Throwback Thursday: Italy: The Birthplace of Modern Fairy Tale Telling, By Christina Ruth Johnson

Editor’s Note: I love posts that teach us about fairy tales and folklore. Italy as the origin country for fairy tales is not a new bit of information, but not many people know about it. Enjoy this post from 2014!

When we think of countries that are birthplaces of fairy tales, we automatically think of France and Germany--at least, these are the first that come to my mind, thanks mainly to Perrault and the Grimm brothers. We may think of England, too, as the place tales about actual fairies abound. Next, our minds might travel east to Russia or even farther into the lands of the Arabian Nights. Or perhaps we go north to Denmark, remembering Hans Christian Andersen.

One place to which my mind never traveled, until my research took me there, was Italy. I have since learned that traveling to Italy (literarily speaking) is a must for fairy tale lovers!

A most extraordinary collection of tales was published in Italy between 1634 and 1636--written by Giambattista Basile (published posthumously). The original title was Lo cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiento de peccerille--“The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones.” The title by which we know the work today, however, is Il Pentamerone, a phrase from the dedication page of the first edition that appeared as a subtitle in the 1674 edition by Pompeo Sarnelli (another Italian writer of fairy tales). (Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales)

From "Two Cakes," illustrated by George Cruikshank

Giambattista Basile was born near Naples in 1575 to a middle class family. He worked as a soldier, a government official, a courtier in Mantua, and a governor of various small states in Italy (Encyclopedia Britannica). When he died in 1632, he held the title of count (OCFT). Basile was well regarded as a poet while he lived, “and during his career he became fascinated with the folklore, customs, literature, music, and dialect of the Neapolitan people. He began serious study of things Neapolitan and began to collect fairy tales and folktales, setting them down in a lively Neapolitan style with much local flavour and all the ornament and flamboyance of his influential contemporary Giambattista Marino” (EB). 

 

"The Serpent," illustrated by by Warwick Goble

Basile’s arguably most famous work, Il Pentamerone, was the first literary compilation of nothing but fairy tales to be published in Europe, paving the way for later publications by the Grimms and others that we know and love today. Linguist and historian Nancy Canepa writes, “Lo cunto constituted a culmination of the interest in popular culture and folk traditions that permeated the Renaissance, when isolated fairy tales had started to be included in novella collections” (OCFT). Il Pentamerone, however, was written in the complicated Neapolitan dialect and parodied both earlier canonical works by Italian authors, such as Boccaccio, as well as contemporary Neapolitan culture (OCFT).

"Seven Doves" and more, by Cruikshank

Like Boccaccio’s Decameron, Basile’s Il Pentamerone is composed of a frame narrative with 49 interior tales--the frame narrative is its own tale, raising the total number to 50. Many stories we readily recognize today appear in this anthology, some in their earliest known literary forms: “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Rapunzel,” “Snow White and Rose Red,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Puss in Boots.”

"The Three Enchanted Princes, illustrated by Goble

 Canepa remarks that Basile’s versions of these stories are “often bawdier and crueller” than their later, better-known retellings. For example, the heroine of “La gatta Cennerentola” (“The Cinderella Cat”) actually kills her stepmother and actively helps orchestrate her own happily-ever-after. In general, Il Pentamerone’s heroines are surprisingly active and clever agents in their own fates. (OCFT) Petrosinella (the earliest incarnation of Rapunzel) coordinates her escape from her tower, essentially giving orders to the prince.

You can read a selection of stories from The Tale of Tales on the Surlalune website, as well as view more of the gorgeous illustrations by Warwick Goble and George Cruikshank here: http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/pentamerone/. You may also try your hand at reading the original Neapolitan here (full text): http://www.letteraturaitaliana.net/pdf/Volume_6/t133.pdf.

I for one love reading such different versions of tales we think we know so well! Which Pentamerone tale is your favorite? Join Enchanted Conversation and let us know!

