French Literature Reviews - 2026

A. Defrance & J.-F. Perrin, Le conte en ses paroles…
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics

A. Defrance & J.-F. Perrin,

Le conte en ses paroles.
La figuration de l'oralité dans le conte merveilleux du Classicisme aux Lumières

Desjonquères, coll. "L'esprit des lettres", 2007.

512 p. 32 Euros
ISBN: 978 2 84321 091 4

"Speech must be given the free flow of conversation," wrote the author of a famous treatise on rhetoric published at the end of the 17th century: as a literary genre, the fairy tale emerged at a time when writing as one speaks was the ultimate rule, and reading aloud was still a common practice.

Writing fairy tales meant imposing fictions of enchanted voices upon a novelistic culture obsessed with verisimilitude; it meant acclimating the speech rituals of the oriental tale to high society, while also sharing the realm of the marvelous with opera and engaging in a fruitful dialogue with the theater. Thus, those then known aseminently the Moderns invented an art of expressing the strangeness of the world and of human beings by simulating voices of the past or of distant lands—to those who have ears to hear.

This game proved wildly popular and lasted for more than a century. In our own era, when oral culture is in fashion and storytelling practices are experiencing a revival, it seemed useful to examine these questions through the lens of fairy tales written by 17th- and 18th-century authors, approaching them as works crafted for specific literary and aesthetic effects rather than as mere rearrangements or distortions of a "popular" raw material by "scholarly" literature.

Editors:
Jean-François Perrin is a professor of French literature at Stendhal-Grenoble 3 University, a member of the UMR LIRE CNRS 5611 research unit (Grenoble pole), and director of the journal Féeries. His research focuses primarily on the 18th-century fairy tale and the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Anne Defrance is a senior lecturer in French literature at Michel de Montaigne University (Bordeaux 3), a member of the UMR LIRE 5611 research unit (Grenoble pole), and of the editorial board of the journal Féeries. Her research focuses mainly on the fairy tales of the 17th and 18th centuries.

(Book awaiting a reviewer for Acta Fabula).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

I – Fictions of Voice

Lewis C. Seifert (Brown University – USA)
Between Written and Oral: The Reception of "Classic" Fairy Tales.

Jean-Paul Sermain (Université Paris 3)
The Fairy Tale's Relationship to Orality: Three Models (Perrault, Galland, Hamilton).

Christine Noille-Clauzade (Université de Nantes)
The Power of the Voice: The Rhetoric of Enunciation and the Status of Fiction in Late 17th-Century Fairy Tale Writing.

Sophie Raynard (State University of New York at Stony Brook- USA)
"Good language is worth more than a rich estate," or the Eloquent Prose of Precious Women Storytellers: The Example of Mlle Lhéritier.

Jean Mainil (Northwestern University, Evanston- USA)
On the Triple Use of Speech in First-Wave Tales: From Huts and Cabins to High-Society Salons.

Françoise Gevrey (Université de Reims)
The Terms "Bavard" and "Babillard" in the Marvelous Tale.

Anne Defrance (Université de Bordeaux)
The Duty to Speak, the Law of Silence: The Powers of the Word in Mme de Villeneuve's Beauty and the Beast (1740).

Julie Boch (Université de Reims)
Powers and Avatars of Speech in the Tales of Caylus.

Raymonde Robert (Université de Nancy 2)
Tales and Judicial Rhetoric: Pétis de la Croix's History of the Sultana of Persia and the Viziers (1707).

Christelle Bahier-Porte (Université de Saint-Étienne)
On the Legitimacy of the Tale: Deontic Enunciation in Gueullette's Les Soirées Bretonnes.

Ruth B. Bottigheimer (State University of New York at Stony Brook - USA)
Perrault at Work.

II – Co-Enunciation and Staging

Manuel Couvreur (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Antoine Galland, or the Art of Single-Voice Polyphony.

Jean-François Perrin (Université de Grenoble 3)
When Ears Could Speak: The Poetics of Co-Enunciation in Hamilton's Tales.

