I have erased the beginning of this post. It contained information on an event of extreme cruelty that led to severe losses and still causes episodes of disabling fatigue and life-threatening anxiety. During such episodes, I cannot write or look after myself properly. My blog suffers. It’s a short post.
A Seated Scribe by Gentile Bellini, (Isabella Stewart Gardner Collection)
However, I have done more investigative work on Muslims, Armenians and the concept of nationhood. Religion is a factor in nationhood, but it is not as significant as the use of a common language. Even in the Islamic world, countries accepted plurality. The millet system is a proof of religious tolerance. For instance, in the case of the genocide of Armenians, the Ottomans feared Armenians would enter into an alliance with Christian Russia.
Nationhood is rooted in several factors, but langage overrides faith. State and speech is a product of the Renaissance and a result of Johannes Gutenberg‘s invention, in 1439, of the movable type printing press. Constantinople was defeated in 1453 and its Greek scholars fled to Italy carrying books. The printing press had just been invented when Byzantine scholars inaugurated the Renaissance. Literacy spread, creating a middle class, and it brought the validation of the vernacular, and the writing of songs in the mother tongue, or madrigals, but polyphonic, mixing voices. This is a subject we have covered, but not in the context of nationhood and nationalism.
A colleague told me about the Bellini knot, so I looked at the Metropolitan’s collection and found four Bellini rugs. I also found a Safavid dynasty tapestry or rug featuring the mille-fleursmotif. Keeping fabrics in good condition is difficult. Flanders may therefore have influenced the East. The Franco-Flemish lands were the cultural hub of ‘Europe’ before the Renaissance, in music especially, but tapestries and rugs were made in Flanders, as well as the illuminations of Books of Hours and other illuminated manuscripts. There were exchanges.
Particularly interesting is the position of Venice. It was very close to the Ottoman Empire. Trading led to use the of a lingua franca. A simplified Italian was the lingua franca when Bellini travelled to Constantinople. In 2007, the Metropolitan had an exhibition on Venice and the Islamic World, 828 – 1797.
I will close here, but this discussion will be continued.
Love to everyone. ♥
Aram Khachaturian
David Oïstrakh plays Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto, mvt 1
Illustration in The Fairy Tales of Charles Perraultby Harry Clarke (1889-1931), illustrator. London: Harrap (1922) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Charles Perrault‘s (1628-1703) Bluebeard, La Barbe bleue (seeGallica.BnF), is an exceptionally rich source of motifs.InAarne-Thompson-Uther, Bluebeard is classified as ATU 312, ATU 312A:The giant-killer and his dog– Bluebeard. The U in ATU stands forHans-Jörg Uther.[i]Charles Perrault‘s Barbe bleue, Bluebeard,features a killer, butthere is no reference to a dog. However, Bluebeard is rooted in a popular and largely oral tradition. In the more traditional tales, a dog or a bird is sent to warn our heroine’sfamily, her brothers especially.[ii]This element has been removed by Perrault. However, ProfessorD. L. Alishman specifies that folktales classified as ATU 312 and ATU 312A are stories “about women whose brothers rescue them from their ruthless husbands or abductors.” Such is the case with Bluebeard. So, to begin with, the motif of Bluebeard is AT 312 and 312A .
Bluebeard is feared by most women. He owns many properties, in town and in the countryside, “gold and silver dishes, beautifully upholstered (embroidered) furniture and golden carriages: de la vaisselle d’or et d’argent, des meubles en broderie, et des carrosses tout dorés.” (Gilbert Rouger)[iii]However, his blue beard makes him so ugly and terrifying that women run away when they see him. Moreover, despite his blue beard, this colourful but brutal character has married several times, but every wife has disappeared. The moment Perrault reveals this fact, we enter the realms of mystery and suspense. What has happened to the former wives? There will be a moment of revelation.
Bluebeard’s neighbour, a Lady, has two beautiful daughters and is looking for suitable husbands. When they first see Bluebeard, the daughters find him repulsive. However, Bluebeard organizes a feast and invites the young women and a few of their friends (first image). As they go from pleasure to pleasure, the younger daughter begins to see Bluebeard as a less frightening man and marries him.
Bluebeard marries and goes on a trip: forbidden room
Once he has married the younger daughter, Bluebeard tells her he must go away on a trip, but to invite friends (second image). He then starts distributing keys and warns his wife not to enter a certain room yet gives her the key to this room. The telltale key and the forbidden room are motifs dating to the story of Adam and Eve. Eve is tempted by the serpent and bites into the forbidden apple. When collecting folktales, the Brothers Grimm were told the story of Marienkind, Mary’s Child, in which a girl enters a forbidden thirteenth room, sees the Trinity and is then burdened with a telltale gold finger. Marienkind will not confess that she did enter the forbidden room until she is condemned to burn at the stake. As the flamesstart engulfing her, she finally tells the truth and is saved. The motifs of that tale, the forbidden room and the telltale stain, link it to Bluebeard.
