A01=Rori Bloom
Author_Rori Bloom
Category=DS
Category=JBGB
Descriptive Writing
Early Modern Studies
Eighteenth Century Literature
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eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Fairy Tale
Fiction
France
French History
French Literature
French Studies
Les Conteuses
Literary History
Literature
Material Culture
Old Regime France
Seventeenth Century Literature
Women Authors
Women Writers
Product details
- ISBN 9781496222671
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Jun 2022
- Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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At a moment when France was coming to new prominence in the production of furniture and fashion, the fairy tales of Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy (1652–1705) and Henriette-Julie de Murat (1670–1716) gave pride of place to richly detailed descriptions of palaces, gardens, clothing, and toys. Through close readings of these authors’ descriptive prose, Rori Bloom shows how these practitioners of a supposedly minor genre made a major contribution as chroniclers and critics of the decorative arts in Old Regime France. Identifying these authors’ embrace of the pretty and the playful as a response to a frequent critique of fairy tales as childish and feminine, Making the Marvelous demonstrates their integration of artisan’s work, child’s play, and the lady’s toilette into a complex vision of creativity. D’Aulnoy and Murat changed the stakes of the fairy tale, Bloom argues: instead of inviting their readers to marvel at the magic that changes rags to riches, they enjoined them to acknowledge the skill that transforms raw materials into beautiful works of art.
Rori Bloom is an associate professor of French at the University of Florida. She is the author of Man of Quality, Man of Letters: The AbbÉ PrÉvost between Novel and Newspaper.