 References:

“Giambattista Basile.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed 17 August 2014. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/55102/Giambattista-Basile#ref188608. [OE]

Heidi Anne Heiner, ed. “Il Pentamerone.” Surlalune Fairy Tales. http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/pentamerone/.

Nancy Canepa. “Giambattista Basile.” The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales: The Western fairy tale tradition from medieval to modern, 41-43. Edited by Jack Zipes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. [OCFT]

Nancy Canepa. “Pentamerone.” The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales: The Western fairy tale tradition from medieval to modern, 377-378. Edited by Jack Zipes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. [OCFT] 

Christina Ruth Johnson recently received her Masters in Art History with a focus on the ancient Mediterranean and a side interest in the 18th and 19th centuries. Her other great love is fantasy literature from ancient times to present day.

Another Treasure From Great-Grandmother's Trove, By Cristina Ruth Johnson, Vintage Fairy Tale Sleuth

I’ve mentioned before that my great-grandmother collected some beautiful books. Undine, which I wrote about in an earlier post, is one of them. Another is an exquisite edition of East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North, illustrated by the great Kay Nielsen.

 Kay Nielsen was born in Denmark in 1886. His career blossomed early, but the tides of war and of a declining interest in the illustrative arts left a magnificent talent to end his days in poverty. He died in 1957. Posthumously, he was eventually recognized as one--if not the--greatest illustrator of the Golden Age of Illustration.

“The Golden Age of Illustration was a period of unprecedented excellence in book and magazine illustration. It developed from advances in technology permitting accurate and inexpensive reproduction of art, combined with a voracious public demand for new graphic art. In Europe, Golden Age artists were influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites and by such design-oriented movements as the Arts and Crafts Movement, Art Nouveau, and Les Nabis” (ArtCyclopedia).

Nielsen’s work is often noted as being inspired by fellow illustrator Aubrey Beardsley and, more generally, the Art Nouveau movement. He was also inspired from a young age by the art of Japan (example, Katsushika Hokusai), especially wood-block prints, as can be seen in his asymmetrical compositions and elements flattened by the use of rich and intricate patterns.

The first volume that Nielsen illustrated to great acclaim was In Powder and Crinoline, published in America as The Twelve Dancing Princesses, a collection of tales retold by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1913).

 

From Powder and Crinoline, Kay Nielsen

East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North was published the following year. Nielsen’s illustrations in this collection of fantastic and unusual stories are without a doubt his best work. (Admittedly, I’m biased, since I’ve seen them in person.) His creations have an oddness to them that catches the eye immediately, but the depth of beauty within this oddness keeps the eye’s attention. They are rich, they are compelling, they are . . . fairy-tale. Perfectly, wonderfully fairy tale.

"The Lassie and Her Grandmother," Kay Nielsen

Old Tales from the North was published by Hodder & Stoughton (1914). The first edition deluxe copies (of which 500 were made) are signed by Nielsen. They are bound in vellum with gilt lettering and decoration. The first edition trade copies are bound in blue cloth and likewise decorated in gilt. The tales within the anthology were mainly culled from George Webbe Dasent’s “Popular Tales from the Norse” (translated from Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe’sNorske Folkeeventyr in 1859) though one tale, “Prince Lindworm,” was actually translated specifically for this anthology. You can read the full text of the book online here.

Nielsen’s publishing career was stymied for the next 10 years by World War I and also by his interests in theater production, though he worked during this period on illustrations for a volume of stories from Arabian Nights, which was never completed. 1924 and 1925 saw the back-to-back publications of his work in anthologies of tales by Hans Christian Andersen and the Grimm brothers. The final book to feature his illustrations was the little-known Red Magic, published in 1930.  

Red Magic,  Kay Nielsen

Nielsen and his wife moved to California in 1936, where he spent the remainder of his life. His final illustrative work was done as an employee of Walt Disney Studios. We can see his creations in Fantasia (1940), including the “Night on Bald Mountain” and “Ave Maria” scenes. He also did early creative work for a proposed film based on Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid”--a project which, as we know, would not see completion for another 50 years. The Little Mermaid film still credited Nielsen for “visual development.” 

