Two Beauties or Two Beasts? – Introduction to Adult Retellings of Traditional Fairy Tales

Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve’s Beauty and the Beast (1740) as well as other traditional fairy tales are deeply rooted in our minds and culture. It's no wonder considering the fact that those stories accompany people almost from the day they are born. However, in the ever-changing world of today, those traditional stories may become problematic or even obsolete. By rewriting and defamiliarizing those tales, authors such as Angela Carter or Emma Donoghue, give them a second life and challenge the lessons we acquired as children.

In the course of this workshop, we will discuss two rewritings of Beauty and the Beast, namely Angela Carter’s The Tiger’s Bride (from the collection The Bloody Chamber, 1979) and Emma Donoghue’s The Tale of the Rose (from the collection Kissing the Witch, 1993) to discover what deeper meanings and lessons can be learned from them. This workshop is of interest to all students who would like to expand their understanding of retellings of fairy tales or look for inspiration regarding their research papers.

Participants are asked to read Angela Carter’s The Tiger’s Bride and Emma Donoghue’s The Tale of the Rose before the workshop. Anyone who does not have access to those stories is welcome to contact me (Aleksandra.Sadowska@gcsc.uni-giessen.de) to obtain them.

// Aleksandra Sadowska