GtPGKogPYT4p61R1biicqBXsUzo" /> Google+ Book Review: Beauty and the Beast: Classic Tales About Animal Brides and Grooms from Around the World by Maria Tatar + giveaway | I Smell Sheep

Friday, March 17, 2017

Book Review: Beauty and the Beast: Classic Tales About Animal Brides and Grooms from Around the World by Maria Tatar + giveaway

Edited by Maria Tatar
March 7, 2017
234 pages
Publisher: Penguin Classics
One of our most beloved and elemental fairy tales, in versions from across the centuries and around the world—published to coincide with Disney’s live-action 3D musical film starring Emma Watson, Ian McKellen, Ewan McGregor, Audra McDonald, Kevin Kline, Stanley Tucci, and Emma Thompson

Nearly every culture tells the story of Beauty and the Beast in one fashion or another. From Cupid and Psyche to India’s Snake Bride to South Africa’s “Story of Five Heads,” the partnering of beasts and beauties, of humans and animals in all their variety—cats, dogs, frogs, goats, lizards, bears, tortoises, monkeys, cranes, warthogs—has beguiled us for thousands of years, mapping the cultural contradictions that riddle every romantic relationship.

In this fascinating volume, preeminent fairy tale scholar Maria Tatar brings together tales from ancient times to the present and from a wide variety of cultures, highlighting the continuities and the range of themes in a fairy tale that has been used both to keep young women in their place and to encourage them to rebel, and that has entertained adults and children alike. With fresh commentary, she shows us what animals and monsters, both male and female, tell us about ourselves, and about the transformative power of empathy.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.


Can’t get enough of Beauty and the Beast?

Harvard fairytale scholar Maria Tartar and Penguin Classics brought together many different variations of the Beauty and the Beast theme and put them in one book. Pretty neat huh? Some of the stories are recognizable like Cupid and Psyche (At least to me that one was recognizable) but some of them were completely new to me like the Lithuanian story The Peasant and Zemyne.

The book itself isn’t very long as most of these tales are very short but there are quite a few of them sorted into four categories including one for animal grooms and one for animal brides. I honestly loved all the stories even though some of them didn’t end with “And they lived Happily Ever After.” Heck, some of those stories were more warnings than fairy tale but no less interesting. I loved reading other culture’s versions of a very popular theme and I couldn’t put it down once I started!

Overall, I highly recommend Beauty and the Beast: Classic Tales About Animal Brides and Grooms to not only fans of the Beauty and the Beast story they know but all fairy tale fans. All the stories combine make for an intriguing, entertaining read.

Sheep Rating: 4 Sheep





Adria Reyes

About the Author:
blog
Maria Tatar teaches folklore, children's literature, and German cultural studies at Harvard University. She chairs the Program in Folklore and Mythology. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.






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print copy of Beauty and the Beast: Classic Tales About Animal Brides and Grooms from Around the World
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5 comments:

  1. Who would my beast turn into? Hmmm. I guess I'm not interested in ex-beasts. I just want a nice house and a big bed all for myself and a bunch of cats.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My beast would transform into Alex Skarsgard, of course. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. My beast would turn into Jensen Ackles.

    ReplyDelete