Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy

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Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy

Marie-Catherine, Baronne d'Aulnoy (* 1650 or 1651 as Le Jumel de Barneville in Barneville-la-Bertran ( Département Calvados ), † January 13, 1705 in Paris ), also known under the name Madame d'Aulnoy , was one French novelist, fairy tale and short story writer.

Life

Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy came from a wealthy family of the lower Norman landed gentry. She was the only daughter of Nicolas-Claude Le Jumel, Seigneur de Barneville and Pennedepie, and Judith-Angélique Le Coustelier de Saint-Pater. Her father died when she was a little girl, and her mother remarried in 1662 and has been called Madame de Gudanne ever since. In part, Marie-Catherine was tutored by her maternal aunt, who taught her a precious style of speech and aroused great interest in the folk tales of Normandy that were circulating at the time.

On March 8, 1666, Marie-Catherine, about 15 years old, who is described by contemporaries as beautiful and witty and who speaks several foreign languages ​​(English and Spanish), celebrated her wedding in Paris with François de La Motte, who was about 30 years her senior . This marriage had been arranged by her mother, now widowed for the second time. The bridegroom Marie-Catherines acted as chamberlain to César de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme and was Baron d'Aulnoy from 1654. He was considered a passionate player and philanderer. In the first few years of their unhappy marriage, Marie-Catherine gave birth to several children, including daughters Marie-Angélique (* 1667), Anne (* 1668) and Judith-Henriette (* 1669).

The husband of Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy was then accused of insulting majesty due to the false statements of her mother and two noblemen - Charles Bonnenfant, Sieur de La Moisière and Jacques Antoine de Crux, Marquis de Courboyer - and arrested on September 24, 1669; he had to be incarcerated in the Bastille . The motive for this act was that Madame de Gudanne wanted to appropriate the fortune of her son-in-law. The background to the chosen type of plot was that the Baron d'Aulnoy had already expressed himself carelessly and King Louis XIV usually had every case punished with death by lèse-majesté . After the Baron d'Aulnoy had been able to prove his innocence, he was released. Madame de Gudanne managed to flee to England and then to Spain in time, while her two false witnesses were beheaded on December 11, 1669. A lover of Madame de Gudanne who was involved in the scandal was also executed.

To what extent Madame d'Aulnoy herself was involved in the affair is not exactly known. Probably because of that she only had to stay in a monastery for a while. In any case, the event led to the permanent separation from her husband, who excluded her from any inheritance in her will before his death on August 21, 1700. Their living conditions from 1670 to 1685 are hardly known. Possibly she lived in Flanders in 1672/73, in England in 1675, again in Paris in 1676/77, 1679–1681 with her mother, now working as a Spanish-French double agent, in Spain and in 1682 again in England. In 1685 she was allowed to reside permanently in Paris and opened a feminine literary salon on Rue Saint-Benoît . After starting to write in 1690 at the age of around 40 and having established her reputation as an author with her first novel L'Histoire d'Hypolite, comte de Duglas , she created an important literary oeuvre in the following 13 years. Towards the end of the 17th century she was depicted by the French painter and poet Elisabeth Sophie Chéron in a painting that has now been lost, but at least one engraving by the engraver Pierre-François Basan based on it has survived (see illustration above).

In 1699, Angélique-Nicole Carlier Tiquet, a close friend of Madame d'Aulnoy, was suspected of having staged the murder of her husband and denied the perpetration of this crime by claiming that she had been in d'Aulnoy's salon at the time of the crime. Yet she was executed. Madame d'Aulnoy, cast in a crooked light by this affair, withdrew to a convent, but did not cease her literary production entirely. She died in Paris in early 1705 at the age of about 55.

Writing activity

Madame d'Aulnoy wrote novels, short stories, fairy tales and travelogues, which were often re-edited at the end of the 17th century and in the 18th century and often translated into other languages, especially English, German, Spanish and Dutch, soon after their first publication . The popular publisher Claude Barbin published several of her works and she obtained the patronage of two daughters of Louis XIV, Marie Anne and Louise Françoise . In 1698 she was accepted into the renowned Accademia dei Ricovrati of Padua as one of the nine French muses due to her high literary reputation , where she received the title " Klio , Muse of History". It has also been praised in reviews of contemporary magazines such as the Mercure galant and the Histoire des ouvrages des savants . The main theme underlying most of her works is love between (heterosexual) couples.

