Bluebeard

Charles Perrault was born in 1628, one of seven siblings in a wealthy bourgeois family residing in Paris. Benefiting from King Louis XIV’s tendency to choose public servants from the “common” class rather than the aristocracy, Perrault began his career as an administrative politician in 1663. His abilities as a prolific writer helped him gain influence both in his work and as a member of the Académie Française (French Academy), a cultural council that exists to this day. Dedicating himself to literary pursuits after being ousted from his political career by a rival in 1682, Perrault began writing poetry on Christian and monarchical themes, strands of which also appear in his fairy tales. In 1687, Perrault became involved in a debate about the value of classic literature versus that of contemporary literature known as The Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns. Perrault was on the side of the Moderns in this argument, despite the fact that later in life, he would become a writer of traditional children’s stories. In 1891, he released his first tale in verse entitled “Griselidis,” followed by “Donkey-skin” in 1894 and an early version of his Tales or Stories of Times Past containing “Blue Beard” in 1895.