Charles Perrault

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Charles Perrault

, 1672]]

Charles Perrault (12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was a French

France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
author

Author

An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created....
who laid foundations for a new literary genre

Genre

A genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other Art#Art forms or utterance....
, the fairy tale

Fairy tale

A fairy tale is a fictional story that may feature folklore characters such as Fairy, goblins, Elf, trolls, giant , and talking animals, and usually enchanted, often involving a far-fetched sequence of events....
, and whose best known tales include Le Petit Chaperon rouge (Little Red Riding Hood
Little Red Riding Hood

Little Red Riding Hood is a famous fairy tale about a young girl's encounter with a wolf. The story has changed considerably in its history, and been subject to numerous modern adaptations and readings....
), La Belle au bois dormant (Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty is a fairy tale classic, the first in the set published in 1697 by Charles Perrault, Contes de ma M?re l'Oye .While Perrault's version is better known, an older variant, the tale Sun, Moon, and Talia, was contained in Giambattista Basile's Pentamerone ....
), Le Maître chat ou le Chat botté (Puss in Boots), Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre (Cinderella
Cinderella

Cinderella , is a well-known classic folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world....
), La Barbe bleue (Bluebeard
Bluebeard

'Bluebeard' is the title character in a famous fairy tale about a violent nobleman and his curious wife. It appeared in Charles Perrault's Les Contes de ma M?re l'Oye, first published in 1697....
), Le Petit Poucet (Hop o' My Thumb
Hop o' My Thumb

"Hop o' My Thumb" is a literary fairy tale by Charles Perrault . At the age of 67, Perrault decided to dedicate himself to his children and published Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals , with the subtitle: Tales of Mother Goose ....
), Les Fées (Diamonds and Toads
Diamonds and Toads

Diamonds and Toads or Toads and Diamonds is a French fairy tale by Charles Perrault, and titled by him "Les F?es" or "The Fairies." Andrew Lang included it in The Blue Fairy Book....
), La Marquise de Salusses ou la Patience de Griselidis (Patient Griselda
Griselda (folklore)

Griselda is a figure from certain folklores whose name is eponymous for patience and obedience.In the tale as written by Giovanni Boccaccio Griselda marries Gualtieri, the Marquis of Saluzzo....
), Les Souhaits ridicules (The Ridiculous Wishes
The Ridiculous Wishes

The Ridiculous Wishes or The Three Ridiculous Wishes is a French literary fairy tale by Charles Perrault....
), Peau d'Âne (Donkeyskin
Donkeyskin

Donkeyskin is a French fairy tale told by Charles Perrault. Andrew Lang included it, somewhat euphemized, in The Grey Fairy Book.It is Aarne-Thompson classification system folktale type 510B, the persecuted heroine....
) and Riquet à la houppe (Ricky of the Tuft).

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Biography

Perrault was born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
to a wealthy bourgeois family, son of Pierre Perrault and Paquette Le Clerc. His brother, Claude Perrault

Claude Perrault

Though Claude Perrault is best known as the architect of the eastern range of the Louvre in Paris, he also achieved success as physician and anatomist, and as an author, who wrote treatises on physics and natural history...
, is remembered as the architect of the severe east range of the Louvre

Louvre

The Louvre Museum , located in Paris, is a historic monument, and a national museum of France. It is a central landmark, located on the Rive Droite of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement of Paris ....
, built between 1665 and 1680. Charles attended the best schools and studied law before embarking on a career in government service. He took part in the creation of the Academy of Sciences as well as the restoration of the Academy of Painting. When the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres

Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres

The Acad?mie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres is a France learned society devoted to the humanities, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France....
was founded in 1663, Perrault was appointed its secretary and serving Jean Baptiste Colbert's, finance minister to King Louis XIV. He married in 1672 to Marie Guichon, 19, who died in 1678 after giving birth to a daughter. Also, the couple had three sons. When Colbert died in 1683, he lost his pension as a writer.

He was a major participant in the French Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns

Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns

The quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns was a literature and artistic quarrel that heated up in the early 1690s and shook the Acad?mie fran?aise....
(Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes), which pitted supporters of the literature of Antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
(the "Ancients") against supporters of the literature from the century of Louis XIV

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV ruled as List of French monarchs and of King of Navarre. He ascended the throne a few months before his fifth birthday, but did not assume actual personal control of the government until the death of his prime minister , the Italians Jules Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661....
(the "Moderns"). He was on the side of the Moderns and wrote Le Siècle de Louis le Grand (The Century of Louis the Great, 1687) and Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes (Parallel between Ancients and Moderns, 1688–1692) where he attempted to prove the superiority of the literature of his century.

In 1695, when he was 67, he lost his post as secretary. He decided to dedicate himself to his children and published Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals (Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé) (1697), with the subtitle: Tales of Mother Goose
Mother Goose

Mother Goose is a well-known figure in the literature of fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Mother Goose is best known in the United States, in the United Kingdom and other English language speaking nations....
(Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oie). Its publication made him suddenly widely-known beyond his own circles and marked the beginnings of a new literary genre, the fairy tale

Fairy tale

A fairy tale is a fictional story that may feature folklore characters such as Fairy, goblins, Elf, trolls, giant , and talking animals, and usually enchanted, often involving a far-fetched sequence of events....
. He had actually published it under the name of his last son (born in 1678), Pierre (Perrault) Darmancourt, (Armancourt was the name of a property he bought for him), probably fearful of criticism from the "Ancients". In the tales, he used images from around him, such as the Chateau Ussé for Sleeping Beauty and in Puss-in-Boots, the Marquis of the Château d'Oiron, and contrasted his folktale subject matter, with details and asides and subtext drawn from the world of fashion. He died in Paris in 1703 at age 75.

External links

(in French)
Free audio recordings (MP3, in French) of and
(also in French, by 'Aldor')

Charles Perrault

Biography

See also

External links