Charles Perrault (1628 - 1703)

Born 12 Jan 1628 in Paris, Île-de-France, France

Died 16 May 1703 at age 75 in Paris, Île-de-France, France

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Biography

Charles Perrault is Notable.

Chrles Perrault was a poet, prose writer, and storyteller, as well as a leading member of the Académie Française. He is best remembered for his collection of fairy stories for children, Contes de ma mère l’oye (1697; Tales of Mother Goose).

Charles Perrault was born 12 Jan 1628, in Paris, France. He was the seventh child of Pierre Perrault and Paquette Le Clerc. One brother, Claude Perrault, was a noted physician and amateur architect.

Charles was a lawyer by training, and first worked as an official in charge of royal buildings. He began to win a literary reputation in about 1660 with some light verse and love poetry and spent the rest of his life promoting the study of literature and the arts.

In 1671 he was elected to the Académie Française, which soon was sharply divided by the dispute between the Ancients and the Moderns. Perrault supported the Moderns, who believed that, as civilization progresses, literature evolves with it and that therefore ancient literature is inevitably more coarse and barbarous than modern literature. His poem Le Siècle de Louis le Grand (1687; “The Age of Louis the Great”) set such modern writers as Molière and François de Malherbe above the Classical authors of Greece and Rome. His chief opponent in this controversy was Nicolas Boileau. Perrault’s stand was a landmark in the eventually successful revolt against the confines of the prevailing tradition.

Perrault’s fairy stories in Mother Goose were written to amuse his children. They include Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, and Bluebeard, modern versions of half-forgotten folk tales, which Perrault retold in a style that is simple and free from affectation.

Charles married Marie Guichon, age 19, in 1672; she died in 1678.

Charles died 15/16 May 1703, in Paris, France.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Charles Perrault
• Wikidata: Item Q128460, fr:Wikipedia
• Encyclopedia Britanica: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Perrault