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Fairy Tales in Italy and France

French and Italian fairy tales written between 1550 and 1750: connections to each other and to contemporary fairy tales literature, film, and the arts

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Kathia Ibacache
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This guide will connect you with resources referring to French and Italian fairy tales from the sixteenth century to the present day. In addition, this guide will be contextualized in terms of connections among fairy tales, film, literature, and other art expressions, helping you find primary and secondary sources that you could use to map relationships among different versions of the same tale.

 

Illustration shows Beauty looking at the dying Beast.

Beauty and the Beast. Smithsonian Library.

Fairy Tales - Retold or Adaptations

A retold or adapted version of a fairy tale retains the essential elements of the story that people recognize, while adding twists, time-period-related elements, and other artistic or illustrative expressions chosen by different illustrators, authors, film directors, for example.

Looking at the Children's shelves of public libraries, you will probably find many fairy tales retold or adaptations of well-known fairy tales. You can find these adaptations in books for children, teen novels, graphic novels, films, theater, and even operas. Consider, for instance, the contemporary versions of the Cinderella tale type below. 

You will also notice that these books' call numbers (locations) start with PZ. The Library of Congress classification system assigns PZ8 for traditional fairy tales, meaning you can find fairy tales in the same classification letter and number in other libraries that follow this classification system. 

Searches

Searching the Library's Catalog

You probably are familiar with searches on Google and other search platforms, such as generative artificial intelligence models. When you make searches in the Library's Catalog, think of keywords or phrases related to your topic of interest and combine these terms according to your needs.

Example: 

If you are looking for a film adaptation of Cinderella your search may look like this:

  • Cinderella OR "La Cenerentola" AND videorecording
  • Sleeping Beauty streaming video

If you are looking for a fairy tale adaptation for youth or teen literature, your search may look like this:

  • Sleeping Beauty Juvenile works
  • Sleeping Beauty retold
  • Sleeping Beauty graphic novel

If you are looking for a fairy tale adaptation to a dramatic performance work, such as an opera, your search may look like this:

  • fairy tale opera (general search)
  • sleeping Beauty opera (specific search)

 

Using Keywords and Subject Headings to Expand Your Search

Keywords and related terms are nouns and noun-phrases connected to your research topic. You may use one or more keywords when you are looking for information. Keywords will help you:

  • Find information
  • Limit your search
  • Filter your search

When you find a book, article, or other material that you like, see its bibliographic record and pay attention to the subject heading listing, which will help you expand your research. 

Explore these subject headings:

Fairy tales
Fairy tales -- France
Tales -- Italy
Fairy tales -- Italy
Fairy tales -- Italy -- History and criticism
Fairy tales in literature
Fairy tales in motion pictures
Fairy tales -- Film adaptations
Fairy tales -- Social aspects
Fairy tales -- History and criticism
Fairy tales Criticism, interpretation
Sleeping beauty (Choreographic work)
 

Fairy tales related terms: traditions, versions, adaptations, tale collections, film, painting, story, legend, fable, fantasy, folklore, narrative, parable, tall tale, female heroines, witches, incestuos fathers, persecuted maidens, dragon slayers, heroes, magical creatures, beasts, fairy-tale fools, fantastic, magic, fictional, allegorical, G.F. Straparola, Charles Perrault, Giambattista Basile, Angela Carter, Madame Murat, Girolamo Bargagli, Boccaccio, Madame D'Aulnoy, and Mateo Garrone.

Find more information on Search Terms

Connecting Keywords with Boolean Search

Boolean operators are helpful when you search a university's catalog or a database.

AND: All the search terms will appear in each result from your search.
OR: One search term, or the other search term, or both search terms will appear in the response page.
NOT: To exclude search terms or phrases.

 

Examples:

  • Straparola AND fairytale AND analysis
  • "Le petit chaperon rouge" OR "Little Red Riding Hood"
  • Bluebeard AND Metaphrog NOT Perrault
  • "French fairy tale" AND symbolism
  • "Italian fairy tale" AND moral*
  • fairy tale AND film NOT Disney
  • Pinocchio AND Collodi  AND "the Adventures of Buratino"

The example "Bluebeard AND Metaphrog NOT Perrault," indicates that you want the retold by Metaphrog and not the tale written by Charles Perrault.

