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Shuli Barzilai

Bio: Shuli Barzilai is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Novella & Villanelle. The author has an hindex of 2, co-authored 3 publications receiving 15 citations.
Topics: Novella, Villanelle, HERO, Romance, White (horse)

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Atwood's Lady Oracle as mentioned in this paper is rich in variations on established literary forms and conventions, drawing on the Kunstlerroman, a subgenre of the Bildungsroman, which traces the education and growth of a gifted hero from childhood to maturity.
Abstract: Why is there such a wide readership for books that essentially say, "Your husband is trying to kill you"? People aren't interested in pop culture books out of some pure random selection. They connect with something real in people's lives. Margaret Atwood to Karla Hammond, July 1978 Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle (1976) is rich in variations on established literary forms and conventions. For its overall formal structure, Atwood draws on the Kunstlerroman ("artist-novel"), a subgenre of the Bildungsroman, which traces the education and growth of a gifted hero from childhood to maturity. However, in portraying the development of a young artist who is not only female but also Canadian, Atwood at once departs from the traditionally maleand Euro-centered generic model. The story of Joan Delacourt Foster further plays with, and against, additional traditions.1 It is a life (and work) composed of many disparate parts. Among the literary precedents evoked in Lady Oracle, two distinct yet interrelated types of narrative serve as an especially fecund source for the predicaments and ironies that shape the protagonist's bildung: first, Bluebeard tales (such as Charles Perrault's "Blue Beard" and the Grimms' "Pitcher's Bird"), in which serially monogamous men murder their wives and, generally, get away with it;2 and second, gothic romances and their parodie counterparts (such as Jane Austens Northanger Abbey), in which heroines overcome an ominous environment, innumerable obstacles, and menacing strangers in order to find happiness in the embrace of a handsome, strong, nurturing, and oftentimes wealthy man. Ostensibly, tales of the first type do not easily fit into the popular romance tradition. "The problematic, marginal status of this tale," Stephen Benson writes, "is a potentially disruptive presence in the romance narrative, suggesting a failed marriage and a genuinely beastly male nature" (107). Nevertheless, several basic elements link the gothic variety of romance fiction with the Bluebeard story. Like a concurrence of symptoms, these elements form a pattern-the Bluebeard syndrome-in which four stereotypical characters tend to appear.3 The two pivotal roles are a persecuted young woman and a mysterious, possibly dangerous man. He is invariably evil in the Bluebeard tales and is sometimes evil-a "Shadow-Male"-and sometimes good-a "Super-Male"-in the gothic.4 The two optional roles are a helper or rescuer figure and a mad, bad, or very unlucky wife. As Atwood remarked in a 1976 interview shortly after the publication of Lady Oracle, "one of the perils of Gothic thinking is that . . . you have a scenario in your head which involves certain roles" (Struthers 64). Additional elements in this scenario include tonality or atmosphere (mainly horror and terror followed by exultation in more traditional plots, or shame and embarrassment in parodie versions),5 setting (a gloomy mansion, castle, abbey, etc.), and a sequence of prohibition/transgression involving a secret room or comparable enclosure (the "forbidden chamber" motif). Perhaps most remarkable is the insistence of this latter component: a prohibited inner space. From Perrault's "Blue Beard" (1697) to Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries ofUdolpho (1794) to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1847) and, as shall be seen, to Atwood's Lady Oracle, knowledge of what that space contains replaces innocence and poses a threat to the heroine's pursuit of happiness.6 Her very life is, or seems to be, at risk. The Bluebeard syndrome in Lady Oracle occurs on different narrative levels. First, at several intervals throughout the main story, Joan works on the manuscript of a gothic romance that unfolds together with, and is embedded in, the romance or, more exactly, romances of her life; second, she also recalls excerpts from her previously published books abounding in lavish period detail and diction; third, like Stephen Dedalus composing his villanelle in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joan evokes the process of writing a poem of high-flown passion and intensity whose title (borrowed from or by the book in which she appears) is Lady Oracle. …

