Sleeping Beauty - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

History

The summary presented here is based on the versions of Charles Perrault and the brothers Grimm who differ by several points. At the time of the baptism of the princess, the king and the queen organize a sumptuous festival, inviting family, friends and benevolent godmother-fairies of the child. Each one of them offers a gift to the princess: beauty, grace, etc the festivities cease abruptly when a old hag, which was not invited, presents and launches to the princess a mortal charm. Fortunately, one of the Fée S commutes this charm to a one hundred years sleep. This one will intervene when, fifteen years old, the princess pricks the finger with a spindle and ends thanks to the arrival of a prince in love. To protect his daughter, the king immediately makes appear an edict by which it defends with all to slip by to the spindle or to have a spindle under penalty of death. But in vain, since an old deaf person does not hear the edict. It is on its spindle that the Beautiful one will carry the hand… involving the achievement of the Malédiction.

Contrary to a spread idea, the tales of Charles Perrault and brothers Grimm do not stop with the alarm clock of the princess: the prince brings the princess and his two children (small Dawn and the small Day) in the castle of his mother, who is a queen Ogresse, then share to the war. During this time, the queen decides to eat the princess and the two children… But the Master-with Hôtel (of the name of Simon in one of the versions of Perrault) replaces them by a hind and two kids to mislead the malicious queen.

Godmothers

Seven fairies of Perrault: the author does not give them a distinctive name. The six first make a gift with the princess, the seventh, youngest, inflects the magic spell launched by the old hag, incarnation of the Wicked fairy:

“ One gave for Marraines to the small Princess all the Fairies which one could find in the Country (it was seven of them), so that each one of them making him a gift, as it was the habit of the Fairies in this time, the Princess had by this means all the conceivable perfections. ”

“ Cependant the Fairies started to make their gifts with the Princess. Young person gave him for gift which it would be most beautiful of the world, that according to that it would have of the spirit like an Angel, the third that it would have an admirable grace to all that it would make, the fourth that it would dance perfectly well, the fifth that it would sing like a Nightingale, and the sixth that it would play of all kinds of instruments to perfection. ”

Twelve fairies of Grimm: seven in the version of Perrault, the fairies pass to twelve in the adaptation of the tale of the Grimm brothers, plus one, the thirteenth one, incarnation of the wicked fairy:

“ (the king) organized a great festival. He was not satisfied to invite there his parents, his friends and knowledge, but also of the fairies so that they were favorable to the child. There were thirteen in its kingdom of them. But, as it had only twelve gold plates to serve a meal to them, one of them was not invited. The festival was splendid. Whereas it touched at its end, the fairies offered to the child of fabulous gifts: one the virtue, the other the beauty, the third richness and so on, all that is desirable in the world.

As eleven of the fairies had just acted thus, the thirteenth one occurred suddenly. She wanted to be avenged not to be invited. Without greeting whoever, she exclaimed of a strong voice:

the girl of the king, in his fifteenth year, will be pricked with a spindle and will fall stiff dead.

Then it left the room. Everyone was extremely frightened. The twelfth of the fairies, that which had not formed its wish yet, advanced then. And as it could not cancel the bad fate, but only to make it less dangerous, it says:

It will not be a true death, only one one hundred years sleep in which the girl of the king will be plunged. ”

Name of the princess

The princess changes name with the liking of the versions. In the Sun, the Moon and Talia , it is Talia (the Sun and the Moon are his/her two twin children). Perrault, not more than the Grimm brothers after him, do not give him a name, it is simply “the princess”. Perrault names however his/her daughter “the Dawn”. Tchaikovsky transfers this girl's name to the mother and thus names the princess Aurore, just like will make Disney after him.

Origins

If the version of Perrault is most known, it takes as a starting point an older account, the Sun, the Moon and Talia , extracted the Pentamerone of Giambattista Basile, published in 1634.

Perrault transforms nevertheless appreciably the tone of it. The tale of Basile, written for a public aristocrat and adult, stresses fidelity in the couple and the heritage. Perrault as for him writes for a public of the upper middle classes, inculcating values of patience and passivity at the woman.

The intrigue contains other notable differences: the sleep is not the result of a magic spell but is announced by prophecy, the king does not awake Talia by a kiss but misuses it, and, when it gives rise to her two children, one of them him head the finger, removing the splinter of flax which had plunged it in the sleep, which awakes it. In this version, the history continues after the marriage of the prince and the princess: the mother of the prince, who tests resentment towards his beautiful daughter, tries to eat it and her children. The jealousy of the mothers-in-law is current thing in the tales.

There exist older sources of the tale, among which the novel of Perceforest, and in which the Zellandine princess falls in love with Troylus. The father of the princess puts the young man to the test to determine if it is worthy of his daughter and, whereas it left, Zellandine fall into a magic sleep. On its return, Troylus finds it deadened and, just like in the Sun, the Moon and Talia, puts it pregnant in its sleep. When their child is born, it head the finger of his/her mother and in extract thus the splinter of flax which is at the origin of its sleep. It knows thanks to the ring which Troylus left him that he is the father of the child. At the end of its adventures, Troylus ends up marrying it.

History of Brunehilde, deadened heroin of the Saga de Volsunga , mark an origin even older.

Analyzes

The tale reports, from the psychoanalytical point of view, to become to it woman, an initiatory process to some extent symbolized by the spindle on which the beautiful one pricks the finger from which blood leaves, symbolizing the arrival of sexuality. The prince is in fact additional only one figure, the screen of the tale putting in scene the various phases of the life of a woman: childhood, adolescence and the youth represented by the princess, the mother representing the adulthood, fruitfulness and the pregnancy, and the old age incarnated by the Wicked fairy.

Other works

This tale inspired with Piotr Ilitch Tchaïkovski the ballet Sleeping Beauty in a prolog and three acts (1888 - 1889), whose choreography is signed by Marius Petipa.

Clyde Geronimi within the framework of the studios Disney carried out a cartoon film presented in 1959: Sleeping Beauty .

In Shrek the third , Beauty, character inspired by Beautiful with wood sleeping, is a friend of the Fiona princess and suffers from Narcolepsie.

a theatrical and modern version of this tale become Sleeping Beauty and the three fairies is played Paris with the Workshop Theater of Montmartre. This adaptation is signed Oriane Villatte and Franck Duarte, founders of the theatrical company the Glou Company.

Sources

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