Current Issue
Vol. 23, No. 1 (2009)

Contents

Editorial Policy  
Guidelines for Submission   
From the Editors  

ARTICLES
How Blue Is His Beard? An Examination of the 1862 Hawaiian-Language Translation of “Bluebeard”
Bryan Kuwada
Charles Perrault’s “Bluebeard” is a culturally powerful tale that has reinforced and restated certain patriarchal values and norms ever since its late seventeenth-century publication in France. The wide appeal of this story led to its translation into Hawaiian in 1862, when a version of “Bluebeard” appeared in the Hawaiian-language newspaper Ka Nupepa Kuokoa. This article examines how perceptions and understandings of the values and norms embedded in the story change once “Bluebeard” is taken out of its own cultural context and introduced to a non-Western culture via the process of translation.

“New Wine in Old Bottles”: Angela Carter’s Translation of Charles Perrault’s “La Barbe bleue”
Ute Heidmann and Martine Hennard Dutheil de la Rochère
This article demonstrates that Angela Carter’s English translation of Charles Perrault’s “La Barbe bleue” does not merely adapt the story for a modern audience, but constitutes a form of rewriting that is best understood in counterpoint with “The Bloody Chamber.” Carter’s “Bluebeard” involves a generic shift that reflects current notions about Perrault as an author for children; and its formal, stylistic, thematic, and semantic configurations match the translator’s idea of the nature and purpose of Perrault’s tales, as well as the editorial constraints of the illustrated book. But the work of translation and background reading about the fairy-tale tradition enabled Carter to discover the “adult” content and textual complexities of Perrault’s tales. Carter’s dialogue with Perrault is thus not unlike her approach to Sade, insofar as she reclaimed both writers against critics who condemned fairy tales and pornography. Like Perrault, Carter believed fairy tales could carry useful knowledge distinct from conventional morality, and that, as a modern genre par excellence, they could be (re)made to reflect ever-changing realities.

The First Precise English Translation of Madame d’Aulnoy’s Fairy Tales
Paul Buczkowski
Nineteenth-century English writer James Robinson Planché, in his own time known for writing musical extravaganzas based upon fairy tales, particularly admired the works of Marie-Catherine le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy. Fourteen of his twenty-three fairy plays depicted d’Aulnoy’s tales. Although his musical plays usually followed the original plots closely, they also added topical humor and comic subplots. In the mid 1850s while considering retiring to pursue his scholarly interests, he felt compelled to translate the original printed tales as accurately as he could as “a point of conscience,” since he had taken liberties in adapting them to the stage, but even more so because no one else had ever translated them completely and without alteration. Close examination of his translation, Fairy Tales of the Countess d’Aulnoy (1855), shows his general conscientious thoroughness, but also signature characteristics in interpretation, documentation, and language.

TEXTS & TRANSLATIONS
UMIUMI ULIULI
J. W. / Translated by Bryan Kuwada
Hawaiian-language newspapers ran from 1834-1948, producing over 100,000 newspaper pages. These newspapers constitute a largely untapped resource detailing Hawaiian thought on subjects ranging from international and local events to cultural preservation. A good deal of the news and stories that appeared in the papers were translated from European languages. “Umiumi Uliuli,” a translation of an English chapbook version of “Bluebeard,” appearedon June 14, 1862, in the newspaper Ka Nupepa Kuokoa. “Umiumi Uliuli”—signed only by the initials J. W.—was the tenth in a series of at least sixteen fairy tales, which included “The Twelve Brothers,” “Cinderella,” “Iron Hans,” “Snow White,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Blue Bird” “Puss in Boots,” and “Bluebeard.”

The War of the Bells
Gianni Rodari / Translated by Jack Zipes
Gianni Rodari (1920-1980) is considered the greatest Italian writer for children in the twentieth century. His tale “La guerra delle campane”—translated here as “The War of the Bells”—was included in Favole al telefono (Tales Told by Telephone), a collection of short stories published in 1962.  Many of his tales are ironical and deal with the consequences of war. In contrast to the traditional fairy tale that often celebrated kings and generals, Rodari always exposed them as frauds. Nor did he believe in happy endings. His endings were always open-ended and intended to provoke young readers to think how the future might be changed.

Until the Beans Are Cooked
Awa Naoko / Translated by Toshiya Kamei
Awa Naoko (1943-1993) was an award-winning writer of modern fairy tales. She studied Japanese literature at Japan Women’s University. In Japan, Awa is known for her timeless, lyrical prose, which explores relationships between humanity and nature. “Until the Beans Are Cooked” is a translation of “Hanamame no nieru made,” the title story of Awa’s 1993 book, which contains six stories of Sayo, a twelve-year-old girl who does not have a mother. In it, Grandmother tells Sayo how her father met her mother, the daughter of a Yamanba (mountain witch).

