Into the Forest: Fairy Tales and their Cultural Contexts
In this course we will study the evolving history of fairy tales from Apuleius’ Golden Ass to the present day. Beginning with early versions of particular well-known stories--including Little Red Riding Hood, The Juniper Tree, and Bluebeard--by Giambattista Basile, the brothers Grimm, and Charles Perrault, we will also focus on the Lais of Marie de France, which incorporate fairy tale elements into romance in strikingly unconventional ways. The second half of the course will focus on feminist revisions of fairy tales by Angela Carter and A. S. Byatt, whose narratives interrogate the problematic conjunction of sex and violence in these stories. A central theoretical focus throughout the course will be the representation of sex and gender in these tales. In addition to literary narratives we will also study films inspired by fairy tales, including Pan’s Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro, and Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (both book and film). This course counts as elective credit towards the WAGS major or as an ENAM Pre-1800 elective. (This course is not open to students who have taken FYSE 1201).