Giovanni Francesco Straparola
Giovanni Francesco "Gianfrancesco" Straparola (c. 1480 – c. 1557) was an Italian writer and fairy tale collector from Caravaggio, Italy. He has been termed the progenitor of the literary form of the fairy tale.[1] Charles Perrault borrowed most of his stories from Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile.[2][3]
While his given name is likely to have been "Giovanni Francesco", the last name of "Straparola" is not plausible. It is not typical of a family name of that time and place, and the literal meaning of it, "babbler", seems a likely nickname for a writer.[4]
Straparola's main work is two-volume collection Le piacevoli notti (published in English as The Nights of Straparola or The Facetious Nights of Straparola), with 75 stories. Modelled on Decamerone, it has participants of a 13-night party in the island of Murano, near Venice, tell each other stories that vary from bawdy to fantastic.[5] It contains the first known written versions of many fairy tales.[6]
Among the tales included were:
- The Pig King
- Costantino Fortunato, the oldest known variant of Puss-in-Boots
- Ancilotto, King of Provino, the oldest known variant of The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird
- Biancabella and the Snake
- Maestro Lattantio and His Apprentice Dionigi
- Guerrino and the Savage Man, the oldest known variant of Iron John[7]
- Fortunio, the earliest European appearance of a story about killing or injuring someone while attempting to shoo away a fly (Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 1586)
- Costanza / Costanzo
Venice was the first place in Europe where the book-buying public included considerable numbers of literate artisans. This accounts for the predominance in Straparola's tales of stories involving social rise.[8]
References
- ↑ Jack Zipes, The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm, p 841, ISBN 0-393-97636-X
- ↑ Bottigheimer, Ruth (2009). Fairy Tales: A New History. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2009. p. 53-74. ISBN 978-1-4384-2524-5.
- ↑ Cashdan, Sheldon (1999). The Witch Must Die. New York:: Basic Books. Print. p. 24-25 [Basile only]. ISBN 0-465-00896-8.
- ↑ W. G. Waters, "The Mysterious Giovan Francesco Straparola", Jack Zipes, ed., The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm, p 877, ISBN 0-393-97636-X
- ↑ Jack Zipes, The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm, p 841, ISBN 0-393-97636-X
- ↑ Steven Swann Jones, The Fairy Tale: The Magic Mirror of Imagination, Twayne Publishers, New York, 1995, ISBN 0-8057-0950-9, p38
- ↑ Paul Delarue, The Borzoi Book of French Folk-Tales, p 384, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York 1956
- ↑ See Ruth Bottigheimer: Fairy tales, old wives and printing presses. History Today, 31 December 2003. Retrieved 3 March 2011. Subscription required.
External links
- SurLaLune Fairy Tale Pages: The Facetious Nights of Straparola, an English translation of many tales
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