Beauty and the Beast is a traditional European fairytale. Explained in multiple variants whose origin could be a story of Apuleius, from his book The Golden Ass (aka Metamorphoses), entitled Cupid and Psyche. The first published version was the work of French author Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve in 1740, although other sources attributed to Giovanni Francesco Straparola recreation of the original story in 1550. The best known written version was a very brief review of the original de Villeneuve, published in 1756 by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. The first English translation was made in 1757. There are many variants of the story across Europe. Beaumont's version is the most widely known, which is the basis of almost all subsequent versions or adaptations. ORIGIN
The story of Beauty and the Beast has been around for centuries throughout Europe, both orally and in writing and, more recently, film adaptations. Many experts have noted similarities between this story and classic tales of ancient Greece, as Cupid and Psyche, Oedipus and The Golden Ass of Apuleius, to the second century of our era.
The first written version of Beauty and the Beast is attributed to Giovanni Francesco Straparola, published in his book of stories Le notti piacevoli in 1550. An early French version presented to the father as a king and the Beast as a snake. Charles Perrault popularized the story in his collection Contes de ma mere l'hear (Tales of Mother Goose) in 1697. Other authors such as Madame d'Aulnoy, with its tale Le Mouton (The sheep) or Giambattista Basile in Pentamerone also wrote variations on the same story.
The first written version of the story develops and as we know it today was published in 1740 by French author Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, in La jeune américaine, et les contes marins. It was a series of stories explained by a alone on a long journey by sea. Villeneuve wrote fairy tales based on European folklore, for distraction from their friends and acquaintances and dance halls.
The French aristocrat Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont (1711 - 1780) had emigrated to England in 1745, where he worked as a teacher and author of books on moral education. Having read the novel by Villeneuve, the greatly shortened and published in 1756 as part of the collection Magasin des enfants, ou dialogues between sage joins gouvernante et plusieurs de ses élèves. Taking key elements from the original story, Beaumont omitted many scenes of the origins or the families of the players and changed the scene of the transformation of the Beast, which in the original de Villeneuve takes place after the wedding night. Written as a supplement education for their students, many of the gory details were original or subversive of deleted.
Beaumont's version was considered the most characteristic and then to the extent that one year later, in 1757, and was translated into English as The Young Misses Magazine, Containing Dialogues Between a Governess and Several Young Ladies of Quality, Her Scholars.
The French tradition of this time was to develop everyday stories, with a tendency to develop on a background of human emotions rather than random or magical designs. Eliminated everything that was bloody or cruel; wrote directly and concisely, with a sober and unadorned. French storytellers adapted their stories to your own taste classic and even sound logical. Perrault started a trend that deviated from this traditional form of storytelling, and women who followed him, Lhéritier, Madame d'Aulnoy and Beaumont, went further. The most humble of men, in their stories, was a gentleman, pastors were princes in disguise, and most of the players always are kings or queens.
These influences in the history explains the differences between the current version of Beauty and the Beast, through these French writers, and more traditional versions. INTERPRETATION
of all, the story symbolizes the animal in the condition integrated human, since in many myths and folk tales speak of a prince converted by art of sorcery on a wild animal or a monster who is redeemed by the kiss and the love of a maiden.
Beauty and the beast can be interpreted as the arrival of a girl coming of age and sexuality. Designed for the love of his father, who adored her above the rest of her sisters as a pure love, she sees sex as something evil, and every man who feels sexual desire for her is a beast. Just as soon as Bella is able to assimilate and human sex and adult can reach felicidad.6 But another variant of this concept would be that the feeling of the Beast is primitive and brutal, but the woman's love transforms it into something human and politeness, that the story would symbolized by the physical transformation from Beast to Prince.
The story has also been interpreted as criticism of marriages of convenience. Early versions of the story came from high class people of the ancien regime France, where such unions were common. The marriage of a girl, especially young, with a man much older than her, without her consent, is seen as a metaphor in the narrative. The story criticized these practices, but also claimed that if women look inside their elderly husbands can be found to be kind that hides behind the appearance of Beast. Or they themselves achieve this transformation through its amor.8
The story of Beauty and the Beast appears in many cultures in various ways. Aarne-Thompson tale lists 179 different countries with a similar theme. Generally there are three sisters. The youngest, Bella, is pure and kind, while the other two show some of the worst human traits: greed, envy, pride. Bella receives no name, just is the youngest of the sisters, and received his nickname for her beauty, and for being the favorite of his father. Maternal figure never appears, thus avoiding the conflicts that such a figure would be opposed to the girl went to live with a monster. At the same time, it allows the relationship with the father, usually wealthy, is much closer, and enable the development of the narrative. Although the Beast can take many forms (snake, lion and even a pig), the motive is always the same: he's rich and powerful, but never beautiful or attractive. At one point, Bella is separated from the Beast, which falls, for some strange reason (love, betrayal, magical designs of its curse), terribly ill and lies dying. Bella's remorse, whether in the form of a single tear shed or a trip to the end of the world to return to his beloved, save the beast, and it is transformed into a handsome prince. The implicit beauty of the beast emerges when Bella is able to peer beneath the ugly exterior appearance.
The story can also be placed in a psychological context. Men tend to be passive, the old little or no comprehensive, Bella, the youngest, is always pure and virginal, and his greatest desire is a rose. For Greeks and Romans, the rose was the symbol of pleasure, associated with luxury and extravagance. Represented the flower of love and romance. Highlight Bella's love for her father, to ask him to bring a rose. When the father falls ill and dying, can be interpreted in a literal sense or figuratively, and Bella's love is no longer to his father, but towards the Beast.
According to the classification system Aarne-Thompson, Beauty and the Beast would be classified in category 425A: Animal or Monster for a boyfriend or lover.
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