8 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: Ritchie published nine revisions of well-known fairy tales between 1866 and 1874 as mentioned in this paper, including the first four stories ("Sleeping Beauty in the Woods," "Cinderella," "Beauty and the Beast," and "Little Red Riding Hood") and the novella Jack the Giant-Killer.
Abstract: "Argument" Between 1866 and 1874 Anne Thackeray Ritchie (1837-1919) published nine revisions of well-known fairy tales. The first four stories ("Sleeping Beauty in the Woods," "Cinderella," "Beauty and the Beast," and "Little Red Riding Hood") and the novella Jack the Giant-Killer appeared over a two-year period in The Cornhill Magazine and were collected in Five Old Friends and a Young Prince (1868).1 Four more such revisions (Bluebeard's Keys, Riquet a la Houppe, Jack and the Beanstalk, and The White Cat) were subsequently serialized and collected in Bluebeard's Keys and Other Stories (1874).2 The two collections differ in several notable respects. Most of the tales in the 1868 volume are relatively short and draw on fairy-tale classics that Rtchie's narratorial persona, Miss Williamson, expressly attributes to "good old Perrault" and the "old French edition" ("Little Red Rding Hood" 16O).3 However, in the last of the "five old friends," Jack the Giant-Killer, Ritchie departs from Charles Perrault both in the length (more than 150 pages) and in the plotted complexity of her tale. She also chooses to retell a tale whose earliest-known print edition, The History of Jack and the Giants, was published by "J. White of Newcastle in 1711" (Opie and Opie 48). 4 Jack the Giant-Killer marks a turning point in Ritchie's fairy-tale writings. The stories in the 1874 volume are all short novels or novellas, and only two of the four texts, Bluebeard's Keys and Riquet a la Houppe, derive from the tales included in Perrault's late seventeenth-century collection. The literary history of the beanstalk-climbingjack, like that of the giantkilling Jack, begins in Great Britain (Opie and Opie 162). The last tale in Bluebeard's Keys and Other Stories is a retelling of Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy's "The White Cat," which appeared in her Contes nouveaux; ou, Les fees a la mode (1698). 5 Ritchie was evidently familiar with these Contes many years before she agreed to write an introduction to the English-language edition of The Fairy Tales of Madame D'Aulnoy6 Moreover, in rewriting fairy-tale plots for the entertainment of adult readers, Ritchie may be said to carry on the tradition inaugurated by Madame d'Aulnoy and other French women writers who transformed existing Italian, Oriental, and oral tales into literary fairy tales that were "serious commentaries on court life and cultural struggles ... in Versailles and Paris" (Zipes, Why Fairy Tales Stick 68). In both her short and novella-length revisions, Ritchie, too, engages the social and political issues of her day. Yet another substantive difference demarcates the two collections. The novellas in the 1874 volume are all heralded by a prose poem titled "Argument." These epigraphic texts present a canonical version of the fairy tale that serves as a blueprint or model against which the reader may measure Rtchie's departures. Her tales are thus dialogically structured from the outset; they "talk back" to the old familiar stories that precede them. The "Argument" of Bluebeard's Keys, for instance, reiterates the usual prohibition and warning. As the husband hands over the keys before taking leave of his bride, he intones: "evil awaits her, / Curious, who shall look"; and shortly after, the narrator similarly declares: "Ah, what a vast ill on earth is caused by curious wifehood! / Quick she leapt . . . through gallery windings / Straight to the chamber door" (2). The cardinal sins of curiosity and disobedience will undergo a thorough reexamination in Ritchie's version. In fact, all four novellas in the later volume may be subtitled "Counter- Argument." It is not only in Ritchie's increasingly subversive, and sometimes openly critical, commentary that the influence of Madame d'Aulnoy and her contemporaries may be found. In keeping with the custom of these earlier storytellers, Ritchie also almost invariably frames her fairy tales.7 The novella Bluebeard's Keys is no exception to this practice. …

