Gretchen Schultz

Lewis Carl Seifert

"The present volume contains thirty-five fairy tales by nineteen writers, presented chronologically by author"--Introduction.

Enchanted Stories from the French Decadent Tradition

Fairy Tales for the Disillusioned

Lewis Seifert

A newly translated collection of subversive French fairy tales by writers from the Belle Époque The wolf is tricked by Red Riding Hood into strangling her grandmother and is subsequently arrested. Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella do not live happily ever after. And the fairies are saucy, angry, and capricious. Fairy Tales for the Disillusioned collects thirty-six tales, most newly translated, by writers associated with the decadent literary movement that flourished in late nineteenth-century France. These enchanting yet troubling stories reflect the concerns and fascinations of a time of great political, social, and cultural change. Recasting well-known favorites from classic French fairy tales, as well as Arthurian legends and English and German tales, these decadent fairy tales feature perverse settings and disillusioned perspectives, underlining such themes as the decline of civilization, the degeneration of magic and the unreal, gender confusion, and the incursion of the industrial. Complete with an informative introduction, biographical notes for each author, and explanatory notes throughout, these subversive tales will entertain and startle even the most disenchanted readers.

A collection that subverts the conventions of the traditional fairy tale—to entertain and startle even the most disenchanted reader: "Thoroughly engaging." — Gramarye Journal The wolf is tricked by Red Riding Hood into strangling her grandmother and is subsequently arrested. Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella do not live happily ever after. And the fairies are saucy, angry, and capricious. Fairy Tales for the Disillusioned collects thirty-six tales, many newly translated, by writers associated with the decadent literary movement, which flourished in France in the late nineteenth century. Written by such luminaries as Charles Baudelaire, Anatole France, and Guillaume Apollinaire, these enchanting yet troubling stories reflect the concerns and fascinations of a time of great political, social, and cultural change. Recasting well-known favorites from classic French fairy tales, as well as Arthurian legends and English and German tales, the updated interpretations in this collection allow for more perverse settings and disillusioned perspectives—a trademark style and ethos of the decadent tradition. In these stories, characters puncture the optimism of the naive, talismans don't work, and the most deserving don't always get the best rewards. The fairies are commonly victims of modern cynicism and technological advancement, but just as often are dangerous creatures corrupted by contemporary society. The collection underlines such decadent themes as the decline of civilization, the degeneration of magic and the unreal, gender confusion, and the incursion of the industrial. The volume editors also provide an informative introduction, biographical notes for each author, and explanatory notes throughout. "Sometimes sardonic, sometimes brutal, often blackly funny." — Sydney Morning Herald "A wide variety of cynical characters, forgotten forests, and perverse plots . . . The work will delight and possibly disenchant both fairy-tale enthusiasts and scholars." — Marvels & Tales "A perfect book, perhaps, for the moment." — The Washington Post

The Gendered Lyric portrays gender as being central to the full appreciation of nineteenth-century French poetry. She contends that both male and female poets of the major movements relied on sexual difference to define their poetic.

Subjectivity and Difference in Nineteenth-century French Poetry

The Gendered Lyric

Literature that explored female homosexuality flourished in late nineteenth-century France. Poets, novelists, and pornographers, whether Symbolists, Realists, or Decadents, were all part of this literary moment. In Sapphic Fathers, Gretchen Schultz explores how these male writers and their readers took lesbianism as a cipher for apprehensions about sex and gender during a time of social and political upheaval. Tracing this phenomenon through poetry (Baudelaire, Verlaine), erotica and the popular novel (Belot), and literary fiction (Zola, Maupassant, Péladan, Mendès), and into scientific treatises, Schultz demonstrates that the literary discourse on lesbianism became the basis for the scientific and medical understanding of female same-sex desire in France. She also shows that the cumulative impact of this discourse left tangible traces that lasted well beyond nineteenth-century France, persisting into twentieth-century America to become the basis of lesbian pulp fiction after the Second World War.

Discourses of Same-Sex Desire from Nineteenth-Century France

Sapphic Fathers

Gretchen Schultz explores how male writers and their readers in late nineteenth-century France took lesbianism as a cipher for apprehensions about sex and gender during a time of social and political upheaval.

Gretchen Schultz

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