 

The asterisk (*) you find at the end of the word "moral" tells the system to find all the variations of the word "moral" = morality, moralism, moral, morals.

Artificial Intelligence

Your professor will establish the rules of using AI in your work. A guideline you can follow is to always disclose when you have used AI and how you utilized it, following your Professor's stipulation. 

AI models, such as a ChtGPT, Google Gemini, and Cluade, are generative AI models that can generate new content using human-like language that is not present in the original data. These models use a large amount of text, images, audio, and video materials that are taken from the Internet. Predictive AI, on the other hand, uses past data to predict something, like Netflix, which uses AI models to learn your content selection pattern so it can recommend additional content.

It is essential to remember that generative AI models generate text, and although they appear to "understand" what you are asking and "respond" accordingly, they do not comprehend meaning like humans do. AI models have been trained to imitate human-like communication, but they cannot reason. 

Different AI technologies have various uses, strengths, and weaknesses. 

 

Risks

  • Hallucinations: Bad data that passed as "real" because of the "confident-sounding" response to a prompt, even when the generated text is false. 
  • Bias: Generative AI systems may amplify existing bias through their training data and outputs. We should critically assess AI outputs to ensure we are meeting our individual and institutional standards for non-prejudiced narratives.
  • Misinformation: It is critical you develop your information literacy skills so that when you use a generative AI space for information seeking, you do not prioritize "efficiency" over the evaluation of information. Since humans train AI models, some unethical individuals can train an AI model to create false information, even defying historical truths, such as the existence of the Holocaust, for example. Your information literacy skills will help you critically examine information.
  • Homogenization: Be also wary of the “homogenization” of ideas to fit the “norm.” Human knowledge grows when we value "unique social, cultural, and political contributions."
  • Sustainability: We do not think much about the energy that AI uses when we interact with a model. Regarding the increase in carbon emissions and higher electricity demand, "most AI companies do not share how much energy their models require, leaving consumers and regulators in the dark."
It is crucial that you critically evaluate where information comes from and why it was produced.

 

Find more information:

 Information provided by the course AI Literacy Foundations offered at CU Boulder. 

Places to Look

Authors and Illustrators

Marie, de France, active 12th century
Jean d'Arras, active 14th century
Straparola, Giovanni Francesco, ca. 1485-1558
Bargagli, Girolamo, 1537-1586
Basile, Giambattista, 1566-1632
Perrault, Charles, 1628-1703
Galland, Antoine, 1646-1715
Aulnoy, Madame d', ca.1650-1705
Murat, Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, 1670-1716
Caylus, Anne Claude Philippe, comte de, 1692-1765
Ségur, Sophie, comtesse de, 1799-1874
Gautier, Théophile,1811-1872
Doré, (Paul) Gustave, 1832-1883, illustrator
Garnier, Jules, 1847-1889, illustrator
Hughes, Edward Robert, 1851-1914, illustrator
Rackham, Arthur, 1867-1939, illustrator
Kay Nielsen, 1886-1957, illustrator
Kochergin, N., 1897-1974, illustrator
Virginia Frances Sterrett, 1900-1931, illustrator
Ségur, Adrienne, 1901-1981, illustrator
Carter, Angela, 1940-1992
Jeffers, Susan 1942-2020, illustrator
Koshkin, Alexander, b. 1952, illustrator
GARRONE, Matteo, b. 1968, filmmaker

Call Numbers: Finding Scholarly, Interpretation, Criticism Books

You can find fairy tales and books related to fairy tales at Norlin Library or in digital format. Some books are located at the Norlin Library- Rare Books Collection, others are shelved at the Children's and Young Adult Collection, and some books are shelved in the following call numbers:

  • GR 113.5
    • Oral tradition
    • Folklore
    • Tales
    • Fairy tales
  • GR 550
    • Fairy tales and theater - criticism and interpretation
    • Fairy tales and dance theater - criticism and interpretation 
  • LB 1500
    • Fairy tales and poetry
  • PN 3400
    • Fairy tales reference works
  • PN1995.9
    • Fairy tales and film adaptations
    • Fairy tales and  film - criticism and interpretation
  • PR 6053
    • Fairy tales - England - history
  • PQ 1877
    • Fairy tales - France 
    • Biography, memoirs
  • PQ4600
    • Fairy tales in literature
    • collection of stories
    • Fairy tales history and criticism
    • Fairy tales - Italy - history and criticism (Italian language)
  • PQ 637
    • Fairy tales - France - history and criticism (French language)
  • PZ8.
    • Tales

Fairy Tales Through Film, TV, and Other Adaptations

Other Books of Interest

Open Access

Fairy Tales at CU Boulder

The Rare Books Collection at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Norlin Library (part of Rare and Distinctive Collections) has about 2000 books, including early modern printed books intended for adult readers; illustrated children’s books; nineteenth-century chapbooks; anthologies of fairy tales from around the globe; and stereoscopic viewing cards. 

