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Wednesday, March 31, 2010

"No Beast So Fierce" by Patrick Garson (Article on Telling & Re-telling Fairy Tales)

From "Beauty and the Beast: An Old Tale New-Told"
illustrated by Eleanor Vere Boyle

Here's an article I caught a few days ago at Tor.com on writing fairy tales by Patrick Garson, a regular poster at Tor. He also wrote his thesis on Disney's Beauty & the Beast and highly recommends Marina Warner's "From the Beast to the Blonde".

In his article, Mr. Garson uses the way we visualize the Beast (via illustrations old and new) as a great symbol of how we tell and re-tell fairy tales, among other points. Here are a couple of excerpts:

One of the things I adore about fairy tales is their malleability. The wonder and frisson you get from someone playing with and reinventing well-known tales is a truly unique, very special feeling (when it’s done well, that is…). And yet, we often assume that this reinvention is purely the prerogative of modern writers. Not so, I cry! We have been playing around with fairy tales, bending their archetypes to our will, for their entire written history (and there’s no reason to think the oral pre-history would be any different).

From "Beauty and the Beast: An Old Tale New-Told"
illustrated by Eleanor Vere Boyle


Later Patrick writes:

When you take a look at this visual history,(edit FTNH: of how illustrators over the years have portrayed fairy tale archetypes and classic story scenes) that malleability I mentioned—of themes, characters, atmosphere—becomes quickly and deliciously apparent. Especially in stories where what’s described is something ambiguous and variable, something that changes over time, something embedded into much of our communication and latter-day stories. Something like beauty, or beastliness.

The whole article (and all the links) are very interesting, whether you read, write or study fairy tales and worth your time to check out. You can read the whole article HERE. And don't forget to check out the illustrations he's chosen for his article. They're a variety of Beauty & the Beast illustrations - all of the story beat where Beauty's father meets the Beast.Apart from being integral to the discussion they're also quite a different collection from the usual. An extra treat!

3 comments:

  1. Fantastic. Thanks for sharing these links! This is helpful to me as I'm working on my WIP, Sleeping Beauty and the Beast of Vepreskastel. My "beast" character is more of the lycanthropic type, which irritates him to no end because everyone thinks he's a werewolf. And in my fantasy world, there are no such things as werewolves. How silly!

    Also, Beauty is a conniving, nomadic witch who dupes her drunken father into stealing Beast's flower so she can use it in a spell. Then, when her father is caught, she gladly trades herself to the Beast so she can infiltrate his palace for her own purposes.

    Whee! I love playing with fairy tales. Reading other people's retellings throughout history helps me understand the evolution of the tale and choose my own twists wisely.

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  2. Ooh, fun. I'll save this for some Easter-vacay reading.

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  3. Thanks very much for the link, Gypsy, I'm loving your other entries here also!

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