Madame d'Aulnoy gained fame as a writer in 1690 with the publication of her first novel L'Histoire d'Hypolite, comte de Duglas , which was mainly set in England . It depicts a love story about the virtuous, orphaned Julie and the bold, soulful Hypolite. Hero and heroine are prototypes for d'Aulnoy's similarly characterized main characters in her later fairy tales. With the subsequent travel reports Mémoires de la cour d'Espagne (1690) and Relation du voyage d'Espagne (1691), d'Aulnoy also achieved international literary success. The latter, later highly praised by the French philosopher and historian Hippolyte Taine, describes a trip through Spain in the form of 15 letters including a stay in Madrid from 1679 to 1681. Both travel reports were considered to be authentic sources of information about the Iberian Peninsula until the 19th century until the French Hispanist and literary scholar Raymond Foulché-Delbosc showed in 1926 that the content of the Mémoires de la cour d'Espagne and that of the Relation du voyage d'Espagne about half from earlier works, including older travelogues and the Gazette de France , originated. In 1691, d'Aulnoy also wrote two religious treatises published only seven years later, Sentiments d'une âme pénitente and Le Retour d'une âme à Dieu , which are paraphrases of two psalms ; in the former she regrets her previous debauchery.

In 1692, d'Aulnoy published the novel Histoire de Jean de Bourbon, prince de Carency , whose story revolves around the lovers Jean de Bourbon and Leonide de Velasco in the late 14th century. In this work, the author reveals her knowledge of medieval history and chivalric romances, but does not let the story end happily for the lovers when Leonide is killed by her rival Casilda. The collection of novels Nouvelles Espagnoles appeared in the same year . In 1693, d'Aulnoy wrote the Nouvelles, ou Mémoires historiques , in which she describes the wars of Louis XIV against the Netherlands in a precise, detailed and glorifying manner. In 1695 she published the novel-like Mémoires de la Cour d'Angleterre , which saw several new editions, for example in 1727 under the title Anecdote secrète et galante de la cour d'Angleterre . Today, however, Madame d'Aulnoy's collections of fairy tales (see below), written in 1697/98, are known above all. She only published her last novel, Le Comte de Warwick , from 1703 under her real name, while otherwise she often used the pseudonym Madame D *** .

After the oeuvre of Madame d'Aulnoy had been very successful during her lifetime and in the 18th century and had received a positive assessment from most of the critics, with her fairy tales even being preferred to those of Charles Perrault , one followed in the 19th century Downgrading her rank as a writer. Like many other femmes de lettres, she was excluded from the canons of important French authors and her work was often criticized for being too talkative and exuberantly fantastic. Since the 19th century, only d'Aulnoy's fairy tales have received more attention, while her other writings have tended to be forgotten. It was not until the 20th century that her work was scientifically examined on a broader basis. Raymond Foulché-Delbosc ( Madame d'Aulnoy et l'Espagne , in: Revue hispanique 67 (1926), pp. 1–152) presented an authoritative biography including a bibliography of her books . The first monograph on her contes des fées was published by Kurt Krüger ( Die Märchen der Baronin Aulnoy , Leisnig 1914). As a result, most of the studies on her works also dealt primarily with her fairy tales. From a feminist-critical point of view, Michèle Farrell, among other things, analyzed the representation of female sexuality ( Celebration and Repression of Feminine Desire in Madame d'Aulnoy's Fairy Tale: La Chatte Blanche , in. L'Esprit Créateur 29, No. 3 (1989), p . 52-64). However, even today only relatively few scholars deal with d'Aulnoy's literary legacy; most often a selection of her contes des fées is read as part of children's literature.

fairy tale

Already in 1690 - and thus seven years before the publication of the fairy tales by Charles Perrault - Madame d'Aulnoy had integrated a fairy tale , L'île de la félicité ( The Island of Bliss ), into her Histoire d'Hypolite, comte de Duglas , with which she can be regarded as the founder of the genre of the French art fairy tale . In 1697 and 1698 she published eight volumes with a total of 24 fairy tales under the titles Les Contes des fées and Contes nouveaux ou Les Fées à la mode . The last three volumes of the Contes nouveaux ou Les Fées à la mode are a novella, Le Nouveau Gentilhomme bourgeois , which frames six fairy tales. Her fairy tales, which were not intended for children but as reading for adults in aristocratic society, initiated a number of other collections of fairy tales in France during the last two decades of the government of Louis XIV. In addition to the aforementioned Charles Perrault, among others, Catherine Bernard , Henriette -Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de Murat , Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force and Marie-Jeanne Lhéritier de Villandon . It was not until the later reception that d'Aulnoy's fairy tales were partially transformed into literature suitable for children.

