Cinderella

This article is about the folk tale. For other uses, see Cinderella (disambiguation).

Cinderella
Folk tale
NameCinderella
Also known asThe Little Glass Slipper
Aarne–Thompson groupingATU 510 A (Persecuted Heroine)
Country
RegionEurasia

"Cinderella",[a] or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with thousands of variants that are told throughout the world.[2][3] The protagonist is a young girl living in forsaken circumstances who is suddenly blessed by remarkable fortune, with her ascension to the throne via marriage. The story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo sometime between 7 BC and AD 23, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt, is usually considered to be the earliest known variant of the Cinderella story.[2][3][4]

The first literary European version of the story was published in Italy by Giambattista Basile in his Pentamerone in 1634; the version that is now most widely known in the English-speaking world was published in French by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou contes du temps passé in 1697 as Cendrillon and was anglicized as Cinderella.[5] Another version was later published as Aschenputtel by the Brothers Grimm in their folk tale collection Grimms' Fairy Tales in 1812.

Although the story's title and main character's name change in different languages, in English-language folklore Cinderella is an archetypal name. The word Cinderella has, by analogy, come to mean someone whose attributes are unrecognized, or someone unexpectedly achieves recognition or success after a period of obscurity and neglect. In the world of sports, "a Cinderella" is used for an underrated team or club winning over stronger and more favored competitors. The still-popular story of Cinderella continues to influence popular culture internationally, lending plot elements, allusions, and tropes to a wide variety of media.

  1. ^ a b Carruthers, Amelia (24 September 2015). Cinderella – And Other Girls Who Lost Their Slippers (Origins of Fairy Tales). Read Books. ISBN 9781473370111.
  2. ^ a b Zipes, Jack (2001). The Great Fairy Tale: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm. W. W. Norton & Co. p. 444. ISBN 978-0-393-97636-6.
  3. ^ a b Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988.
  4. ^ Green, Roger Lancelyn (2011). "The Land of Egypt". Tales of Ancient Egypt. Penguin UK. ISBN 978-0-14-133822-4.
  5. ^ Bottigheimer, Ruth (2008). "Before Contes du Temps passé (1697): Charles Perrault's "Grisélidis" (1691), "Souhaits Ridicules" (1693), and "Peau d'Asne" (1694)". The Romantic Review. 99 (3): 175–89.


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