Chapter 9 Annotated Editions as a Misappropriation of the Author’s Voice and of Children’s Reading: Some Polish Editions of Fairy Tales by Charles Perrault
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Abstract
This chapter discusses three Polish annotated editions of Charles Perrault’s fairy tales from 2012, 2017, and 2018, placing them within a larger network of controversies present in the system of children’s literature. On the one hand, fairy tales have been either perceived as authorless and timeless products of the folk spirit and the collective unconscious, or presented as literary artefacts created by individuals in specific historical contexts. On the other hand, the annotated edition formula intended for school readings evokes reactions ranging from approval of its usefulness to rejection of its anti-humanist character. Thus, the status of the tales presented in the analysed editions alternates between sanctified literary artefacts and ownerless “types”, freely bowdlerized and rewritten in order to fit the mould of the fairy-tale ideal conceived by contemporary educators and publishers. Shaped by tacit manipulations of the texts’ meanings, and suspended between the realm of written folklore and classic literature, the annotated editions conceal the presence of the adaptor, falsify the voice of the original author, turn “Perrault” into no more than a brand name, and deprive the (child) reader of cognitive independence, subjecting him or her to a ready-made and conformist interpretation of the tales.