Fairy tales, sexuality, and gender in France, 1690-1715 cover

Fairy tales, sexuality, and gender in France, 1690-1715

by Lewis Carl Seifert

Between 1690 and 1715, well over one hundred literary fairy tales appeared in France, two-thirds of them written by women. This book explores why fashionable adults were attracted to this new literary genre and considers how it became a medium for reconceiving literary and historical discourses of sexuality and gender. Integrating socio-historical, structuralist, and post-structuralist approaches, Seifert argues that these fairy tales use the "marvelous" (or supernatural) to mediate between conflicting cultural desires, particularly between nostalgia and utopian longings.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?