Rudiments of contemporary fantasy in Madame d'Aulnoy's fairy tales
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35921/jangada.v1i18.374Keywords:
Fantasy literature, Fairy tales, Madame d'AulnoyAbstract
It is known that contemporary fantasy literature carries narrative strands from the ancient and long-lived thematic framework of traditional fairy tales and other wonderful tales; characters and mottos arising from this fruitful literary tradition have been commonly refigured and reused today. The aim of this article is to launch theoretical and analytical reflections on a new interpretative hypothesis: that a series of structural rudiments of contemporary fantasy would be present in literary fairy tales by Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Madame d’Aulnoy (1650?-1705), coiner of the term “fairy tale” and author of the first literary fairy tale known. To compare this possibility, the theoretical contributions of Bottigheimer (2019), Mendlesohn (2008) and Matangrano (2021) are combined in counterpoint to Todorov’s (1973) postulates about the narrative structure of the fairy tale. It is intended, in addition to demonstrating the relevance of the mentioned hypothesis, to illuminate the still little-known work of Madame d’Aulnoy (especially to the Portuguese language readers), as well as on the fairy tales of female authorship from the 17th century in France.
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