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Covering over 300 years, this volume of essays articulates the literary, ideological and historical contexts in which fairy tales evolved in Italy and France. The tales analyzed were each appropriated from oral tradition by professional men and women of letters and thus reveal a cultural history
Fairy tales are supposed to be magical, surprising, and exhilarating, an enchanting counterpoint to everyday life that nonetheless helps us understand and deal with the anxieties of that life. Today, however, fairy tales are far from marvelous—in the hands of Hollywood, they have been stripped of their power, offering little but formulaic narratives and tame surprises. If we want to rediscover the power of fairy tales—as Armando Maggi thinks we should—we need to discover a new mythic lens, a new way of approaching and understanding, and thus re-creating, the transformative potential of these stories. In Preserving the Spell, Maggi argues that the first step is to understand the history...
This volume provides a cultural context for the philosophy of Giambattista Vico, and a detailed portrait of the intellectual scene of early-eighteenth century Naples.
From Court to Forest is a critical and historical study of the beginnings of the modern literary fairy tale. Giambattista Basile's Lo cunto de Ii cunti written in Neapolitan dialect and published in 1634-36, comprises fifty fairy tales and was the first integral collection of literary fairy tales to appear in Western Europe. It contains some of the best known fairy-tales types, such as Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Cinderella, and others, many in their earliest versions. Although it became a central reference point for subsequent fairy tale writers, such as Perrault and the Grimms, as well as a treasure chest for folklorists, Lo cunto de Ii cunti has had relatively little attention devoted...
Over the past 30 years, cultural history has moved from the periphery to the centre of historical studies, profoundly influencing the way we look at and analyze all aspects of the past. In this volume, a distinguished group of international historians has come together to consider the rise of cultural history in general, and to highlight the particular role played in this rise by Peter Burke, the first professor of Cultural History at the University of Cambridge and one of the most prolific and influential authors in the field. Reflecting the many and varied interests of Peter Burke, the essays in this volume cover a broad range of topics, geographies and chronologies. Grouped into four sect...
An exploration of how Dante's work influenced the development of James Joyce's writing on key themes of exile and community.
"Between 1550 and 1650, marvellous stories of women giving birth to animals, young girls growing penises, and valiant men slaying dragons appeared in Europe. Circulated in scientific texts and in the first two collections of fairy tales published on the continent, Giovan Francesco Straparolas Le piacevoli notti and Giambattista Basiles Lo cunto de li cunti, the stories invigorated readers and established a new literary genre. Despite the fact that the printed European fairy tale was born in Italy, however, contemporary readers tend to think of France or Germany as the genres place of origin.Fairy-Tale Science looks at the birth of the literary fairy tale in the context of early modern discou...
The first unabridged English translation taken directly from Basile's monumental Lo cunto de li cunti (1634-1636), this edition is fully annotated and illustrated, with an extensive bibliography.
An interesting and ambitious comparative study of the emergence of Enlightenment in Scotland and Naples. Challenging the tendency to fragment the Enlightenment in eighteenth-century Europe into multiple Enlightenments, John Robertson demonstrates the extent to which thinkers in two societies at the opposite ends of Europe shared common intellectual preoccupations.