Discussion board
lambtro10
instruction.docxDISCUSSION BOARD:
Compare and contrast these two sets of stories.
What is the difference between Marie de France’s stories and Charles Perrault’s stories?
You can also compare them base on two kinds of stories as follow.
250-350words
Reading for Marie de France:
At this link you can find translations of the lays of Marie de France. Please read the translator's note also for background on the language of the original stories.
http://people.clas.ufl.edu/jshoaf/marie_lais/
Reading for Charles Perrault:
At the link below, you can find translations of some of Perrault's more famous fairy tales (also known as "Mother Goose" stories).
http://www.angelfire.com/nb/classillus/images/perrault/perra.html
You also can go to the Breteuil Chateau in France (not far from Paris) held by the Perrault family. On the grounds and through the house are wax vignettes of the more well-known fairy tales. You can see pictures of some of these scenes here:
http://www.breteuil.fr/en/Perrault-Fairy-Tales/seven-fairy-tales.html
This week we read a sampling of Charles Perrault’s fairy tales and Marie de France’s lais. The two sets of works were different in form and subject matter. The lais were written as rhyming poetic verse. Their subject matter is for a mature audience. They are all about love, sex and relationships, with adultery and abuse as recurring themes. Perrault’s fairy tales are in the form of short stories. Though death is a common occurrence in them, they were written for children. They contain fairy godmothers, talking cats, and handsome princes.
The biggest similarity between the fairy tales and the lais is that they contain morals. That is, they all teach a lesson. A similarity between the two that struck me was that the language in them was relatively plain considering that they were written in the 12th and 17th centuries. Maybe this is owed to the fact that they are both translations.
With both sets of stories, the form chosen seemed in contrast to subject matter. It felt odd reading rhyming verses about adultery and people being boiled alive. On the other hand, Perrault’s fairy tales were much more whimsical, yet he chose to write them as short stories.
