Beauty and the Beast

This article is about the fairy-tale. For other uses, see Beauty and the Beast (disambiguation).

Beauty and the Beast
(La Belle et la Bête)
Beauty releases the prince from his beastly curse. Artwork from Europa's Fairy Book, by John Batten.
Folk tale
NameBeauty and the Beast
(La Belle et la Bête)
Also known asFrench: La Belle et la Bête
Italian: La Bella e la Bestia
Latin: Bellă et Bēstia
or Fōrmōsa et Bēstia
Spanish: La Bella y la Bestia
Portuguese: A Bela e o Monstro
(in Portugal), A Bela e a Fera
(in Brazil), or A Bela e a Besta
(in literal Portuguese)
German: Die Schöne und das Biest
Dutch: Belle en het Beest
or De Schone en het Beest
Aarne–Thompson groupingATU 425C (Beauty and the Beast)
RegionFrance
Published inLa jeune américaine, et les contes marins (1740), by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve; Magasin des enfants (1756), by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont
RelatedCupid and Psyche (ATU 425B)
East of the Sun and West of the Moon (ATU 425A)

"Beauty and the Beast" is a fairy-tale written by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and published in 1740 in La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins (The Young American and Marine Tales).[1][2]

Villeneuve's lengthy version was abridged, rewritten, and published by French novelist Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in 1756 in Magasin des enfants[3] (Children's Collection) to produce the most commonly retold version.[4] Later, Andrew Lang retold the story in Blue Fairy Book, a part of the Fairy Book series, in 1889.[5] The fairy-tale was influenced by the story of Petrus Gonsalvus[6] as well as Ancient Greek stories such as "Cupid and Psyche" from The Golden Ass, written by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis in the second century AD, and "The Pig King", an Italian fairy-tale published by Giovanni Francesco Straparola in The Facetious Nights of Straparola around 1550.[7]

Variants of the tale are known across Europe.[8] In France, for example, Zémire and Azor is an operatic version of the story, written by Jean-François Marmontel and composed by André Grétry in 1771, which had enormous success into the 19th century.[9] Zémire and Azor is based on the second version of the tale. Amour pour amour (Love for Love) by Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée is a 1742 play based on de Villeneuve's version. According to researchers at universities in Durham and Lisbon, the story originated about 4,000 years ago.[10][11][12]

  1. ^ Zipes, Jack (5 July 2002). Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk & Fairy Tales (Revised and expanded ed.). Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky. p. 10. ISBN 9780813190303. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
  2. ^ Windling, Terri (April 2010). "Introduction". In Datlow, Ellen; Windling, Terri (eds.). The Beastly Bride: Tales of the Animal People. Penguin Group. ISBN 9781101186176. Retrieved 13 July 2021.
  3. ^ Stouff, Jean (2014). "La Belle et la Bête". Biblioweb. doi:10.58079/lz7q.
  4. ^ Ziolkowski, Jan M. (2009). Fairy Tales from Before Fairy Tales: The Medieval Latin Past of Wonderful Lies. University of Michigan Press. p. 209. ISBN 9780472025220. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
  5. ^ Bacchilega, Cristina (1997). Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 169. ISBN 9780812200638. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
  6. ^ Kruse, Carl (5 July 2021). "Variations of Beauty and the Beast". Carl Kruse. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  7. ^ Harrison, "Cupid and Psyche", Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, p. 339.
  8. ^ Heidi Anne Heiner, "Tales Similar to Beauty and the Beast"
  9. ^ Thomas, Downing. Aesthetics of Opera in the Ancien Régime, 1647–1785. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002.
  10. ^ Sedgwick, Marcus (5 February 2020). "Wolves and lies: a writer's perspective". In Bill Hughes, Bill; George, Sam (eds.). In the Company of Wolves: Werewolves, Wolves and Wild Children. Manchester University Press. ISBN 9781526129055. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  11. ^ da Silva, Sara Graça; Tehrani, Jamshid J. (1 January 2016). "Comparative phylogenetic analyses uncover the ancient roots of Indo-European folktales". Royal Society Open Science. 3 (1): 150645. Bibcode:2016RSOS....350645D. doi:10.1098/rsos.150645. PMC 4736946. PMID 26909191.
  12. ^ "Fairy tale origins thousands of years old, researchers say". BBC News. 20 January 2016. Retrieved 20 January 2016.