The Little Mermaid, Kay Nielsen

Which of Nielsen’s illustrations is your favorite? Join Enchanted Conversation and let us know!

Christina Ruth Johnson recently received her Masters in Art History with a focus on the ancient Mediterranean and a side interest in the 18th and 19th centuries. Her other great love is fantasy literature from ancient times to present day.

References:

http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/nielsen.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kay_Nielsen

http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/east-sun-west-moon/author/nielsen/price-min/9000/pub-min/1914/pub-max/1914/sortby/1/

http://www.baumanrarebooks.com/rare-books/kay-nielsen/east-of-the-sun-and-west-of-the-moon/88557.aspx

Link to illustrations

http://www.artpassions.net/nielsen/nielsen.html

Link to full text

https://archive.org/stream/eastofthesunandw30973gut/pg30973.txt

Madame d'Aulnoy: La dame des contes des fees, By Christina Ruth Johnson, Vintage Fairy Tale Sleuth

We hear so much about the famous male authors of fairy tales such as the Grimm brothers, Andrew Lang, Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Perrault, etc., that we might sometimes forget the female authors who helped just as much to define the genre as we know it today. In fact, it was a female author who first coined the phrase “fairy tales” -- “contes des fées” in the original French.

Madame d'Aulnoy

Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baronne d'Aulnoy, better known as simply Madame d’Aulnoy, was born in either 1650 or 1651. We know she married Francois de la Motte, Baron d’Aulnoy at the tender age of 16 in 1666. The Baron was thirty years her senior at the time.

Madame d’Aulnoy’s early years of marriage were marked by scandal and intrigue worthy of HBO. Her husband, often in dire financial straits, was accused of lese-majesty (a crime against the reigning authority, usually considered high treason) in 1669, a claim soon proved false. His two primary accusers were the Marquis de Courboyer and his lover the Marquise de Gudanes. The former was executed, and the latter was exiled to Spain, where she apparently took on the role of royal spy until her death in 1702. Madame d’Aulnoy’s mother was involved in the accusations against her daughter’s husband as well, and she fled France for Spain soon after the verdict. The exact nature of the involvement of Madame d’Aulnoy herself remains a mystery. Never accused by her husband as complicit in the plot, she nevertheless was ostensibly imprisoned for a short time in December of 1669 (immediately following the birth of her fourth child) before gaining her freedom.

The exact events of the next twenty years of Madame d’Aulnoy’s life are also a mystery. She almost certainly traveled quite a bit, first to Flanders and England, with a brief return to France in 1676 (where she gave birth to a potentially illegitimate daughter); then she likely traveled to Spain to see her mother before again going to England. Back in France by 1685, she returned rather forcefully to the French social scene in 1690, overseeing her own salon, which was frequented by aristocrats from both France and England.
Marie-Catherine, Baroness d’Aulnoy was a prolific writer. Her contes des fées were only a minor part of her overall repertoire. “As a skillful polygraph, she had tried various genres: two works of piety, four volumes of historical memoirs, three novels, and one collection of gallant short stories, in addition to the eight volumes of tales published in 1697 and 1698 for which she is now best know” (Raynard 64).

Based on firsthand accounts from this time, we know that Madame d’Aulnoy met Catherine Bernard, Charlotte Rose de la Force, and Henriette-Julie de Murat, all fellow female writers of fairy tales.
Heidi Ann Heider, editor of Sur La Lune Fairy Tales, writes, “In the late 1600s, the French Salons were filled with fairy tale writing, primarily by women writers. Many of the tales were influenced by oral traditions, but most did not end up influencing oral tradition directly.”

