{"title":"Monkey Tails: D’Aulnoy and Unger Explore Descartes, Rousseau, and the Animal–Human Divide","authors":"Shawn C. Jarvis","doi":"10.1353/mat.2021.0022","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:“Monkey Tails” presents a side-by-side analysis of two fairy tales with metamorphosed monkey princesses, Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy’s “Babiole” (1698) and Friederike Helene Unger’s “Prinzessin Gräcula” (1804). Each tale explores its heroine’s path to disenchantment and humanity through the lens of the animal–human divide as articulated by the philosophers René Descartes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Descartes’s parameters—intelligence, language, reason, feeling, and a soul—propel “Babiole”; “Prinzessin Gräcula” unfolds with Rousseau’s idea of “perfectibility” and its components of self-consciousness, rationality, and morality. Ultimately d’Aulnoy and Unger use these philosophies to comment on the nature of woman and her progression to equality.","PeriodicalId":42276,"journal":{"name":"Marvels & Tales-Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies","volume":"47 1","pages":"271 - 289"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Marvels & Tales-Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/mat.2021.0022","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Arts and Humanities","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract:“Monkey Tails” presents a side-by-side analysis of two fairy tales with metamorphosed monkey princesses, Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy’s “Babiole” (1698) and Friederike Helene Unger’s “Prinzessin Gräcula” (1804). Each tale explores its heroine’s path to disenchantment and humanity through the lens of the animal–human divide as articulated by the philosophers René Descartes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Descartes’s parameters—intelligence, language, reason, feeling, and a soul—propel “Babiole”; “Prinzessin Gräcula” unfolds with Rousseau’s idea of “perfectibility” and its components of self-consciousness, rationality, and morality. Ultimately d’Aulnoy and Unger use these philosophies to comment on the nature of woman and her progression to equality.
期刊介绍:
Marvels & Tales (ISSN: 1521-4281) was founded in 1987 by Jacques Barchilon at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Originally known as Merveilles & contes, the journal expressed its role as an international forum for folktale and fairy-tale scholarship through its various aliases: Wunder & Märchen, Maravillas & Cuentos, Meraviglie & Racconti, and Marvels & Tales. In 1997, the journal moved to Wayne State University Press and took the definitive title Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies. From the start, Marvels & Tales has served as a central forum for the multidisciplinary study of fairy tales. In its pages, contributors from around the globe have published studies, texts, and translations of fairy-tales from Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa. The Editorial Policy of Marvels & Tales encourages scholarship that introduces new areas of fairy-tale scholarship, as well as research that considers the traditional fairy-tale canon from new perspectives. The journal''s special issues have been particularly popular and have focused on topics such as "Beauty and the Beast," "The Romantic Tale," "Charles Perrault," "Marriage Tests and Marriage Quest in African Oral Literature," "The Italian Tale," and "Angela Carter and the Literary Märchen." Marvels & Tales is published every April and October by Wayne State University Press.