Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Fairy Tales, Sexuality, and Gender in France, 1690–1715
  • Cited by 28
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
September 2009
Print publication year:
1996
Online ISBN:
9780511470387
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511470387
Subjects:
Literature, Area Studies, Literary Theory, European Literature, European Studies
Series:
Cambridge Studies in French (55)
Information

Book description

Between 1690 and 1715, well over one hundred literary fairy tales appeared in France, two-thirds of them written by women. This 1996 book explores why fashionable adults were attracted to this new literary genre and, integrating socio-historical, structuralist, and post-structuralist approaches, considers how it became a medium for reconceiving literary and historical discourses of sexuality and gender. The first part of the book considers how the marvellous is used to legitimize the genre, to exemplify theories of 'modern' culture, and to reaffirm women's potential as writers. The second part examines how specific groups of tales both reiterate and unsettle late seventeenth-century discourses of love, masculinity and femininity through conventions such as the romantic quest, the marriage closure, chivalric heroes and good and evil fairies.

Reviews

"This is in many ways an outstanding scholarly achievement." Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies, Vol. 11,Nos. 1-2

"This impressive study provides great insight into not only the Marvellous and the conte de fées, but also issues of sexuality and gender under the ancien régime and at times of cultural transition and unease in general. It is a compelling tale, well told." Mererid Puw Davies, Eighteenth Century Fiction

"Seifert provides us with a solid and learned study of French fairy tale in its beginnings. He has much to tell us, and he shows us that we have much to learn." Modern Philology

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.