The eight volumes of fairy tales written by Madame d’Aulnoy were published in two parts: Contes des fees in 1697 followed by Contes nouveau ou les fees a la mode in 1698. These tales would have been read aloud at her salons years before their physical publication. Her stories include “The White Cat,” “The Yellow Dwarf,” “The Golden Branch” (one of my personal favorites), and “The Hind in the Wood.” A translation of all of her stories may be found online at Project Gutenberg, while a small selection--including the ones I’ve mentioned--is also available on Sur La Lune.

Which of Madame d'Aulnoy's tales is your favorite? Join Enchanted Conversation and let us know!

References:Sophie Raynard, ed. The Teller’s Tale: Lives of the Classic Fairy Tale Writers. SUNY Press, 2012.Heidi Ann Heider. “Marie-Catherine Baronne d’Aulnoy.” Sur La Lune Fairy Tales. http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/daulnoy.html.

*Read all of Madame d’Aulnoy’s stories online at Project Gutenberg:Tome I: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18367Tome II: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18368*Or a select few at Sur La Lune:http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/daulnoy.html

Christina Ruth Johnson recently received her Masters in Art History with a focus on the ancient Mediterranean and a side interest in the 18th and 19th centuries. Her other great love is fantasy literature from ancient times to present day.

Update: Here are English translations--

The Gutenberg links are to the original French stories (which is only awesome if you read French). If you have a JSTOR account, you can read Buczkowski's translation here:http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/41388901?uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21104251099353. 
Or you can "purchase" the free ebook of an 1892 translation here:http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Fairy_Tales_of_Madame_D_Aulnoy_Newly.html?id=5qKQAAAAIAAJ. 
There are also a bunch of Andrew Lang's publications, which include some of her stories, on Project Gutenberg:http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30580/30580-h/30580-h.htm.

Hope this helps! 

How One Thousand and One Nights Came to Be, By Christina Ruth Johnson, Vintage Fairy Tale Sleuth

One Thousand and One Nights or The Arabian Nights did not always comprise its nigh-proverbial 1,001 tales. The anthology, as we are familiar with it today, actually has no single source and stems from no single culture. Growing up, I could recognize tales as belonging to the Nights, but I had not (and still probably haven’t) read every tale ever included. Before today, I was even unsure about which title was the correct one to use (and am still unconvinced there is one).

So what is the history of Scheherazade and her 1,001 tales? Where did this story about stories come from? The Vintage Sleuth is on the case!

"Princess Scheherazade," by Edmund Dulac, 1907

The first known use of the title “One Thousand and One Nights” appears (in Arabic) in, of all places, a 12^th century notebook belonging to a Jewish bookseller from Cairo. The content of the book, however, originates from much earlier. The frame narrative--that of Scheherazade and of the ruler Shahryar, whom she entertains with stories for a thousand and one nights to stave off his boredom and her execution--is modeled on a Persian story, translated into Arabic in the 9^th century. This “A Thousand Tales” tells how a caliph, who kills a new wife every night for three years, is finally outwitted by a vizier’s daughter and her slave-girl.

"The Fisherman and the Genie," by Dulac, 1907

The compendium of stories from this 9^th century collection and other later manuscripts originate, of course, in the oral tradition, making these stories-within-a-story potentially much older than the literary versions. According to The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales (to which I owe most of the information I relate in this post--thank you Oxford!): “The oldest preserved manuscripts, comprising a core corpus of about 270 nights, appear to date from the 15^th century.” The oral stories, therefore, likely date between the 9^th and 15^th centuries--or slightly earlier. Once the stories began to be written down, a wide variety of anonymous authors, all writing in Middle Arabic but with different styles, interpreted and re-wrote them either as part of the now-expected frame narrative or as independent tales. Studying these multiple versions, scholars have discerned three distinct oral traditions from which the tales originated: Persian, Indian, and Arab.

"The Princess of Deryabar," by Dulac, 1907

So how did these Middle Eastern tales come to impact the Western imagination so heavily? Other wonderful examples of Middle Eastern literature from this period, such as The Romance of ‘Antar (11^th-12^th centuries), is much less well known outside of culturally specific studies.

