(Copyright © 2008 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI)
Contents
Editorial Policy
Guidelines for Submission
ARTICLES
“There lived in the Land of Oz two queerly made men”: Queer Utopianism and Antisocial Eroticism in L. Frank Baum’s Oz Series
Tison Pugh
As a land of marvels and fairies, L. Frank Baum’s Oz is a queer place. Within much of children’s literature, queer typically refers to constructions of odd and marvelous events and places rather than to characters resistant to constructions of sexual (hetero)normativity. The dividing line between asexual and sexual queerness, however, can be quite blurry, and this essay explores how the fantasies of Oz subvert normative constructions of gender and sexuality. After analyzing gender and sexual roles in Oz, the essay concludes that the utopianism of Oz is counterbalanced by a queer eroticism that undermines the foundations of normative genders.
Crescentia’s Oriental Relatives: The “Tale of the Pious Man and His Chaste Wife” in the Arabian Nights and the Sources of Crescentiain Near Eastern Narrative
Ulrich Marzolph
The “Tale of the Pious Man and His Chaste Wife” is both ancient and widespread in international tradition. The oldest version of the tale discussed so far is documented in the German Kaiserchronik, dating from the twelfth century. Consequently, previous scholarship has tended to argue for the tale’s Western origin. This essay, by drawing on a variety of Arabic and Persian sources, proves to the contrary that the tale originated from Near Eastern literatures and probably goes back ultimately to a Jewish source.
Sleeping Beauty Must Die: The Plots of Perrault's "La Belle au bois dormant"
Carolyn Fay
Perrault's "Sleeping Beauty" does not end with a kiss, but with an ogress throwing herself into a vat of slimy creatures after a botched attempt at eating her family. Rather than account for the ogress storyline through source study, this essay examines the narrative processes that connect the sleep plot and the ogress plot, demonstrating that substitution is the organizing principle of the tale. Reading the princess and the ogress as substitutes for one another elucidates the tale's underlying anxiety: the woman who withdraws from the world, whether in sleep or appetite, is a danger to society and to narrative.
Beauty and the Beast à la Russe
Kristin Bidoshi
This article offers an analysis of the morphological structure of the plot and the set of the characters of four Russian variants of tale type ATU 425C, Beauty and the Beast, and a comparison of the main stylistic features of the Russian folktale variants with Sergei Aksakov’s literary rendition, “Alen’kii tsvetochek” (The Crimson Flower). The paper combines Vladimir Propp’s syntagmatic model of structural analysis with a symbolic analysis and information on the cultural context of versions of Beauty and the Beast. The influence of eighteenth-century French literary tales of the 425C tale type on Russian folktales and Aksakov’s rendition will also be discussed.
TEXTS & TRANSLATIONS
Crescentia’s Oriental Relatives: Four Translations
Ulrich Marzolph
Supplementing the essay on “Crescentia's Oriental Relatives” in this issue, this section presents translations of four previously untranslated texts that are relevant to the essay's argument, including the tale's oldest version in a tenth-century Arabic source.
The Jealous Princess
Jean-Pierre Camus / Translated by Anne E. Duggan
This translation of “La princesse jalouse” (1630) by Jean-Pierre Camus contributes to our knowledge of sources for Charles Perrault’s “Sleeping Beauty.” While the main source for Perrault’s tale clearly is Giambattista Basile’s “Sun, Moon, and Talia,” certain elements of his version suggest Perrault also borrowed specific elements from Camus’s tragic story.
Reviews
The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones (Giambattista Basile. Ed. and trans. Nancy L. Canepa)
Edward F. Tuttle and Luisa Del Giudice
Fairy Tales from Before Fairy Tales: The Medieval Latin Past of Wonderful Lies (Jan M. Ziolkowski)
Maria Teresa Agozzino
Politicizing Magic: An Anthology of Russian and Soviet Fairy Tales (Ed. Marina Balina, Helena Goscilo, and Mark Lipovetsky)
Sibelan Forrester
In Quest of Indian Folktales: Pandit Ram Gharib Chaube and William Crooke (Sadhana Naithani)
Andrew Treverson
Crosscurrents of Children’s Literature: An Anthology of Texts and Criticism (Ed. J. D. Stahl, Tina L. Hanlon, and Elizabeth Lennox Keyser)
The Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature: The Traditions in English (Ed. Jack Zipes, Lissa Paul, Lynne Vallone, Peter Hunt, and Gillian Avery)
Carmen Nolte
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature (Ed. Jack Zipes)
Jan Susina
When Dreams Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition (Jack Zipes)
Francisco Vaz da Silva
The Arabian Nights Reader (Ed. Ulrich Marzolph)
Bonnie D. Irwin
Lies That Tell the Truth: Magic Realism Seen through Contemporary Fiction from Britain (Anne C. Hegerfeldt)
Jennifer Orme
Moulding the Female Body in Victorian Fairy Tales and Sensation Novels (Laurence Talairach-Vielmas)
Elizabeth Wanning Harries
Film, Folklore, and Urban Legends (Mikel J. Koven)
Elizabeth Tucker
Pan’s Labyrinth / El Laberinto del Fauno (Guillermo del Toro)
Margaret R. Yocom
Critical Exchanges
Professional Notices
Contributors
Index to Volume 22 (2008)