#giambattista basile

[allgirlsareprincesses]

Hi. Not sure if you've answered this before, but do you have a list of books to recommend on fairytale/mythic analysis?

So I finally have a real response to this question, but it's LONG, be warned:

First, it depends what you want to get out of your folklore study, what lens you'd like to use for analysis. And second, it's important to know that the practice of folktale analysis has changed over time, especially in the last ~15 years or so as the scholarly consensus has evolved toward decolonization.

For example, the common historical starting place was Bruno Bettleheim's The Uses of Enchantment. Candidly, I haven't read it yet for a few reasons: 1) It focuses fairly exclusively on Western European fairy tales like those of Grimm, Basile, and Perrault. 2) It assumes the primary audience for such tales are children. 3) It's a white man's perspective, and there are already enough of those to go around. That said, it's considered a foundational text for folklore study, so I'll probably get to it eventually. There are some modern authors who might be considered scholarly successors of Bettleheim, like Maria Tatar. I haven't read her books yet but I know she's also a powerhouse of Western fairy tale analysis.

Some other popular perspectives include the works of Carl Jung and his protégés in psychoanalysis, Marie-Louise von Franz and Erich Neumann. These are wonderful sources for learning about depth psychology and the universal unconscious which causes certain motifs to recur in storytelling across the globe and over centuries. Another popular author in this field is Robert Bly, who dove deeply into the concept of the Shadow as it appears in folk tales.

But for me, my favorite sources have been a collection of feminist authors who were active in the late 80s and early 90s, notably Barbara Fass Leavy and the incomparable Clarissa Pinkola Estes. While their work is pretty firmly grounded in second-wave feminism and therefore not very intersectional as we understand it today, they were the first to begin exploring interpretations of folk tales outside of a patriarchal context. I personally refer to Leavy's In Search of the Swan Maiden and Estes' Women Who Run With the Wolves more than any other books.

A lot of the most current perspectives are only accessible via blogs, like Jeana Jorgensen AKA The Foxy Folklorist, who often explores fairy tales through a Queer lens. Another brilliant voice working today is Helen Nde of Mythological Africans, who is doing the long-overdue work of decolonizing African folklore.

And while all these sources will help you develop a framework for analysis, still one of the best things you can do is read the tales for yourself. One of my favorite series is that of Heidi Anne Heiner of Sur La Lune Fairy Tales, who has amassed impressive collections of folk tales of the same type from around the world, making comparison easy. She also provides excellent footnotes that offer context to the versions and translations she's selected, and every tale has a source.

Outside of that, I like to read regional collections from indigenous scholars and native speakers: some editors will even include a copy in the original language along with the English translation, thus allowing others to "check their work." One of my favorite folkorists like this is Inea Bushnaq, who collects Arab folktales and again provides accessible cultural context. It's important to remember that most oral folktales which are now available in English were first recorded by colonizers, so the versions we have may be edited, mistranslated, or even maliciously altered to suit Western tastes. This is why seeking out versions from actual members of indigenous communities is critical.

Right now, I'm reading The Japanese Psyche: Major Motifs in the Fairy Tales of Japan by Hayao Kawai, and I'm next going to try Oral World and Written Word by Susan Niditch. I tend to just go where the spirit moves me, journal a bit, go down a research rabbit hole about a particular topic... it's fun. But whatever you're looking to get out of your folk tale study, rest assured you will never run out of material!

[vanalex]

[thefairestfacts]

Symbolisms in the world of fairy tales: the forest

Forests have often been the basis of a fairy tale. And we've already said that the forest is not just the forest. In all fairy tales ,and strangely enough in almost all the world, the forest represents the same thing, life.

Take Little Red Riding Hood, it's the reason why she has to go through the forest to get to her grandmother and meets the wolf.

It's the reason why in almost every story children get lost in the forest. Thumbelina gets lost in the forest, Hansel and Gretel get lost in the forest, Snow White gets lost in the forest, Rapunzel is hidden in the forest. Sleeping Beauty in Basile's version is asleep in the woods.

it's always the forest. This is because, once upon a time, when we were not yet very "civilized", one thing that was really done was tests to pass. In tribal times, we sent our children into the forest with a task: you get a bow and arrow and you have to come back, for example, with a wild boar. (or at least a dead animal). You had to go hunting. And if you come back with a dead animal, they would say "Enough , you have grown". Like the Spartans, for example. Over time this has evolved, and has become more and more symbolic. Little by little it transformed into something, first symbolic, then, even, into a story. The story of when, once upon a time, children had to face the forest alone. To prepare them for life with these stories.

