Beauty and the Beast
| "Beauty and the Beast"(La Belle et la Bête) | |
|---|---|
Beauty releases the prince from his beastly curse. Artwork from Europa's Fairy Book, by John Batten. | |
| Folk tale | |
| Name | "Beauty and the Beast"(La Belle et la Bête) |
| Also known as | French: La Belle et la BêteItalian: La Bella e la BestiaLatin: Bellă et Bēstia or Fōrmōsa et BēstiaSpanish: La Bella y la BestiaPortuguese: A Bela e o Monstro (in Portugal), A Bela e a Fera (in Brazil), or A Bela e a Besta (in literal Portuguese)German: Die Schöne und das BiestDutch: Belle en het Beest or De Schone en het Beest |
| Aarne–Thompson grouping | ATU 425C (Beauty and the Beast) |
| Region | France |
| Published in | La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins (1740), by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve; Magasin des enfants (1756), by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont |
| Related | Cupid and Psyche (ATU 425B)East of the Sun and West of the Moon (ATU 425A) |
"Beauty and the Beast" is a fairy tale written by the French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and published in 1740 in La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins (The Young American and Marine Tales).
Villeneuve's lengthy version was abridged, rewritten, and published by French novelist Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in 1756 in Magasin des enfants (Children's Collection) to produce the most commonly retold version. Later, Andrew Lang retold the story in Blue Fairy Book, a part of the Fairy Book series, in 1889. The fairy-tale was influenced by the story of Petrus Gonsalvus as well as Ancient Latin stories such as "Cupid and Psyche" from The Golden Ass, written by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis in the second century AD, and "The Pig King", an Italian fairy-tale published by Giovanni Francesco Straparola in The Facetious Nights of Straparola around 1550.
Variants of the tale are known across Europe. In France, for example, Zémire and Azor is an operatic version of the story, written by Jean-François Marmontel and composed by André Grétry in 1771, which had enormous success into the 19th century. Zémire and Azor is based on the second version of the tale. Amour pour amour (Love for Love) by Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée is a 1742 play based on de Villeneuve's version. According to researchers at universities in Durham and Lisbon, the story originated about 4,000 years ago.