Disobedience: the stained key
Likethe archetypal Eve, women are considered curious and, despite their fears,they want to unlock forbidden rooms, closets and cabinets. Again, “folk versions of the tale do not fault the heroine for her curiosity?”[iv] Bluebeard’s young wife trembles, but she unlocks the hidden cabinet (third image). Here we think of the deceptive closet that leads to other rooms. That is another motif. Next, when the young wife sees the bloodstained floor and the bodies of dead women, she drops the key and it gets stained by the blood on the floor of the room. This element seems a variation on the “tache [stain] originelle,” or the original sin. Therefore, our main motif could well be that of the indelible stain. Babies are born “entachés,” stained with the original sin. The young wife cannot clean the key. It is, therefore, an enchanted key.
Bluebeard returns
Bluebeard returns that very evening and is received with open arms. His bride hopes to delay the moment when he will ask for the keys to be returned, one of which is the stained key. The young bride therefore entertains her husband as doesScheherazade, the Persian Queen of theOne Thousand and One Nights who has studied sufficiently to know that fiction, entertainment in the form of storytelling, might save her from death, which it does.
However, the next morning, our poor young wife is asked to return all the keys her rich and ruthless husband has entrusted to her. He sees the stained key and tells her she will join the wives who have died due to their indiscretion. She, of course, falls to her knees begging for forgiveness. Bluebeard was testing her and she has failed the test. She is yet another Eve who has yielded to temptation.
Tests are a common element in fairy talesas are the three requirements that will turn a toad into a prince. But Bluebeard is a one-test, or trap, narrative that resembles the Pandora’s Box narrative. Pandora is given a jar named pithos which she is instructed not to open, but curiosity, the villain, is as irresistible as the serpent. She opens the jar and releases all the bad things in the world. Evil is born and women are to blame. They are the scapegoats.
Fortunately, Bluebeard’s young wife inhabits fairyland. Her sister Anne has not yet returned home. So the young bride has a stand-in, so to speak, and uses a common a ruse. She asks to be allowed to pray for one half of a quarter-hour and goes upstairs to alert her sister. This recourse is reminiscent of Shakespeare’sDesdemona‘s (Othello) request. This is yet another motif or, possibly, an instance of intertextuality, texts that mirror one another. Usually, folktales contain motifs, just as music contains themes. Shakespearean theater is otherwise classified, but the stained finger could be designated as a motif in the broader world of fiction. Our terrifiedhéroïne asks her sister Anne to go to a tower and to watch because their brothers have promised to visit and Bluebeard has returned earlier than expected. Anne is instructed to alert them from her tower. This is ATU type 312 and 312A.
Anne, ma sœur Anne, ne vois-tu rien venir ?
Bluebeard grows increasingly impatient, but the younger wife keeps asking her sister Anne whether or not she can see the brothers. This is a summit of suspense: Anne, ma sœur Anne, ne vois-tu rien venir ? Anne, my sister Anne, can’t you see anything coming? Anne answers twice. Je ne vois rien que le Soleil qui poudroie, et l’herbe qui verdoie. All I see are flurries of the Sun and grass turning green. The third time, however, Anne reports that she sees men on horseback riding in their direction. As you know, the number three is a common element of fairy tales.
At his wits end, Bluebeard starts screaming so loudly that the house shakes (fourth image). He goes upstairs and grabs his young wife by the hair, holding a knife. Once again, she asks to pray, but he will not let her pray. At this point, the reader or listener fears that all is lost, except that we are in fairyland. There has to be a savior, and there is.
Kairos: the opportune moment
At the opportune moment, kairos, the brothers make a racket at the door. The door is forced open and Bluebeard sees one brother, a dragoon, and the second, a musketeer. Bluebeard runs away from them, but the brothers catch him when he reaches the porch and they drive a sword through his body (fifth image).
The younger sister inherits her husband’s possessions. She provides her sister with the dowry that will enable her to marry a kind man she has known for a long time. She buys her brothers appointments as captains and, for her part, she marries a gentleman.
The Morals
There are two moralités. One is the moral ofcautionary tales. It is anexemplum. The tale tells about the dangers of curiosity:
La curiosité malgré tous ses /attraits,Coûte souvent bien de regretsOn en voit /tous les jours exemples paraître.Curiosity, despite all its /appeal /Often costs many regrets /One sees /everyday examples appear. (literal translation)
However, Perrault uses a second moral that is not altogether a moral, but a form reassurance. He writes that those who have common sense know that this story happened a long time ago. There are no longer such terrible husbands, nor husbands who asks for the impossible, even when they are displeased or jealous, etc.
In other words, he tells readers that he has written a fairy tale.