One of the most beautiful examples is this buddist tale. The Siddharta (Buddah) was this child who lived completely peacefully in this family ,so wealthy and so powerful, that it allowed him to keep the world hidden from him. He spends his whole life without ever seeing reality.Everyone inside the building is not allowed to grow old,and if they get old,they are fired.Everyone was not allowed to have disabilities,otherwise they are thrown out. If you lose an eye you are canceled,you can no longer work there. If you have a cut you cannot show up at work, and you cannot cut yourself at work! The blood must never be shown to the child,and neither should violence. And so the child grows up seeing people all young (or at least adults)all beautiful all good all good, and he never sees anything wrong. everything is rich everyone is well off. One day ,while he is being taken inside a carriage from point A to point B, halfway ther's a problem with the carriage.He has the opportunity to peek out the window ,and sees the people outside. the people are made up of old people, beggars, the starving, the sick.

And he had never seen this before... and was shocked. After his encounter with suffering, Siddhartha left his palace and his family at night, and shed his noble clothes to dress poorly.

This is just the beginning of the WHOLE Siddharta's story, hope I explained it well so far♡

[amyaderman]

I recently finished reading "The Tale of Tales" by Giambattista Basile, and this part from the moral introduction of the sixth story on the fifth day is still stuck in my head, because DAMN.

"There are three species of idiots in the world, each of which deserves more than the other to be put in the oven: the first is those who do not know, the second is those who do not want to know, and the third those who think they know. The idiot about whom I am to talk to you is of the second species, who does not want knowledge to enter his noggin and thus hates those who teach it to him, trying, like a modern-day Nero, to cut off their bread supply."

[delightful-mirth]

༻✦༺ Petrosinello ༻✦༺

A gay reimagining of "Petrosinella" (a Rapunzel's variant) featuring Emanuele Mariotti as Petrosinello (Rapunzel's counterpart), Alberto Malanchino as the Prince and Pierfrancesco Favino as the Ogre (Mother Gothel, basically).

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧ :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ

"Petrosinella" (Little Parsley) was written in Neapolitan by Giambattista Basile and he included it in his 1634 collection of fairy tales "The Tale of Tales." It is an Aarne–Thompson type 310 "the Maiden in the Tower" tale, as well as the earliest recorded variant of "Rapunzel." The Brothers Grimm's more famous version was published almost two centuries later, in 1812.

You can read an English translation of "Petrosinella" here.

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧ :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ

Here you can find the whole list of my Gay Tales!

[ellinorosterberg]

The Trials Of Young Corvetto is delightfully gay; at least in the Parcast Network’s version. Listen yourself and tell me I’m wrong:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5AE9vNej7fN2SkTMM4DNC7?si=81KVeuJERxWF7Zfpnf-Beg&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A2OIRaDoDPKx77wz1945ihy&t=2494

[dan-cyril-kingston]

read any good books lately?

Giambattista Basile’s Pentamerone (also known as The Tale of Tales), which is a delightfully playful and unabashedly lewd XVII century collection of Neapolitan fairy tales

[okieduckie]

[mr-spinch]

So I’m writing a The Months (Basile)/Mother Hulda (Grimm) story that’s mixed with The Shoes that Were Danced to Pieces.

Twelve Princesses find a portal to a magic world and dance every night with Twelve Princes. The Princesses are each named after their birth flower from January to December

I’m not sure if I want the Month that each princess dances with to match her birth month, or if I want the Months to go in order of age with March being the youngest and February being the oldest like in the Slovak version.

[adarkrainbow]

In Nicholas Jubber's The Fairy Tellers, he discusses Giambattista Basile's ogres as creatures with a unique ability to see things as they are. They seem less monstrous than practical. He cites the political awareness of one and the ability of the ogre in The Flea to identify the titular flea. Interestingly, I noticed that this ogre is cheated of his promised spoils in a way not dissimilar to Princess Zoza in the frame story, and thus aligned with the heroine.

What are your thoughts on this ambiguous morality of Basile's ogres?

As a prelimenary note I do remind that I am not at all an expert on Basile and do not have the same in-depth knowledge of his fairytales as I have of Perrault and d'Aulnoy's, so my answer will be the one of a novice.

