattista Basile(c. 1575 – 23 February 1632), the author of the Neapolitan Lo cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiento de peccerille, later entitled Il Pentamerone.Giovanni Francesco “Gianfrancesco” Straparola (c. 1480 – c. 1557) also wrote fairy tales, but he did not write a Cinderella.
As stated above, the point that needs examination is the extent to which Cinderella participates in her transformation. The short answer is that she needs help but is not as passive as she might seem. She has gone to her father to ask for his help but her father, who loves his new wife, has refused to intervene on behalf of his daughter, which is not very fatherly. However, had he intervened, he might have made matters more difficult for his daughter. Cinderella’s stepmother has two daughters whose looks could jeopardize their ability to find a spouse and her daughters come first.
Other factors may be at play. For instance, this is a fairy tale, not a comedy. Unlike the characters of comedies, Cinderella does not have a gentleman friend who can help her fight a heavy father, pater familias. Nor does she have clever servants who would assist her and her gentleman friend. That happens in comedies, not in fairy tales. Perrault’s Cinderella truly needs a fairy godmother and she is fortunate that the prince happens to see beauty beneath deceptive appearances. Despite their lovely gowns, the stepmother’s daughters have not been noticed by the prince who can see beauty in an unadorned Cinderella.
So I wonder whether Cinderella can do much for herself other than assist her fairy godmother by fetching a large pumpkin and helping her empty it of its contents so that it can be transformed into a princely carriage. But, by an large, other than fetching the pumpkin and performing little task, Cinderella is very much in need of a fairy godmother, not to say a miracle.
The Perfect Candidate
However, destiny, the fates, have given Cinderella a fairy godmother. But more importantly, destiny has given her beauty and grace. Other than an opportunity to be seen by the prince, an opportunity which a fairy godmother orchestrates, it could be that Cinderella has all that is required of her. Moreover, only she can wear the shoes, which is very much to her advantage. So the long answer may be that she cannot do much for herself, but that she has been so blessed by Lady Fortune that she really does not need to do much for herself. In other words, although she needs and has a fairy godmother who arranges for her to meet the prince, her beauty and grace make her the perfect candidate for victory. Besides, the prince notices her and the shoe fits.
So Cinderella does not rise from her own ashes, but she rises from ashes.
Prince Riding an Elephant
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