Fairy Tales for the Disillusioned: Enchanted Stories from the French Decadent Tradition

Fairy Tales for the Disillusioned: Enchanted Stories from the French Decadent TraditionA new collection of subversive French fairy tales The wolf is tricked by Red Riding Hood into strangling her grandmother and is subsequently arrested. Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella do not live happily ever after. And the fairies are saucy, angry, and capricious. Fairy Tales for the Disillusioned collects thirty six tales, most newly translated, by writers associated with the decadent literary movement that flourished in late nineteenth century

A new collection of subversive French fairy tales

The wolf is tricked by Red Riding Hood into strangling her grandmother and is subsequently arrested. Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella do not live happily ever after. And the fairies are saucy, angry, and capricious. Fairy Tales for the Disillusioned collects thirty-six tales, most newly translated, by writers associated with the decadent literary movement that flourished in late nineteenth-century France. These enchanting yet troubling stories reflect the concerns and fascinations of a time of great political, social, and cultural change. Recasting well-known favorites from classic French fairy tales, as well as Arthurian legends and English and German tales, these decadent fairy tales feature perverse settings and disillusioned perspectives, underlining such themes as the decline of civilization, the degeneration of magic and the unreal, gender confusion, and the incursion of the industrial. Complete with an informative introduction, biographical notes for each author, and explanatory notes throughout, these subversive tales will entertain and startle even the most disenchanted readers.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 06/18/2019
ISBN: 9780691191416
Pages: 296
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 7.80h x 5.60w x 1.00d