Two Occitan Tales from Languedoc
Louis Lambert / Translated by Patricia Frederick
“Le roi des poissons” (“The Fish King”) and “La sorcière” (“The Witch”) are tales of fantasy and enchantment belonging to France’s rich oral tradition. The oral tales presented here for the first time in an English translation were originally recited in Occitan or langue d’oc, a Romance language still spoken in many parts of Southern France, as in Spain’s Aran Valley, and recognized today as an official language of Catalonia. First published in French translation by Louis Lambert (1835-1908) in 1899, “The Fish King” and “The Witch” offer the modern reader many elements of the popular fairy tale: witches and fairies who perform acts of sorcery, magical potions used to transform humans into animals, the slaying of a beast by a folkloric hero, the reunion of a princess with the one who saves her life, and a cathartic ending for an the entire village.

The Little Doll
Juan Valera / Translated by Robert M. Fedorchek
“The Little Doll” is a translation of “La muñequita,” which was written by Juan Valera y Alcalá-Galiano (1824-1905), one of nineteenth-century Spain’s most distinguished literati. The story is a variant of tale type ATU 571C, The Biting Doll, and has well-known counterparts in the fairy tales of Giovan Francesco Straparola, Giambattista Basile, and Ludwig Bechstein. Despite the tale’s ribald features, Valera leavens “The Little Doll” with the dignity of a maiden whose virtue thwarts the advances of a king accustomed to easy conquest, and with irony and humor that highlight foibles and follies.

The King Searches for a Bride
Antonio de Trueba / Translated by Robert M. Fedorchek
The tales of nineteenth-century Spanish writer Antonio de Trueba (1819-89) often gave written form to the oral tradition in Spain. Among these is “El rey en busca de novia”—translated here as “The King Searches for a Bride.” A number of his tales are versions of stories found in the collection of the Brothers Grimm, including this one, which is a parallel to their “Spindle, Shuttle, and Needle” (ATU 585). Despite notable differences between the Grimms’ and Trueba’s versions of the tale, they are similar in their depiction of the materially poor maiden who is rich in virtue, humility, and skill.

The Three Pearls (A Legend in Imitation of German Tales)
Luis Coloma, SJ / Translated by Robert M. Fedorchek
“The Three Pearls” is a translation of “Las tres perlas” by Spanish writer Luis Coloma, SJ (1851-1914). Although Coloma never explained why his subtitle describes the story as a “Legend in Imitation of German Tales” (“Leyenda imitada del alemán”), his efforts to write what he called “recreational stories” for children were consistent with the Grimms’ project, which included the ten Children’s Legends appended to their famous fairy tales. Coloma’s children’s stories are still read with pleasure today.

The Tales of Hoffmann
Théophile Gautier / Translated by Anne E. Duggan
In 1836 Théophile Gautier published “Les contes d’Hoffmann” in the Chronique de Paris. Gautier’s piece is a beautiful analysis of what made the German Romantic writer E. T. A. Hoffmann so appealing to the French public, and it contributes to our understanding of nineteenth-century notions of the fantastic.

Dialogue on Fairy Tales
Anatole France / Translated by Anne E. Duggan
In 1885 Anatole France included his “Dialogue sur les contes de fées” in his semiautobiographical book, Le livre de mon ami (My Friend’s Book). At the same time that France pokes fun at scientific approaches to the fairy tale, the “Dialogue” also provides an impressive overview of nineteenth-century theories and debates about the origins of the genre. It furnishes us with a rich inventory of the international scholarship, including the principal critics and compilers, that were common currency within French intellectual circles of the period.

Reviews  
Stars and Keys: Folktales and Creolization in the Indian Ocean (Lee Haring with translations by Claude Ricaud and Dawood Auleear)       
Ana C. Cara

Cinderella in America: A Book of Folk and Fairy Tales (Comp. and ed. William Bernard McCarthy)        
Carl Lindahl

Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College Campuses (Elizabeth Tucker)    
Bill Ellis

Haunting Experiences: Ghosts in Contemporary Folklore (Diane E. Goldstein, Sylvia Ann Grider, and Jeannie Banks Thomas)        
Adam Zolkover

Red Riding Hood and the Wolf in Bed: Modernism’s Fairy Tales (Ann Martin)    
Stephen Benson

The Postmodern Fairy Tale: Folkloric Intertexts in Contemporary Fiction (Kevin Paul Smith)     
Gemma López

Fairy Tale Review. The Violet Issue (Ed. Kate Bernheimer)    
K. Elizabeth Spillman

Enchanted (Dir. Kevin Lima)      
Shannan Palma

Grimm Pictures: Fairy Tale Archetypes in Eight Horror and Suspense Films (Walter Rankin)        
Jessica Tiffin

Misfit Sisters: Screen Horror as Female Rites of Passage (Sue Short)        
Christy Williams

Le conte en ses paroles: La figuration de l’oralité dans le conte merveilleux du Classicisme aux Lumières (Ed. Anne Defrance and Jean-François Perrin)       
Marilena Papachristophorou

Early Yiddish Texts, 1100-1750 (Ed. Jerold C. Frakes)
Un beau livre d’histoires: Eyn shön mayse bukh; Fac-similé de l’editio princeps de Bâle (1602) (Ed., introd., and trans. Astrid Starck-Adler)      
Jeremy Dauber

Critical Exchanges