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Midsummer Eve - painting by Edward Robert Hughes (1908)

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GO TO: Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5
Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10
Week 11 Week 12 Week 13 Week 14 Exam

Week 2

 

Italian Fairy Tales

 
Giuseppe Francesco Straparola - Tales from The Pleasant Nights or Le Piacevole notti (1580). English translation. - read two tales   Read online on Sur La lune.

Recommended texts: Costantino Fortunato
Gianbattista Basile - Tales from Il Pentamerone or Lo cunto de li cunti (1580). English translation. - read two tales   ebook in EUB format. Screen-friendly. Readable with Mobipocket, smartphone application or e-Reader.

Recommended texts: Gagliuso, Peruonto
Gianbattista Basile - It Pentamerone - Illustrated version available online on SurLaLune Recommended texts: Gagliuso, Peruonto

Week 3

 

French Literary Fairy Tales - Les salonières

 
Beauty and the Beast by Madame Marie LePrince de Beaumont. With a presentation by Maria Tatar
Madame d’Aulnoy - The Yellow Dwarf. Illustrated version on Archive.org.

For another online version (no illustrations, but better text visibility) check the online version at Adelaide.edu.
Madame d’Aulnoy and Les Salonieres. click to view film Film (1 min 25 sec)
Comtesse de Ségur - Old French Fairy Tales - beautifully illustrated. Download Old French Fairy Tales by Comtesse de Segur ePUB format. Viewable (and scaleable) on e-readers, smarthones, tablets or computer displays.
Comtesse de Ségur - Nouvelles Contes de Fées. In French Download SÉGUR Nouveaux contes de fées ePub book

Week 4

 

Violence and eroticism in the classical fairy tales

 
  • Maria Tatar's theme-grouped Fairy Tales
  • Marie-Louise von Franz - psychoanalytical interpretations of fairy tales (fragments)
* Several files in PDF format. Read at least 2 of these.
. click to visit sites

Week 5

 

The First Golden Age of the English Fairy Tale.
Thackeray & Dickens: Humorous apoproaches

William Makepeace Thackeray - The Rose and the Ring.
Original 1854 edition illustrated by Thackeray himself. A bibliophile's edition.
Thackeray Rose & Ring PDF image file 10 MB. Searchable scan of the original 1854 edition.
William Makepeace Thackeray - The Rose and the Ring. Thackeray  'The Rose and the Riong' PDF PDF for print (0.9 MB). 76 pag.
Charles Dickens - The Magic Fishbone Great facsimile of an old edition illustrated by F. D. Bedford. PDF from Archive.org. 46 pages. 2MB file.

Week 6

 

Spiritual Fairy Tales: John Ruskin and George MacDonald

John Ruskin- The King of the Golden River
Illustrated. Dodo Press.
PDF, 45 pages.
John Ruskin - The King of the Golden River. With original illustrations. ePUB with illustrations. Reformatted for e-readers. 0.9 MB.
George MacDonald - The Light Princess
Illustrated.
PDF, 42 pages.
George MacDonald - The Light Princess. Audio Book Audio MP3 file, 1h 32 min. Large file 18MB - wait!
* * *

Week 7

 

Aestheticist Fairy Tales

Oscar Wilde - The Happy Prince and Other Stories (1910 Brentano edition)
Illustrated.
Beatutifully illustrated edition, by Art Nouveau illustrator Charles Robinson. 8MB PDF file. 134 pages
* * *
* * *
Christina Rossetti - Goblin Market ilustrated by the author (Oxford edition)
Illustrated.
17-page poem. 28 page-introduction. PDF file (3MB)
Robert Browning - The Pied Piper of Hamelin - classical 1888 edition beautifully illustrated by Kate Greenaway 56 pages (mostly pictures, very little text...) 2 MB PDF file.
Robert Browning - The Pied Piper of Hamelin - 1937 edition, illustrated in Maedieval style by Hope Dunlap 47 pages (mostly pictures, little text. 4MB PDF file.

Week 8

 

American(ized) Fairy Tales

Frank Baum - American Fairy Tales (Feedbooks)
Illustrated.
87 pag. PDF file (3MB)
Frank Baum - - American Fairy Tales - Duke Classics, EPUB EPUB format for ereaders file .
Frank Baum - - American Fairy Tales - LIT format LIT file readable with Microsoft Reader (download).
Frank Baum - - American Fairy Tales - LibriVox online audio streaming MP3 streamed online or downloadable as individual MP3 files..

Week 9

 

The Fairy Tales into the 20th Century : Edwardian Invention

Kenneth Grahame - The Reluctant Dragon
Illustrated.
PDF file from FeedBooks
Edith Nesbit - - The Book of Dragons PDF from FeedBooks.
Edith Nesbit - - The Book of Dragons illustrated - EPUB EPUB edition, 3MB

Week 10

 

Fairy Tales in the Modern Era

Carl Sandburg - The Rootabaga Stories
Illustrated.
PDF file
Anne Sexton - about Transformations 1971 volume of feminist poetry

Week 11

The Disney-ization of the Fairy Tale

Disney's retelling of classic fairy tales
The aim of the seminar: exerpt brief sequences from Disney's animation films (max 2 minute each) that best exemplify his mannerisms:
  • presentation of the heroes
  • the villains
  • side-kicks (secondary characters that bring comic relief)
  • magic of transformations
  • songs (& dance)
Download Avidemux - free software to cut fragments from films.
A chronology of Disney's "Princess" movies link to a wiki
Ariel Dorfmann - handout from How to Read Donald Duck a polemical (and debatable) ideological reading of Disney's films

Week 12

Postmodern Metafictional Tales

Angela Carter - The Courtship of Mr Lyon (about) >*
Angela Carter - The Werewolf (about)
* *

Week 13

Postcolonial Metafictional Tales

Salman Rushdie - Haroun and the Sea of Stories (about) *
* *
* *

Week 14

Contemporary Popular Metafictional Tales

Lia Francesca Block *
Peter Beagle - Up and Down the Beanstalk
Elizabeth Lynn - Princess in the Tower (about)

EXAM

1. Home Project

Option A

A 3-page analysis of on of the postmodern fairy tales given here. The texts can be found HERE, together a suggested structure, and some examples of analysis.. NOTE: Those selecting this option will have fewer questions in the Written Exam (I will omit most of the theoretical questions relatie to postmodern fairy tales)

Option B

A proposal for an entry in a projected Antology for extracurricular reading for children.
HERE you can see some more precisions and some examples of such Anthlogy texts.

2. Written exam

Set of 20-25 Questions

- Questions to be answered briefly in the limited room on the exam sheet. The questions will refer to: the theory of the literary fairy tale, the history of continental and English fairy tales (not so much in terms of dates, but of significant features), the personalities of FT writers.