The answer lies, as it often does, in the world of publication and translation.

Antoine Galland was the first European translator of the tales. His 12-volume compendium, Le Mille et une nuits (1704-1717), was based mainly on one Arabic source with the addition of a translation of “The Voyages of Sinbad,” as well as tales told to him by an Arab acquaintance. These included “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” and “Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp.” Over 120 years later, Edward William Lane published the first English translation of the tales (1839-1841)--heavily culling from his sources, so his final product was much shorter than Galland’s.

 

"Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp," by Dulac, 1907

 
Some forty years after this, Richard Burton set out on a monumental translation project that resulted in 10 volumes entitled “Book of a Thousand Nights and A Night,” published between 1885 and 1886. Apparently not completely satisfied, he then published “Supplemental Nights” in the years immediately following. These volumes were fanciful to the extreme, taking artistic license when translation failed. From 1921 to 1928, Enno Littmann transcribed a German edition of 6 volumes with an incredibly faithful translation and scholarly footnotes. (Funny side note: he translated the scandalous scenes into Latin, not German.) Beyond Littmann, the twentieth century oversaw a multitude of translations of the tales into a wide variety of European (and other) languages. 

Galland’s translation from the early 18^th century marked the beginning of the popularity of the Nights. “In some respects, the Nights are more important and famous in the West than they are in the Orient” (OCFT). The list of famous authors and poets and artists who drew inspiration from the Nights is incredibly long and varied, including Votaire, Samuel Johnson, Robert Louis Stevenson, Herman Melville, Edmund Dulac (whose gorgeous illustrations I showcase here), Jorge Luis Borges, Salman Rushdie, Neil Gaiman, and, of course, Disney. 

"City of Brass," by Dulac, 1907

The beauty, the wonder, the enchantment, and the Otherness of these tales draws us in and refuses to leave our minds even after the book cover is closed. Join the family of Enchanted Conversation, and let us know which of the thousand and one (give or take) tales is your favorite!

Christina Ruth Johnson recently received her Masters in Art History with a focus on the ancient Mediterranean and a side interest in the 18th and 19th centuries. Her other great love is fantasy literature from ancient times to present day.

References:

Jack Zipes, ed. The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. Oxford University Press, 2000.

Robert Irwin. The Arabian Nights: A Companion. London: Taurus Park Paperbacks, 2005.

The Romance of ‘Antar: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/26969/Romance-of-Antar. 

A Tale Across Time (East of the Sun, West of the Moon), By Christina Ruth Johnson, Vintage Fairy Tale Sleuth

My favorite fairy tale for many years has been “East of the Sun and West of the Moon.” A few different things conspired to make it so. I love that the hero of the tale is female--it is she who undertakes the quest, she who rescues the prince, and she who defeats the evil. I love the illustrations by the great Kay Nielsen that are associated with it.

Kay Nielsen, East of the Sun and West of the Moon:Old Tales from the North

I also love the conundrum it presents when compared with the classical myth of “Cupid and Psyche.” To be so similar, yet so far removed in time and space! What is the connection? I decided that whether or not I found an answer, I would address this problem in my next Fairy Tale Vintage Sleuth column . . . so let the sleuthing begin!

Kay Nielsen, East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North

ESWM was originally collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, two famous Norwegian folklorists, who were born about 30 years after the Grimm brothers and drew on the work of the latter for inspiration in their own endeavors. Asbjørnsen and Moe began publishing their collection of stories, Norske folkeeventyr, in 1841 (ESWM is tale number 41).

Cover of Norske folkeeventyr, 5^th edition, 1874

 
Like Kinder- und Hausmärchen, this anthology of tales was incredibly well received by the reading public. Like the Grimm brothers, Asbjørnsen and Moe transcribed the stories they collected into language more suited for literary publication, though with perhaps less overt changes than in the German collection.

