Peau d'âne et peaux de bêtes: Variations et reconfigurations d'un motif dans les mythes, les fables et les contes ed. by Frédéric Calas (review)
2023; Wayne State University Press; Volume: 37; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/mat.2023.a923698
ISSN1536-1802
ResumoReviewed by: Peau d'âne et peaux de bêtes: Variations et reconfigurations d'un motif dans les mythes, les fables et les contes ed. by Frédéric Calas Elizabeth Howard (bio) Peau d'âne et peaux de bêtes: Variations et reconfigurations d'un motif dans les mythes, les fables et les contes. Edited by Frédéric Calas, Presses Universitaires Blaise-Pascal, 2021, 378 pp. The motif of the animal skin worn by a human exists in thousands of variants across cultures, genres, and mediums. The powers attributed to it are as multiple as its narrative functions: as adornment and reward, as [End Page 329] promise of immortality, or as agent of protective metamorphosis. The essays in this collection illustrate how the motif's capacity to express deeply rooted questions about humans' relationship to animals and the natural world has contributed to its continued relevance today. Of the book's eighteen essays, nine deal explicitly with Charles Perrault's "Donkeyskin," while the other half explore variations of the motif from antiquity to the present, in a diverse set of materials from novels and poetry, to painting, illustration, and children's books. The book is well-framed with an introduction and conclusion by Frédéric Calas, where he lays out the volume's aims to not only catalog and compare variants of the animal skin motif but also to investigate what makes it so receptive to the act of re-creation. Informed by Bakhtinian theories of dialogism, Julia Kristeva's concept of intertextuality and Gérard Genette's concept of transtextuality, the essays in this collection demonstrate how the allegorical value of the motif emerges transtextually. The animal skin has often been a powerful symbol for articulating the experience of undergoing a traumatic event, as well as the attempt to overcome that ordeal. Reimagining these stories thus makes it possible to invoke a subject like incest without explicitly naming it. As Calas explains, studying multiple variants of a motif like the animal skin can ultimately help us to "better appreciate the aesthetic, therapeutic and philosophical powers of literature and the arts" (14). The volume includes a bibliography, two indexes—one for authors and one for works cited, as well as abstracts, in both French and English, for every essay. The essays are divided into three titled sections according to topic. Part 1 explores variants of the motif in myths, fables, and fairy tales, effectively introducing each of the genres that will be developed further in the two subsequent sections. Hélène Vial examines the political and aesthetic dimensions of animal skin in instances of transformation in Ovid's Metamorphoses; Pascale Pradal-Morand demonstrates how La Fontaine uses the animal skin in his fables as a way to caution against the sins of deception and identity theft; and Dominique Peyrache-Leborgne explores the foundational ambivalence of the animal skin in the context of ATU 510B, in which the skin protects the heroine from the incestuous advances of her father but also signals her social degradation. Examining this duality in several early literary versions of the tale as well as in a more contemporary text by Christine Angot, Peyrache-Leborgne then discusses how illustrations by Arthur Rackham and Kay Nielsen offer a more hopeful representation of the magical animal skin in its aesthetic and sensual dimensions. Peyrache-Lebogrne's essay stands out in the collection as an example of the scholarly richness this kind of comparative analysis can yield. Many of the conclusions she draws about ATU 510B are also true of fairy tales more broadly—that their narratives and the symbols that compose them [End Page 330] remain a paradoxical mixture of cruelty and violence on the one hand and marvelous beauty and sensory pleasure on the other. The second section focuses on Perrault's "Donkeyskin," as well as rewritings and reimaginings of it in various forms of media. Cyrille François's essay on the editorial history of "Donkeyskin" shows how different editions of the tale constitute new versions. Essays by Calas, Pascale Auraix-Jonchière, and Corona Schmiele compare Perrault's tale with the Grimms' "Allerleirauh," investigating the metaliterary dimensions of the motif and how...
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