terrifying monstrosity: who could possibly love me when I am a terrifying monstrosity me, stretched out on the table in front of them with a rose between my teeth: well
Beauty and the Beast (French: La Belle et la Bête) is a traditional fairy tale written by French novelist Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont and published in 1756.Variants of the tale are known across Europe. In France, for example, Zémire et Azor is an operatic version of the story, written by Marmontel and composed by Grétry in 1771, which had enormous success well into the 19th century; it is based on the second version of the tale. Amour pour amour, by Nivelle de la Chaussée, is a 1742 play based on Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve’s version.
Villeneuve’s tale includes several elements that Beaumont’s omits. Chiefly, the back-story of both Belle and the Beast is given. The Beast was a prince who lost his father at a young age, and whose mother had to wage war to defend his kingdom. The queen left him in care of an evil fairy, who tried to seduce him when he became an adult; when he refused, she transformed him into a beast. Belle’s story reveals that she is not really a merchant’s daughter but the offspring of a king and a good fairy. The wicked fairy had tried to murder Belle so she could marry her father the king, and Belle was put in the place of the merchant’s dead daughter to protect her. She also gave the castle elaborate magic, which obscured the more vital pieces of it. Beaumont greatly pared down the cast of characters and simplified the tale to an almost archetypal simplicity.
The curse is in your hands now.
Choose the right path, Prince, change your ways,
and you shall be redeemed. Chose cruelty and vanity
and you will suffer indeed!
New, and a bit alarming, who’d have ever thought that this could be? True, that he’s no Prince Charming, but there’s something in him that I simply didn’t see.
persephone's corner 