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Article Excerpt
James Robinson Planche, in his own time known for writing musical extravaganzas based upon fairy tales, particularly admired the works of Marie-Catherine le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d'Aulnoy. Fourteen of his twenty-three fairy plays depicted d'Aulnoy's tales, so many that contemporary theater critics described him jokingly as a scholar of her works. Seen to be "diligently turning over the leaves" of her works, Planche was variously characterized by anonymous reviewers as "a sort of student ... working for fairy honours," as a miner of her stories (with d'Aulnoy as his "California"), as her "old friend," and as her bold cavalier ("preux chevalier"). (1) Although his musical plays usually followed the original plots closely (contrary to the norm in English theater at the time), they also added topical humor and comic subplots. In the mid-1850s, while considering retiring to pursue his scholarly interests, he felt compelled to translate the original printed tales as accurately as he could as "a point of conscience," since he had taken liberties in adapting them to the stage (Planche, Fairy Tales xii), but even more so because no one else had ever translated them completely and without alteration (ix). Close examination of his translation Fairy Tales of the Countess d'Aulnoy (1855) shows his generally conscientious thoroughness but also signature characteristics in interpretation, documentation, and language.
Planche gathered d'Aulnoy's tales from her original collections, Contes de fees (Fairy Tales) (1697) and Contes nouveaux, ou Les fees a la mode (New Tales, or Fashionable Fairies) (1698). (2) He included only the tales themselves, without the three novellas that frame many of them. He presents her first series of tales first, ending with "The Good Little Mouse" (translation of "La Bonne petite souris"), and the second series immediately after, beginning with "The Ram" (translation of "Le Mouton") and extending through "Princess Belle-Etoile and Prince Cheri" (omitting the two final tales for reasons to be discussed). He also omitted d'Aulnoy's first fairy tale, "Le Prince Adolphe et la princesse Felicitee, ou, l'Ile de la Felicite" (Prince Adolphe and Princess Felicitee, or the Isle of Happiness, sometimes translated as "The Island of Felicity"), contained in the novel L'Histoire d'Hypolite, comte de Duglas (The Story of Hypolitus, Count of Douglas) (1690). In gathering them without the novellas or division between the series, Planche created a focused collection of twenty-two of the twenty-four fairy tales. By gathering them together with introductory material, footnotes, and an appendix, he treated them almost as art objects arranged for an exhibition.
Decades earlier, Planche had developed a reputation for careful research into historical costume and customs for theater. In time, collectors of armor and other antiques asked him to arrange their collections for exhibit, and artists contacted him for information regarding artifacts and costume for their paintings (Recollections 2: 168-74, Recollections 1: 223-28). He was also consulted by those reenacting historical events as to costume and behavior (Recollections 2: 148), and his research into heraldry had won much acclaim (Recollections 2: 155-57). It was very much the antiquarian in Planche who created and edited the volume of translations.
In his preface, Planche begins by stating, "The Fairy Tales of the Countess d'Aulnoy, after having delighted old and young for nearly two hundred years, are now, strange to say, for the first time presented to the English reader in their integrity" (ix). Planche further explains that the tales as they had become popular in English were loosely paraphrased and often adapted for "the nursery" (x; also explained in Extravaganzas of J. R. Planche 3, 45). He preceded more recent scholars in pointing out that d'Aulnoy's works were written for adults and in their original form are not children's literature (Barchilon, Le conte 39-41; Mitchell 10-14; Defrance 15-21; and Mainil 20-23). In his introduction, Planche provides the background information he believes is helpful in appreciating the tales' importance. He outlines his concept of the literary history of fairy tales and d'Aulnoy's place within that history (xv-xvii). Planche also touches on d'Aulnoy's life and states that her husband, Francois de la Mothe d'Aulnoy, was wrongly accused of treason (1669), but he offers no comment regarding involvement by either d'Aulnoy or her mother, Madame de Gudane. He does add that d'Aulnoy was later "compromised" by being a friend of Mme. Ticquet, who was convicted of murdering her own husband in 1699 (xvii). After that, he moves on to list the titles d'Aulnoy claimed were her own, as opposed to other works attributed to her (xviii-xx).
In preparing his translation, Planche worked from the earliest editions of d'Aulnoy's stories he could find, and also put considerable research into literary allusions, topical references, biographical information, and other relevant information. (He discusses his approach to translating Charles Perrault's tales in Recollections 2: 160-63). Planche generally tried not to venture from the original text (despite some curious exceptions, to be discussed). For instance, rather than bowdlerize the final two tales of the New Tales, "Le Prince Marcassin" and "Le Dauphin," "which though not wanting in merit, as far as fancy and humour are concerned," would likely have offended English readers "without considerable alteration in their details," he opted to summarize them in an appendix (xi-xii). Their suggestions of self-destruction and "scandal" were unpalatable for Planche's target audience (as he knew from decades of writing for the stage) (617-19).
Planche laments that previous translators altered the tales and also ascribed other writers' works to d'Aulnoy. He cites several examples of such liberties, stretching back to "early in the last century" (ix; the volume referred to seems to be A Collection of Novels and Tales of the Fairies: Written by that Celebrated Wit of France, the Countess D'Anois, printed in London in the 1720s). The result, overall, was that the full sophistication of the tales was lost to readers who did not know them in French. Planche aimed to convey what he regarded as the tales' artistry as well as their historical significance, including "numberless allusions to the persons, events, works, manners, and customs of the age in which they were written" (xii). He did this by attempting to translate "as literally as the idioms of the two languages would admit" (xiii) and by providing abundant background information (Extravaganzas 1: 207-08). He wrote:
I indulge in the hope that a new interest will be imparted to these old favourites, when they shall be found to be not only amusing fictions, but curious reflections of the Courts of Versailles and Madrid, at the close of the seventeenth century; the dress and manners accurately described, and the pomps and pastimes in many instances scarcely exaggerated. This will be evident, I think, not only from the footnotes I have appended, when immediate explanation appeared necessary but in the Appendix, containing such additional information and remarks as would have incumbered the margin or interrupted the story. (Fairy Tales xii-xiii)
Again Planche offers similar judgments to those expressed by later scholars, including Jane Tucker Mitchell, who cites the Zeitgeist that d'Aulnoy capturesin her tales as one of the reasons for their continued appeal to readers (31-50). Explaining the "reflections" to his readers proved a major part of Planche's effort.
In The Tower and the Well, Amy Vanderlin DeGraff writes, "Before the twentieth century, no serious studies of Mme. d'Aulnoy's tales were undertaken" (6). In the sense she means, close studies of the symbolism of the stories, she is quite correct. However, when she goes on to write, "In the brief introductions to collections of her tales, ... all one can find are...
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