It is true that, from my readings, some ogres have this ability to know what things "truly are" - the guessing of the flea-skin, for example (which actually seems to be due to the ogre's smell since he sniffs it before answering - we have the precursor of ogres smelling human meat here), or how whenever a child of the ogre helps magically a victim (The Dove, The Golden Root) the ogre-parent knows who did the chore... But to turn this into one of the defining abilities of the ogre seems a bit stretched to be? Because in many tales, the ogres also show themselves to be unable to see things for what they are... In Violet/Viola the ogre mistakes a grown-up girl for his daughter out of a scatological joke. The blind-ogre of "The Seven Doves", while recognizing the voice of the girl as a girl, is then fooled by her brothers. The ogers of Corvetto are unable to see the obvious traps the hero prepares for them. The whole "vow of the ogre" motif precisely happens because the ogres do not know or cannot tell who is or where is the person that made for them somptuous meals or beautiful gifts... When ogres have such great knowledge of things, it is usually out of magical powers - such as the ogre of "The Story of the Ogre" who is spelled out to have a prescience due to his sorcerous abilities...

The topic of "seeing things as they really are" is however very present in Basile's ogre-tales ; and while the ogres might not be the ones who always see things for what they are - it is definitively important to see past appearances with them. Whenever a hero ends up rewarded by an ogre, it is because they saw past the ogre's hideous appearance and were polite with them, without fear or disgust (The Story of the Ogre ; The Three Fairies), and the shapeshifting ogre of "The Enchanted Doe" uses appearances against his victims. But again, this game of appearances is what causes one ogress' downfall - the ogress of Petrosinella is devoured by a wolf that mistakes her for a donkey...

All in all I do think this is a more complex and nuanced topic than what it might appear - but one thing that cannot be denied is that, indeed, the presence of the "game of appearances" is intentional on Basile's part and does tie into the over-arching themes of the framing story, which itself relies on disguises and treachery of appearances, and learning to see beyond appearances (which is also quite funny in a meta-literary way since it is a big old racist story...).

In fact, there is a clear evolution among the "ogre tales", that start out in the beginning of the Pentamerone with very-male oriented stories (the First Day has three ogre-tales, each with a male ogre as a villain), but slowly shifts into female focused tales (the ogre-tales of the Fifth Day are stuffed with ogresses everywhere, including the most expensive tale of The Golden Root with a total of nine ogresses forming one expensive clan, ten if you include the dead baby). This shift over the course of the book is clearly meant to evoke how the tales are slowly getting closer and closer to the conclusion of the over-arching story, how the fairytales become less symbolic and more direct illustrations of the frame-narrative. This is notably why the Golden Root literaly has the various elements of the frame-story (a maiden who has to obtain the heart and hand in marriage of her beloved, only to be opposed by wicked, ugly rival brides and negative, destructive female forces...).

But to identify the ogres as Zoza would be... wrong I guess? I don't think the ogre from the Flea is supposed to be Zoza, especially since he is clearly depicted as the villain of the story. If I had to make a guess, he rather is a metaphor for the "bad wedding", "the "wrong marriage" - and he would rather be a metaphor for the slave-bride, that tricks the prince/maiden into becoming their spouse. After all, the ogre does win the hand of the maiden out of a challenge imposed by an outer will (the father's skin-guessing game), the same way the marriage of the frame-story relies on a magical challenge (filling the jug with tears).

As for the moral ambiguity of the ogres, I do think it is because in the Italian folktales and imagination of the time, ogres were much closer to the concept we know of as "far folk". The orco/uerco clearly fills the job that was later taken over by witches, sorcerers and fairies ; and as I pointed out are considered as equivalent or relatives of fairies in Basile's own tales... The most obvious example would be Petrosinella, who "cousin tales" replace the ogress with a fairy or a witch ; similarly the backstory of the prince in "The Serpent" is a typical curse usually given by witches and fairies... So I do think this ambiguous morality is due to the very "fairy" nature of the orco/uerco, who are clearly denizens of the supernatural realm and inhuman beings, thus of alien mindset, hard to fit with human standards (which would explain why ogres never seem to be fully good - except maybe for the ogre of The Story of an Ogre, I love this guy).