Theodor Kittelsen

Summary: A young farmer’s daughter is taken from her home by a large white bear and born on his back to a grand castle, where an unknown man comes to her every night after dark. The girl’s mother convinces her to peek at the man when he is sleeping, so she lights a candle and sees that her lover is a handsome prince; but she drips wax on his skin and he wakes, thereby cursing him to travel to a castle that lies east of the sun and west of the moon and to marry a troll princess. On her journey to rescue him, the girl meets three old women, is given three golden gifts, and rides the four winds. She uses the gifts to trick the trolls and then performs a task that only she can do in order to win her prince back.

The earliest extant version of “Cupid and Psyche” is found in Apuleius’ novel Metamorphoses (not to be confused with Ovid’s), also known as The Golden Ass. Apuleius was a Latin prose writer and traveler, born in North Africa in 125 BC. Images of Cupid and Psyche, however, appear in Greek art as early as the 4^th century BC.

 Cupid & Psyche, Roman replica
of Hellenistic (2^nd c. BC) original, Capitoline Museum

Summary: A beautiful mortal girl, Psyche, is given to an unknown “monster” in marriage. A wind bears her away to a beautiful estate, where a man comes to her only at night after dark. Although he has forbidden her to look upon his face, her sisters convince her to peek. She lights a lamp and sees before her Cupid, the very god of love himself, but she spills oil on his skin and he wakes. To punish her doubt, he leaves. To reclaim him, Psyche (while pregnant) goes to a vengeful Venus, who sets before her three impossible tasks, which Psyche completes with the aid of various friendly entities. In the end, Cupid asks Jupiter to grant Psyche the gift of immortality, and they live forever after as husband and wife.

Psyche in the Garden of Amor, illustration of Apuleius Metamorphoses
 c. 24. Manuscript Vat. Lat. 2194 in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana 
in Rome, circa 1345

Apuleius’ tale had spread to western Europe in the Middle Ages, as evidenced by the above illumination from a 1345 manuscript. “Cupid and Psyche” was first translated into English by William Adlington in 1566. The story was referenced in Milton’s Comus in the first half of the 17^th century, suggesting a certain familiarity with the tale at this time. The famous sculptor, Antonio Canova, dynamically captured the mythical lovers in the late 18^th century, just decades before Asbjørnsen and Moe collected ESWM. Fascinatingly, even as Asbjørnsen and Moe were transcribing ESWM, a descendant of “Cupid and Psyche,” the original story remained popular across Europe.

Canova, Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss, first commissioned 1787

Is the similarity between these two tales an example of medieval (or earlier) literature trickling down to the “folk,” being altered to fit the culture of that specific group of people, and turning into a folktale? We saw evidence for this in my very first post with the similarities between the medieval story of Emaré and the two later fairytales “Maiden Without Hands” (Grimm) and “Donkeyskin” (Perrault).

It’s fascinating to wonder about when and where the exact exchanging and changing of the original story took place--very likely it was a much more complicated process than I summarized just now.

What are your thoughts? Can you think of other instances where stories like this changed over time and became folk/fairy tales? 

References:

http://surlalunefairytales.com/eastsunwestmoon/index.html

http://surlalunefairytales.com/eastsunwestmoon/history.html

http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/asbjornsen_moe.html

http://surlalunefairytales.com/eastsunwestmoon/other.html#BROWN

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbj%C3%B8rnsen_and_Moe#cite_ref-6

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1666/1666-h/1666-h.htm#link2H_4_0029 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupid_and_Psyche

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass 

 

(The citations on these Wikipedia entries are surprisingly thorough.)

Christina Ruth Johnson recently received her Masters in Art History with a focus on the ancient Mediterranean and a side interest in the 18th and 19th centuries. Her other great love is fantasy literature from ancient times to present day. 