The fairy tales on which Madame d'Aulnoy's stories are based mostly stem from oral tradition circulating in the country, which she adorned with novel-like elements such as long, sentimental conversations between the hero couple. In her most famous fairy tales, such as L'oiseau bleu , Finette Cendron and La chatte blanche , which have been widespread since the 18th century through colportage , she changed the traditional folk material the least. Stories made up by herself include Babiole , Le nain jaune and Le rameau d'or . She took material for her pieces La Princesse Belle-Étoile et le Prince Chéri , Le Prince Marcassin and Le Dauphin from the first European fairy tale collection Le piacevoli notti (1550–1553) by the Italian writer Gian Francesco Straparola .

In d'Aulnoy's fairy tales, in which traditional motifs include metamorphosis in particular, such as the transformation of people into animals as in L'oiseau bleu , the author paints the picture of a new gender order in which women have greater opportunities for development than in her previous one real world own. Her princesses do not embody a clichéd passive role, but are active and self-determined protagonists, while the princes are portrayed rather passively. The main female characters are also generally at the center of the plot. Madame d'Aulnoy makes allusions to real amusements of the aristocracy of her time such as court dances, games and operas in her fairy tales La Princesse Belle-Étoile et le Prince Chéri , Le Prince Lutin and Le Serpentin vert . But she sharply criticizes the intrigues at the court of Louis XIV as well as the arbitrariness of the absolute ruler and creates a concept of love based on a tender and cautious rapprochement between the sexes in the sense of female happiness. In her fairy tales she advocates better social conditions for women, who can more easily achieve higher education, are no longer forcibly locked up in monasteries and should no longer have to enter into a convention .

Works

In the foreword of her last novel Le Comte de Warwick , published under her real name, Madame d'Aulnoy explicitly cited the following books as her own works:

  • L'Histoire d'Hypolite, comte de Duglas , Paris, L. Sevestre, 1690 (German Historie des Hipolytus, Count of Duglas , 1744)
  • Mémoires de la cour d'Espagne , 2 vols., Paris, C. Barbin, 1690 (new ed. By Madame B. Carey, La Cour et la ville de Madrid vers la fin du XVII e siècle , Paris, 1876)
  • Relation du voyage d'Espagne , 3 vols., Paris, C. Barbin, 1691 (German- Spanish state history, described by the Countess d'Aulnoy, accompanied by an appendix that followed the great revolution in Spain after the death of King Carl II concerning , 1703)
  • Histoire de Jean de Bourbon, prince de Carency , 3 vols., Paris, C. Barbin, 1692
  • Nouvelles Espagnoles , 2 vols., Paris, C. Barbin, 1692
  • Nouvelles, ou Mémoires historiques contenant ce qui s'est passé de plus remarquable dans l'Europe… depuis 1672 jusqu'en 1679 , 2 vols., Paris, C. Barbin, 1693
  • Mémoires de la Cour d'Angleterre , 2 vols., Paris, C. Barbin, 1695
  • Les Contes des fées , 4 vols., Paris, Veuve de T. Girard, 1697 (original edition lost; German fairy tales of the Countess von Aulnoy , in: Friedrich Justin Bertuch (ed.), Blue Library of all Nations , vol. 3 , 4, 9, 10, Gotha / Weimar 1790–1791 and 1796)
  • Les Contes nouveaux ou Les Fées à la mode , 4 vols., Paris, Veuve de T. Girard, 1698
  • Sentiments d'une âme pénitente, sur le pseaume 50, Miserere mei Deus, et Le Retour d'une âme à Dieu, sur le pseaume 102.Bendic anima mea… , Paris, Veuve de T. Girard, 1698
  • Le Comte de Warwick , 2 vols., Paris, Compagnie des Librairies Associés, 1703 (German The Englishman in love or the excellent and blissful Count of Warwick , 1704)

Attributed works (selection)

  • Nouvelles d'Élisabeth, Reyne d'Angleterre , 2 vols., Paris, 1674
  • Mémoires des avantures singulières de la cour de France , La Haye, Alberts, 1692
  • Mémoires secrets de Mr LDDO ou Les Avantures comiques de plusieurs grands princes de la cour de France , Paris, Bredou, 1696

List of fairy tales

The following are Madame d'Aulnoy's fairy tales, which were featured in her novel L'Histoire d'Hypolite, comte de Duglas and in her two works Les Contes des fées and Les Contes nouveaux ou Les Fées à la mode :