After that, tales have to be taken one by one, and a case comes to my mind: "The Green Meadow/The Crystal Tunnel", this tale where I found so many different translated titles. In it we do have the most obvious example of an "ogre who sees things as they are" - since the ogre in this story keeps complaining and listing all the problems of societies, and ills of the world, and denounces the vices and flaws of our humanity works - plus he has an immense knowledge of medicine and healing, and keeps the secrets to heal enchanted wounds... But at the same time, the ogre and his wife are also clear hypocrites who do not practice what they preach, are just as wicked as the humans they denounce, and their immense knowledge is blind to the fact the so-called beggar in front of them is a woman in disguise with the intent to murder them... And this whole thing plays in the satirical and humoristic nature of the tale (because we have to constantly remember that the Pentamerone, like the Facetious Nights, was primarily an humoristic, comical work with the intent to make people laugh or smile).

But yes, the moral ambiguity of Basile's uercos is something that needs to be noticed, especially since it shows the clear evolution of the "ogre figure", from a dangerous but sometimes helpful entity in Italian fairytales, to the pure villain it is in French ones, as numerous roles of the "orco" get taken over by fairies, good or wicked, and witches/enchanters.

[disneyboot]

[extraordinairerunway]

Giambattista Valli Spring Couture 2023

[pier-carlo-universe]

La Scortecata e Il Canto della Sirena: Due Spettacoli Teatrali di Emma Dante al Teatro Vascello di Roma. A cura di Alessandria todfay

Dal 19 novembre al 1° dicembre, il Teatro Vascello ospita due straordinarie produzioni che rivisitano favole popolari attraverso una lente moderna

Dal 19 novembre al 1° dicembre, il Teatro Vascello ospita due straordinarie produzioni che rivisitano favole popolari attraverso una lente moderna La stagione teatrale 2024-2025 del Teatro Vascello di Roma propone due opere firmate da Emma Dante, che, con la sua visione registica unica, porta in scena “La Scortecata” e “Il Canto della Sirena”. Tratti rispettivamente da “Lo cunto de li cunti” di…

[sandboy]

chicchinella.

“Se quaccheduno mi chiedesse dove se porrìa trovare lo fingimento e la frode io non saperrìa menzionare autro luogo che chesta Corte, dove fanno sempre le maschere, la mormorazione da trastullo, la maldicenza da Graziano, lo trademiento da Zanne e la furfanteria da Pullicinella, dove a lo stesso tiempo se taglia e se cuce, se pugne e se unge, se rompe e se ‘ncolla. Ma è possibile che s’è perduto…

[popolodipekino]

albe e tramonti

Così abbiamo albe e tramonti realistici, picareschi, manieristici, poetici, giocosi, preziosi, parodistici, teatrali, delicati, bellicosi, scurrili. "Al mattino, quando l'Aurora riesce a gettare l'orinale del suo vecchio, tutto pieno di rossa renella, dalla finestra d'Oriente". "Venuta la sera, quando il Sole come un mariuolo viene portato con la cappa in testa nel carcere d'Occidente". "Non appena il Sole col pennello dei raggi biancheggiò il cielo che era annerito dalle ombre della Notte". "Ormai le palle dorate del Sole, con le quali egli gioca per i campi del cielo, pigliavano il pendio dell'occaso". "Non era ancora uscita la Notte sulla piazza d'armi del cielo per passare in rassegna i pipistrelli". "Quando infine si alzò la tela delle ombre dalla scena del cielo perché l'Aurora uscisse a fare il prologo della tragedia della Notte". "Quando gli uccelli trombettieri dell'Alba suonarono tutti a cavallo, perché le Ore del Giorno si mettano in sella". "Quando la terra fu ricoperta di lutto per le esequie del Sole, e vennero le torce". da P. Citati, Le favole di Basile, in La luce della notte

[seleuss]

SELEUSS - L’amour des Trois Oranges

JANUARY 9TH, 2023, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

We are delighted to announce that our L’amour des Trois Oranges (The Love for 3 Oranges) Chocolate Truffle has been granted the Superior Taste Award with 2-Stars by the International Taste Institute in Brussels for 2023.

The Love for Three Oranges:

Our interpretation of Sergei Prokofiev’s opera; L’amour des Trois Oranges, based on the Italian fairytale by Giambattista Basile in the Pentamerone (Rapunzel, Cinderella...). Made with Clementine, Bergamot and Tangerine, along with organic cream, our favorite honeys and a 53% REGINA™ dark milk chocolate. This batch is enrobed in our MORETTA™ dark chocolate at 76%+ and topped with either granulated Lemon peels, Lemon Ginger Honey Crystals, or occasionally a foot of Chocolate Pailletés Fins.