Comments
Criticism of Bluebeard
There has been criticism of Bluebeard. For instance, help is so slow in coming that this fairy tale, nearly fails the “happy ending” rule fairy tales. However, Perrault’s suspense is acceptable in storytelling. It adds piquancy to the tale. In seventeenth-century France, one could not mix comedy and tragedy. Tragedy inspires pity and fear. Featuring a dog or a bird carrying a message would have lessened the degree of suspense, not to mention pity and fear. In more traditional tellings of Bluebeard, the heroine “insists on donning bridal clothes, and they prolong the possibility of rescue by recounting each and every item of clothing.”[v]
As mentioned above, curiosity is not a factor in more traditional tellings of Bluebeard.
Bruno Bettelheim[vi]situates Bluebeard in the animal-groom cycle (Aarne-Thompson), except that our heroine marries the animal before a curse is lifted that transforms him into a kind and beautiful person, which is usually the case in fairy tales. In Beauty and the Beast, Beauty learns to love Beast as Beast is, which lifts the curse. She marries a beautiful man, the appropriate ending of a fairy tale.
Classification
Bluebeard is an ATU 312 or ATU 312A type, but it is related to the Brother’s Grimm’s Fitcher’s Bird(number or KHM 46, Grimm),Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 311, and theRobber Bridegroom(KHN 40, Grimm),Aarne-Thompson-Uthertype 955.Marienkind(KHM 3) is ATU 710. So it seems that Professor Alishman’s above-mentioned list could include Marienkind, Fitcher’s Bird and the Robber Bridegroom, depending on his criteria for selection. Margaret Atwood is the author of The Robber Bride (1993) and Angela Carter, the author of The Bloody Chamber(1979). It would appear this story therefore combines many ATU types. Moreover, this tale and its variants have been told many times.
The indelible stain seems a particularly important motif. I have mentioned the Bible. Curiosity leads to the original sin, called stain in French: la tache. But it also reminds us of the stain on Lady Macbeth’s hand. It will not wash away: “Out, damn’d spot! out I say!” (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1, line 35). Lady Macbeth has killed and the stain on her hand is as permanent as the original sin. She must atone. In this regard, Bluebeard is reminiscent of William Shakespeare‘s Macbeth. But we are reading a fairy tale. The genre itself demands a happy ending, as do comic texts. Moreover, the indelible stain could be a motif, and the original sin, to which it can be compared, an instance of intertextualité.
The indelible stain motif also appears in Le Roman de Perceforest, a medieval narrative usually associated with SleepingBeauty. Blanchette’s fairy godmother has asked her not to touch Lyonnel. But she does, briefly and accidentally. The finger that has touched Lyonnel turns black.
In the Brother’s Grimm’sMarienkind,Marienkind opens the thirteenth door, or the forbidden door. It seems the number thirteen has long been an unlucky number, but the more important element, the motif, is that of the telltale stain.
Conclusion
Let it be short: “All’s well that ends well.” Tout est bien qui finit bien.
Sources and Resources
Perrault fairy tales are the Project Gutenberg [EBook #29021]
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[i] The AT-number system was updated and expanded in 2004, the yearHans-Jörg Uther published his Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography.Hans-Jörg Uther calls types some of the elements formerly named motifs, but some motifs are types. The telltale stained key is a motif, but brothers saving a sister would be a type.[ii] Maria Tatar in Jack Zipes, editor, The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2000).[iii]Gilbert Rouger, editor. Les Contes de Perrault (Paris: Editions Garnier, 1967).[iv]Op. cit.The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales.[v] Ibid.[vi] The Uses of Enchantment (New York: Vintage Books Edition, 1989 [1975, 1976]), p. 182.Franz Schubert (31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828; aged 31)Piano Sonata in B Flat Major, D. 960Alfred Brendel, KBE(born 5 January 1931,Wiesenberg)
How avarice loses all,
By striving all to gain,
I need no witness call
But him whose thrifty hen,
As by the fable we are told,
Laid every day an egg of gold.
“She has a treasure in her body,”
Bethinks the avaricious noddy.
He kills and opens—vexed to find
All things like hens of common kind.
Thus spoiled the source of all his riches,
To misers he a lesson teaches.
In these last changes of the moon,
How often does one see
Men made as poor as he
By force of getting rich too soon!
Jean de La Fontaine(1.V.13)
Poule auxoeufs d’or (La)FR
Recueil 1, Livre 5, Fable 13
(please click on the title to read the fable in French)
Fables and Morals
This fable is very well known and, at first glance, it seems to possess only one moral. Avarice loses all.