6 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: The Red Riding Hood for All Ages: A Fairy-Tale Icon in Cross-Cultural Contexts by Sandra L. Beckett as mentioned in this paper examines what she calls "crossover works" that appeal to children, adolescents, and adults in a wide range of international contexts.
Abstract: Red Riding Hood for All Ages: A Fairy-Tale Icon in Cross-Cultural Contexts. By Sandra L. Beckett. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008. 244 pp. Red Riding Hood jor All Ages is Sandra Beckett's second book devoted to retellings of the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. The first book, Recycling Red Riding Hood (2002), focused on contemporary versions of the fairy tale for children. Beckett's 2008 study, as her title announces, examines what she calls "crossover works" that appeal to children, adolescents, and adults in a wide range of international contexts. "The multiple layers of the short tale," as Beckett explains, "make it a perfect subject for multiple readerships" (3). Although Beckett looks at some works dating from the early and mid-twentieth century, most versions discussed in Red Riding Hood jor AU Ages have appeared since the 1970s and reflect current concerns and issues. Beckett includes both pictorial and textual reinterpretations of "Little Red Riding Hood" in her study. The many black-and-white drawings and color plates reproduced in Red Riding Hood jor AU Ages conclusively demonstrate the tale's continuing ability to inspire visual artists. Although repeatedly retold in words and images by previous generations, the tale has evidently not been "used up" or superannuated; on the contrary, as Beckett shows, it remains an inexhaustible source and resource for new generations of authors and illustrators. In addition, one of the important contributions of Beckett's book is its discussion of literary recastings of the fairy tale that have never before been translated into English and are inaccessible to most English-speaking readers. With the assistance of multhingual friends and colleagues, Beckett has been able to examine versions that have appeared to date only in Afrikaans, Catalan, Dutch, Hungarian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Swedish, among other languages, and that represent a large number of countries in several continents. Similarly, the impressive examples of modern revisualizations of Red Riding Hood's story assembled in this study also represent diverse styles and cultures. Each of the five chapters of Red Riding Hood jor All Ages has a distinct thematic focus. Chapter 1, "Cautionary Tales for Modern Riding Hoods," deals with versions in the venerable tradition of the Warnmarchen that rework the tale as a warning for women of all ages against abuse by rapacious men. The themes of violence and rape continue to predominate in many visual and verbal revisions of the story, bringing to mind (if such reminders are necessary) the age-old adage that the more some things change, the more they tend to stay the same. Chapter 2, "Contemporary Riding Hoods Come of Age," examines versions in which the initiatory aspect of the tale is foregrounded. The encounter with the wolf in these renditions serves the story of the heroine's coming of age and often entails her initiation into sexuality. In some of these retellings "Little Red Riding Hood" becomes a love story, a romance between girl and wolf, in which the cautionary tradition is obscured or forgotten. Chapters 3 to 5 consider various innovative approaches to the tale that focus on "wolfhood" rather than on girl-or womanhood. Chapter 3 presents the wolf's story from different perspectives, including first-person retellings by the wolf himself. …

1 citations


Cited by
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01 Jan 1982
Abstract: Introduction 1. Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle 2. Images of Relationship 3. Concepts of Self and Morality 4. Crisis and Transition 5. Women's Rights and Women's Judgment 6. Visions of Maturity References Index of Study Participants General Index

7,539 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Bruno Bettelheim perceives an underlying continuity in his work, maintaining that the familiar fairy tale is, in fact, an art form, delineating the ultimate goal of child and man alike, a life with meaning.
Abstract: Bruno Bettelheim has spent his lifetime working on behalf of children and their secure upbringing. Having survived two concentration camps, he came to the United States and created a new therapeutic environment to help psychotic children survive their illnesses. He has frequently written about that experience; now he turns to a seemingly different subject, the fairy tale. He perceives an underlying continuity in his work, maintaining that the familiar fairy tale is, in fact, an art form, delineating the ultimate goal of child and man alike, a life with meaning. He indicates why other children's stories fail to attain this goal, and at the same time, why fairy tales themselves have fallen into disuse. In discussing their virtues, the author employs his extensive clinical experience, his engaging style, and, of course, the fairy tales themselves. Psychoanalytic assumptions constitute the organizing principle of his book, its consistency, and its occasional shortcomings;

492 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It's important for you to start having that hobby that will lead you to join in better concept of life and reading will be a positive activity to do every time.

143 citations