On the Road with Penguin Classics Angela Carter's Fairy Tales with Marina Warner
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Jan 4, 2024 
In this engaging discussion, Dame Marina Warner, a cultural historian and professor at Birkbeck College, delves into Angela Carter's reimagining of classic fairy tales. She explores Carter's transformative approach to well-known stories like Cinderella and Bluebeard, revealing their darker complexities. Warner also highlights Perrault's influence on children's literature and the feminist themes woven into these narratives. The conversation beautifully intertwines the aesthetic of storytelling with the nature of desire, femininity, and empowerment.
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Fairy Tales Are A Global, Living Map
- Fairy tales are global and perennial, not tied to one elite canon.
- Perrault and the Grimms are landmark collectors who shaped national literary identities.
Perrault: Courtier Who Amplified Folk Voices
- Perrault mined 'popular' tales as a courtier to assert a modern French culture.
- His aristocratic framing hid subversive and feminist currents passed on by women storytellers.
The Grimms Codified The Darker Core
- The Grimms emphasised peasant roots and preserved darker, macabre variants.
- Their philological work fixed versions that now feel central to the tradition.