The main character in Jean de La Fontaine‘s (8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695) The Hen with the Golden Eggs is a very lucky man who is not satisfied with the golden egg his hen lays once a day. He thinks that if he opens her body, he will find a treasure. He therefore kills her only to discover there is no treasure inside her body. Greed causes this man to destroy the source of his growing wealth. Oudry and Doré have captured this man’s bitter disappointment. So, on one level, this fable is about greed, greed that kills the hen and impoverishes a man.
However, this fable is also about hurting oneself in an attempt to improve a situation that is already very good. Fables, especially as retold by La Fontaine, often have more than one moral. Such is the case with The Hen with the Golden Eggs (1.V.13).
(Please click on the smaller images to enlarge them.)
La Fontaine’s The Hen with the Golden Eggs(1.V.13) has not been cross-referenced by D. L. Alishman‘s.[i] However, La Fontaine’s fable (1.V.13) is a retelling of older fables. In the Æsopic corpus, we find The Goose that laid the Golden Eggs or The Goose and the Golden Eggs listed as fable number 87 in the Perry Index. Changing the dramatis personæ of fables is current practice. A single fable may have several morals, but going from hen to goose to mallard to duck is an easier process and, therefore, more common. Moreover, although motifs are cross-cultural, they nevertheless reflect differences between cultures. In the Buddhist Jatāka tales or the Stories of The Buddha’s Former Births, our story features a golden mallard: The Golden Mallard. Its Kashmir title is The Lucky-Bird Humá. In Russia, the hen is a duck: The Duck that laid Golden Eggs.
I have yet to find a “Golden Egg” motif in Aarne-Thompson’s Classification System, but the motif has to be somewhere in that very long list, i.e. six volumes. Interestingly, however, there is a link between Donkeyskin(Donkey-Skin), and The Hen with the Golden Eggs in that both fables feature gold producing animals. The hen, goose, mallard, or duck lays a golden egg. As for the Donkey killed by Donkey-Skin’s father, he defecated gold. That is a motif. Donkey-Skin, however, is classified under the heading of “unnatural love” and is linked with Catskin, Little Catskin, Cap-o’-Rushes,Allerleirauh, The King who wished to marry his Daughter and other tales listed under Catskin, in Wikipedia.
Conclusion
I have provided an alternative moral for The Hen with the Golden Eggs. There are more morals to the Golden Eggs, but the extent to which we can harm ourselves is chief among them. We blame others, but are others always to blame? Remember Matthew 7. 4: “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?”
A detail from the Macclesfield Psalter, England, East Anglia, c.1330 MS.1-2005 f.193v(Photo credit: Fitzwilliam Museum)
There is more to say on every subject I have discussed regarding feasts and the seasons. For instance, we haven’t looked at the Fitzwilliam Book of Hours, a sixteenth-century masterpiece, preserved at the University of Cambridge. With respect to the Fitzwilliam Book of Hours (Bruges, 1510), the Folio Society has published a limited number of copies of this extraordinary Franco-Flemish manuscript. In fact, a visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum site will reveal the existence of other illuminated manuscripts.
The Fitzwilliam Book of Hours is particularly interesting in that it represents, among other topics, the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, which, as I have noted elsewhere, albeit tentatively, underlies the concept of keeping hours: we keep Vigil. As well, the narrator mentions the incorporation into Books of Hours of pre-Christian elements. Books of Hours are
an account of the Seasons (the Solstices and the Equinoxes, marked by feasts);
an account of the labours of each months;
a Gregorian calendar showing feasts, dates on which saints are remembered, etc.;
a compendium of psalms, prayers, chants, etc.;
a Zodiac calendar also including mythological references predating Christianity;
etc.
But, perhaps more importantly, Books of Hours also point to oneness in diversity. The degree of darkness and light has been celebrated in most cultures. And if the dragon is menacing to Europeans and friendly in China, it is nevertheless a universal zoomorphic animal. So is the Unicorn.
Moreover, although the degree of darkness and light is a scientific truth and a demonstration of heliocentrism, it is also a cultural marker.
And we have also seen the twofold dimension of time, the vertical and the horizonal: kairos and chronos. To a large extent, our celebrations are a manifestation of the moment (kairos) as opposed to time infinite.
As for the texts we have glimpsed, one of my readers pointed out that they are palimpsests. There is a text underneath the text, and a text underneath the second text, as well as a text underneath the third text. Yet the texts, mostly similar texts, thus unveiled may have originated in one culture.
The story within the story structure reflects a deeper level of intertextualité than can exist between texts. So intertextualité does not happen only between texts, but there are instances of text(s) within texts, or play(s) within the play.
And we also have motifs: the mille-fleurs motif, the Bizantine leaf and grape motif, the Greek key motif, variations on the Celtic eternal or endless knot motif.
In short, there is an abundance of similarities, yet originality and uniqueness remain. Text, graphic art, including anonymous art and decorative art, and music all stem from one mold, the human mind and the human senses, yet there is constant newness and youthfulness to things eternal.
