Content Category
Literary Criticism
Abstract/Description
Henriette-Julie de Murat claims in the foreword of Histoires sublimes et allégoriques (1699) that the only source for her tales is Straparola’s Facetious Nights, yet this claim seems to be misleading. Taking “The Savage” as an example, this essay first assesses the reasons we should doubt Murat’s claim. It then explores other possible literary sources for “The Savage,” such as Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Straparola’s “Guerrino and the Savage Man,” and the Breton folktale “Georgic and Merlin,” as well as biographical elements, both from details surrounding her exile by Louis XIV in 1702 and from her fictional but autobiographically inspired, proto-feminist Mémoires de Madame la Comtesse de M*** (1697). The essay concludes with an analysis of how the central themes and motifs of “The Savage,” especially gender and transformation, reveal parallels between Murat’s life and the characters of Princess Constantine and the eponymous savage and suggest that “The Savage” represents Murat’s desire yet inability to reverse the transformations she experienced in her own life.
Copyright and Licensing of My Content
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Origin of Submission
as part of a class
Faculty Involvement
Jill Rudy
Location
4116 JFSB
Start Date
18-3-2016 10:45 AM
End Date
18-3-2016 11:45 AM
Included in
The Scandal of Sources of Henriette-Julie de Murat’s Histoires sublimes et allégoriques
4116 JFSB
Henriette-Julie de Murat claims in the foreword of Histoires sublimes et allégoriques (1699) that the only source for her tales is Straparola’s Facetious Nights, yet this claim seems to be misleading. Taking “The Savage” as an example, this essay first assesses the reasons we should doubt Murat’s claim. It then explores other possible literary sources for “The Savage,” such as Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Straparola’s “Guerrino and the Savage Man,” and the Breton folktale “Georgic and Merlin,” as well as biographical elements, both from details surrounding her exile by Louis XIV in 1702 and from her fictional but autobiographically inspired, proto-feminist Mémoires de Madame la Comtesse de M*** (1697). The essay concludes with an analysis of how the central themes and motifs of “The Savage,” especially gender and transformation, reveal parallels between Murat’s life and the characters of Princess Constantine and the eponymous savage and suggest that “The Savage” represents Murat’s desire yet inability to reverse the transformations she experienced in her own life.