Beauty and the Beast: Visions and Revisions of an Old Tale

by Betsy Hearne

From eighteenth-century courtiers to Cocteau, from Freudians to prime time TV, "Beauty and the Beast" has captured the artistic and popular imagination. Betsy Hearne brings a storyteller's verve and insight to an examination of one of western culture's most powerful and persistent myths.

Genres: Fairy Tales, Beauty and The Beast, Fantasy, Reference, Folklore, Literary Criticism, Mythology

247 pages, Hardcover

First published December 15, 1989

About the author

Betsy Hearne is the author of numerous articles and books, including Choosing Books for Children: A Commonsense Guide, the folktale anthology Beauties and Beasts, fiction for both children and young adults, and picture books—one of which, Seven Brave Women, won the Jane Addams Children's Book Award. The former children's book editor of Booklist and of The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, she has reviewed books for almost forty years and contributes regularly to The Horn Book Magazine.

Hearne was the former Director of The Center for Children's Books and a professor emerita in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she taught children's literature and storytelling for many years.

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were points at which I was not entirely convinced by Hearne's interpretations, but overall it was a very interesting study of the permutations of the tale. The research is very solid, and the intelligence and naturalness of Hearne's ideas and prose style are especially evident in contrast to the pretentious, faux-academic BS appendix, which to me read almost like a satire of the sort of ungrounded, self-indulgent theoretical interpretation that makes people without PhDs mock literary criticism. Except Devries' citation isn't very good, so academics won't like it, either. Skip Appendix 1 unless you need some bizarro quotes for your term paper. I wish I had, since it kind of ended the book on a sour note for me, when I had really enjoyed most of it.

If you have only a readerly interest in Beauty and the Beast, this is still worth picking up as it suggests many versions (some now obscure) and similar tales for further reading.

[Marquise · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not quite convinced by Hearne's contention that the best Beauty and the Beast version is Madame de Beaumont's, and I think she's rather unfair to Madame de Villeneuve by sweepingly dismissing its value for the overwrought finale instead of its themes and characterisation, and I also think she was a wee bit condescending to the contributions of early Golden Age illustrators of the fairy tale. But, beyond these disagreements, there's the fact that Hearne doesn't dwell as much in the tale's meanings and literary symbology as much as on its history and evolution, for which I think this book is more valuable for an overview of the historical progress of Beauty and the Beast more than anything. So, if you are more interested in the themes, read Warner and Griswold's books on this fairy tale instead.

[Cheryl]

Requested for sample illustrations, and for a hope that we'd learn more about why the prince (not always a prince) was cursed/transformed. Index does not include the term Beast. Index pretty useless as to elements in general... if I wanted, for example, to see how many examples that Hearne had looked at that gave Beauty brothers, I'd be frustrated.

Some likenesses to related tales are an awful stretch. It seems like the author wants to fit tales, even every modern original tale, into the Motif/Classification system(s) rather than acknowledge that here's something that combines elements in a way that defies classification. The Loathly Bride is a B&B tale? ... I'm not too sure about that one, for example.

There are a few ideas I did note as I skimmed, and as I read what interesting terms from the index did point to, but only one worth typing up here:

"... explaining a metaphor can sometimes limit [a story's] meaning more than expand it."

November 2021

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being not a retelling or an anthology thereof, but an analysis.

Starting with folkloric motifs that were used in it -- the animal bride/bridegroom is found throughout the world, but no telling what version was drawn on for what is unquestionably a literary tale, even though it returned to the oral tradition and got varied there. The first version, by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve,, had an elaborate backstory wherein Beauty was not the daughter of the merchant but of a king and his fairy wife, substituted for the merchant's dead baby to protect her from an evil fairy -- and the Beast's cousin, he having been transformed by the same evil fairy for repulsing her advances. How it first got redacted by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, into the version we all know and love.

It roves through books, for children and adults, plays, film, and all sorts of variations.

[Violinknitter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the first academic books I ever read, as a high school student. I was fascinated by this (to me) new way at looking at literature. There have been many new versions of Beauty and the Beast since this book was published (most obviously the Disney movie), so some of its discussions are now a bit out of date, but it was still a good survey of the different versions of Beauty & the Beast through the years.

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book traces the story's literary history with a good eye for detail and source citing but a little dryer than what I was looking for.

Also, clear bias to Cocteau - yes, the man knew what he was doing, but let’s not grovel at his feet. (Good rule of thumb - groupies should never write biographies.)

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just a bit of reading on one of my favorite fairytales. It's very interesting to read.

[Leilani · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting comparison/analysis of various English versions of the classic tale "Beauty and the Beast".

[Kelsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good and informative. Highly recommended in if you are interested in Beauty and the Beast.

[Anisa Kpopers]

bravo with this story