The Red Shoes: A Fairy Tale Film, By Christina Ruth Johnson, Vintage Fairy Tale Sleuth

Editor's note: Christina digs into the treasure trove of film to bring us her latest vintage fairy tale find. And get a load of the fabulous images she dug up!

 

Today, fairy tales seem to be popping up in one form or another everywhere we look, especially in popular visual media (as Nora’s columns continue to affirm). It is fun to look back, however, and realize that fairy tales have been inspiring the film world for decades, and not just by way of Disney.

In 1948, a movie was released that critics to this day herald as one of the most influential films ever to grace the early screen: The Red Shoes.

 

 

This British film, released in 1948, was written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It was based on Hans Christian Andersen’s story of the same title. In fact, the very first image of the film is a gothic still-life of a wax candle atop an old book with this author’s name flourished across the spine. A pair of red ballet shoes rests in front of the book. Blood-red, painted letters spell out the film’s title in the background, their presentation subtly presaging the tragic, culminating scene of the story to come.

**SPOILER ALERT: Do not read further if you wish to watch the movie uninformed of its main events and ending. NOTE: I watched it fully aware of what was to come and still enjoyed it completely.**

Many people with a much greater ability to critique movies have analyzed and lauded and elevated every nuance of The Red Shoes. I will not attempt to add to this large corpus. Rather, I wish to look at it from the perspective of the original fairy tale. In what way did elements of the original tale manifest on screen?

In Andersen’s story, the young protagonist, Karen, is given a pair of red shoes by her guardian. The beauty of the shoes distracts Karen in her daily life, especially at church where she cannot concentrate on her prayers. Though aware of their power, Karen dons the shoes to attend a ball, where they begin to dance of their own accord and whisk her through tortuous night after tortuous day and into the dark woods. “Dance you shall,” repeats an unmoved angel who watches from the church steps. Finally, Karen prevails upon an executioner to cut off her feet with his axe. Her devout contrition is rewarded with a sign of forgiveness, her heart breaks with joy, and her soul rises to heaven. (Read it here: http://surlalunefairytales.com/redshoes/index.html)

 

"The Red Shoes," by Anne Anderson

The film follows the rise and fall of the beautiful ballerina, Victoria Page. Boris Lermontov, the ambitious owner of a famous ballet company, offers Vicky the lead role in a new ballet, written by the young composer Julian Craster. The new ballet is, of course, Andersen’s The Red Shoes. The show is a success, and Lermontov is captivated by his new prima ballerina. Then, Vicky and Julian fall in love. She leaves the company, giving up her dream of dancing to get married. But Vicky’s desire to dance weighs on her, and Lermontov manipulates this desire to convince his muse to return to the stage to once again perform The Red Shoes.

Christina Ruth Johnson, vintage fairy tale sleuth

Julian confronts her backstage. She cannot choose. He leaves. Suddenly Vicky is chasing after him, and we do not know if it is her own feet or the red ballet shoes she wears that fling her off a balcony to a bloody and broken death on the train tracks below. Her last request is for Julian to remove the shoes.

Like in the original tale, the red shoes in the film ostensibly lead to the protagonist’s death. But where vanity was Karen’s downfall, what was Vicky’s? Was it her passions or desires that led to her demise or was she innocent of her own blood? And who, really, was the personification of the red shoes in her life? Was it Lermontov, who tempted her with dance; or was it Julian, who tempted her with love?

If you have seen the movie, I encourage you to discuss these questions in the comments. I would love to hear your thoughts! If you haven’t seen the movie, you should. The color! The music! The dance! You could watch this film without understanding a word of the dialogue and still be entranced. And yet, the dialogue and the story add a whole other level to the film. One critic poignantly describes the movie as a folktale in its own right, dedicated to the idea that art is worth dying for.

What do you think?

 

Christina Ruth Johnson recently received her Masters in Art History with a focus on the ancient Mediterranean and a side interest in the 18th and 19th centuries. Her other great love is fantasy literature from ancient times to present day.