Abstract
Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve’s original novel La Belle et la Bête, published in 1740 and radically abridged by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont sixteen years later, has been criticized for its excessive length and its odd mixture of realism and fantasy. This essay argues that the novel’s hybrid form and inner tensions reflect the early emergence of a new role for women in the bourgeois private sphere, which parallels a shift within the grotesque aesthetic. These changes may also be seen in the wall panels of the Grande and Petite Singeries at Chantilly painted in the mid-1730s.
Recommended Citation
Swain, Virginia E.. "Beauty’s Chambers: Mixed Styles ad Mixed Messages in Villeneuve’s Beauty and the Beast." Marvels & Tales 19.2 (2005). Web. <https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/marvels/vol19/iss2/2>.