The database Fairy Tales at CU Boulder allows users to conduct searches and provides access to summaries and links to the digitized versions of the tale (if the work is digitized). 

 

The Historical and Illustrated Fairy Tales Collection "Once Upon a Time" includes fairy tales from the collection at UC-Boulder Libraries' Special Collections Department. This print collection covers about 300 years European, American, and Asian tales, including several rare editions by Charles Perrault, Mme d'Aulnoy, Giovanni Straparola, and the Brothers Grimm, and the illustrator Arthur Rackham.

Fairy Tales Around the World

Fairy Tales Artistic Expressions

Frontal photo of castle Neuschawanstein in summer time.

Castle Neuschwanstein, Germany

Image used under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0.

Marta Shmatava 2010 Fairy tale

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License...

Sleeping beauty dress on a pink dress with two maidens seated on the floor, one dressed in green and the other dressed on gray. Print : lithograph, hand-colored

The Sleeping Beauty

Print : lithograph, hand-colored, c1919. No known restrictions on publication. 

Black and white painting displays two girl listening while a woman read a book.

Fairy Tales

Photograph of a painting signed "J. Shannon, 1896" at Metropolitan Museum of Art. No known restrictions on publication.

Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella

1997 film Directed by Robert Iscove. Film available in the database Swank.

Fairy Tales Elements

General Principles in Fairy Tales

Fairy tales are usually short stories connected to countries' oral traditions. The tales may have a hero, heroine, or characters who must overcome wrongdoing of some kind and are in juxtaposition to an evil character. Fairy tales often have a moral message, and their stories may have magical and supernatural elements.

Image shows an illustration by Gustave Doré, originally published in 1862 from Sleeping Beauty. The Prince is walking into Sleeping Beauty's palace.

Sol, Luna y Talía. Illustration by Gustavo Doré. Public domain image. In the Giambattista Basile tale, a king rapes the sleeping Talia, who becomes pregnant with Sol and Luna. 

Characters: Good VS. Evil

Fairy tales usually have primary and secondary characters representing good and evil. These characters embody the villains, the adversaries, the heroes, the friends, the morals, the obstacles, and the supernatural elements. Characters may also be magical creatures, animals, nature, and enchanted objects.

Among the characters we may find:

  • Heroines and heroes
  • the idealized woman
  • The idealized man 
  • Damsel in distress
  • the mentor
  • The noble and honorable
  • The missing parent
  • The orphan
  • The antagonists: ogres, witches, envious family members, the greedy, the resentful, the misunderstood, and other malicious characters that are so by means so curse or individual circumstances.

Image shows an illustration by Anne Anderson from Little Briar Rose. A witch is using a spinning wheel and a girl with long blond hair is about to touch this wheel.

Briar Rose Illustrated by Anne Anderson. Public domain image.

Symbolism

Symbolism is an essential element in fairy tales. Cinderella's glass slipper, the nose of Pinocchio, the mirror that looks at the inner self in Snow White, the boundaries represented in the enchanted forests, the number three, birds as messengers, the clothing and shoes in Puss in Boots, Cinderella, and Little Tom Thumb are a few examples of the element of symbolism present in this genre.

Symbolism is seen in:

  • Overcoming challenges
  • Making good or poor choices
  • Societal views on manliness, femininity, integrity, vileness, honorable behavior
  • Inner knowledge
  • social structures 
  • The moral connotation
  • The rule of three
  • The tree
  • the depiction of women
  • Gender stereotypes

 

Image shows Marlinchen mourning the loss over her stepbrother while a bird emerges from the juniper tree. Illustration by Louis R. Head.

Marlinchen mourning the loss over her stepbrother whilst a bird emerges from the juniper tree.; Illustration by Louis R. Head. Public domain image.