Le seuil dans « La Barbe Bleue » de Charles Perrault - entre l'initiation pédagogique et la réalisation stylistique
The threshold in "Blue Beard" by Charles Perrault - between pedagogical initiation and stylistic realization.

Author(s): Ioana-Rucsandra Dascălu
Subject(s): Cultural history, Theoretical Linguistics, French Literature, Cultural Essay, Philology
Published by: Editura Junimea
Keywords: tale; sources; classicism; threshold; colour; modernism;
Summary/Abstract: Charles Perrault’s “Blue Beard” was classified among initiation tales, in which the door, the key, the threshold symbolize mystery, death danger, as well as the saving of the young wife. Critical interpretations compared Greek and Roman characters: the gods Janus, Saturn and Chronos, who all had keys and cutting objects to split time. There is a possible connection with the Breton legend of Gilles de Rais (XVth century), as well as with the folk motif of the sun which killed dawn and of day which killed night. We intend to emphasize stylistic features and contexts, where the threshold, the door and the key appear from the beginning to the end, in order to show that these are the essential points which assure the progress of narration; we comment upon their linguistic achievement through presentatives, conjunctions and adverbs, which are used to interrupt a state and to mark renewal and the passage to another state. These verbal forms convey surprise, with respect to the marvelous and the unexpected, to those who read or listen to the tale.

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