  • Adolphe and the Island of Bliss - Adolphe (from L'Histoire d'Hypolite, comte de Duglas )
  • Gracieuse and Percinet - Gracieuse et Percinet
  • The beautiful with the golden hair - La Belle aux cheveux d'or
  • The blue bird - L'Oiseau Bleu
  • Prince Leprechaun - Le Prince Lutin
  • The golden branch - Le Rameau d'or
  • Babiole - Babiole
  • The yellow dwarf - Le Nain jaune
  • The benevolent frog - La Grenouille bienfaisante
  • The white cat - La Chatte blanche
  • Bellebelle or The Knight Fortunat - Belle-Belle ou le Chavalier Fortuné
  • Princess Spring Beauty - La Princesse Printaniére
  • Princess Roses - La Princesse Rosette
  • The orange tree and the bee - L'Orangier et l'Abeille (see The Dearest Roland )
  • The ram - Le Mouton
  • Finette Cinderella - Finette Cendron (see Hansel and Gretel )
  • The green serpentine - serpentine vert
  • The white hind - La Biche au bois
  • Princess Belle and Prince Much-loved - La Princesse Belle-Étoile et le Prince Chéri
  • Prince Frischling - Le Prince Marcassin
  • The Dolphin - Le Dauphin
  • Pigeon and pigeon - Le Pigeon et la Colombe
  • The little magic mouse - La bonne petite souris

swell

  1. ↑ Allison Stedman, DLB, Vol. 268, pp. 13f .; 16f .; M. Prevost, Dictionnaire de Biographie française , Vol. 4, Col. 592f.
  2. ↑ Allison Stedman, DLB, Vol. 268, pp. 14ff .; M. Prevost, Dictionnaire de Biographie française , Vol. 4, Col. 593f.
  3. ↑ Susanne Hahn, Lexicon of Children's and Youth Literature , supplementary volume, pp. 20f .; Marc Soriano, Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales, Vol. 1, Col. 1020ff .; Roswitha Böhm: Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy , in Margarete Zimmermann , Roswitha Böhm (ed.): French women of the early modern times , Primus-Verlag, Darmstadt 1999, ISBN 3-89678-139-1 , p. 230f.
  4. ↑ These last-named fairy tales by d'Auloy can all be found on pp. 189–482 in Das Kabinett der Feen French fairy tales of the 17th and 18th centuries; ed. Friedmar Apel and Norbert Miller; in Winkler-Verlag Munich 1984; ISBN 3-538-05336-7
  5. ↑ These last-mentioned fairy tales by d'Aulnoy can all be found in Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy: The orange tree and the bee Ed. Klaus Hammer, trans. Friedrich Justin Bertuch; Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1984

literature

  • Renate Baader : Dames de lettres. Authors of the precious, highly aristocratic and "modern" salon 1649-1698: Mlle de Scudery , Mlle de Montpensier , Mme d'Aulnoy. Series: Romanistische Abhandlungen, 5. Metzler, Stuttgart 1986 ISBN 3476006093
  • Roswitha Böhm: Wonderful storytelling: the fairy tales of Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy , Wallstein, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3892446822 ( text from Google Books )
  • Susanne Hahn: d'Aulnoy, Mair Catherine . In: Klaus Doderer (ed.): Lexicon of children's and youth literature . Supplementary volume, Beltz-Verlag, Weinheim and Basel, 1982, ISBN 3-407-56514-3 , pp. 20f.
  • M. Prevost: Aulnoy 2) . In: Dictionnaire de Biographie française . Vol. 4 (1948), col. 592-594.
  • Marc Soriano: Aulnoy, Marie Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d ' . In: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales . Vol. 1 (1977), ISBN 3-11-016402-7 , Sp. 1020-1024.
  • Allison Stedman: Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, comtesse d'Aulnoy . In: Dictionary of Literary Biography (DLB), Vol. 268 (2002), ISBN 0787660124 , pp. 12-18.
  • Pauline Lörzer: Madame d'Aulnoy and the French fairy tales. In: fairy tale forum. The magazine for fairy tales and narrative culture No. 83 (2019), pp. 34–36.

See also

Web links

Wikisource: Madame d'Aulnoy  - sources and full texts (French)
personal data
SURNAME Aulnoy, Marie-Catherine d '
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Marie-Catherine, Baronne d'Aulnoy; Le Jumel de Barneville (maiden name); Madame d'Aulnoy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French writer
DATE OF BIRTH 1650 or 1651
PLACE OF BIRTH Barneville-la-Bertran
DATE OF DEATH January 13, 1705
Place of death Paris