Aurélia Gaillard (Université de Bordeaux)
Storytelling and Sexuality: Diderot's Double-Entendre Narrative, L’Oiseau blanc, conte bleu.

Michèle Bokobza Kahan (Université de Tel-Aviv – Israël)
The Libertine Fairy Tale and Its Scenographies.

Marie-Françoise Bosquet (Université de La Réunion)
The Staging of Female Speech in Gueullette's Mille et Une Heures, Contes Péruviens.

Carmen Ramirez (Université de Séville – Espagne)
Eloquence, Oralization, and Argumentation in Gueullette's Contes tartares.

Catherine Ramond (Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux 3)
The Marvelous on Stage: The Theatrical Adaptation of Selected 18th-Century Fairy Tales.

Martial Poirson (Université Grenoble 3)
The (M-)orality of the Dramatic Proverb in Society: Carmontelle's Le Petit Poucet (1769).

Nathalie Rizzoni (Université Paris 4)
When to Say Is to Do: Marvelous Speeches in the Theater.

Régine Jomand-Baudry (Université de Lyon 3)
From One Speech to Another: Le Sopha, from Tale to Vaudeville Comedy.

Benjamin Pintiaux (EHESS- Paris)
Opera-Ballet and the Fairy Tale: Cahusac and Rameau's La Féerie (1745).

III - The Body of Words, the Play of Narratives

Philippe Hourcade (Université de Limoges)
Words and Things in Mme d’Aulnoy's Tales.

Vincent Verselle (Université de Lausanne)
The Speech That Describes: The Language of Ogres.

Aurélie Basso (Université de Montréal-Québec)
La princesse Coque-d’œuf et le prince Bonbon, a Pivotal 1745 Tale: Love, Sugar, and Orality.

Noémie Courtès (Pembroke College, Oxford - GB)
"A ruby fell from her mouth" – Speech in Chevalier de Mailly's Les Illustres fées.

Henri Coulet (Université d’Aix-en-Provence)
Rétif de La Bretonne's Contes bleus.

Nadine Decourt (Université de Lyon 2)
"On the banks of the Peneus..." Mythological or Philosophical Tales? The Status of Speech in Marguerite de Lussan's Veillées de Thessalie.

Sophie Latapie (Université de Grenoble 3)
Telling Fairy Tales Like Biblical Narrative: Mme Leprince de Beaumont and Catechism Pedagogy.

Richard Gossin (Université de Strasbourg)
The Biblical Marvelous and the Marvelous of the Classical-Age Tale: A Comparative Study of the Spoken and the Said in Christmas Tales.

Marie-Agnès Thirard (Université de Lille 3)
From the African Tale to La Princesse Belle-Étoile et le Prince Chéri: A Strange Adventure.

Henri Touati ("Arts du récit en Isère – Grenoble)
The Art of Storytelling in France Today.

Critical Bibliography

Index of Cited Works
Index of Cited Names

Edited by Anne Defrance and Jean-François Perrin, this scholarly collection investigates the complex representation of spoken language and orality within the French marvelous tale from the seventeenth century through the Enlightenment. Rather than treating these narratives merely as filtered transcriptions of folklore, the contributors examine how writers deliberately simulated conversational voices, salon speech rituals, and theatrical delivery to achieve specific aesthetic effects. The volume situates the fairy tale within the broader literary landscape of Classicism and the Enlightenment, highlighting its dynamic intersections with rhetoric, opera, and stage performance during a period deeply fascinated by the art of conversation.

Comprising contributions from numerous international scholars, the book offers detailed readings of canonical and lesser-known works by authors such as Charles Perrault, Antoine Galland, Madame d’Aulnoy, and Madame de Villeneuve. It addresses central questions concerning enunciation, narrative framing, and the stylistic strategies used to convey the strangeness of the marvelous through written prose. This comprehensive resource will prove particularly useful for researchers, graduate students, and specialists in French literature, narrative theory, and eighteenth-century cultural history seeking a deeper understanding of the poetics of storytelling and the literary appropriation of voice.