Ghent University

Faculty of Arts and Philosophy

Tired of Waiting: Edith Sitwell’s Fairytale Poems

August 2015

Supervisor: Dr. Van Durme Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of

the requirements for the degree of “Master in

de Taal- en Letterkunde: Engels” by Ilse

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Acknowledgements

The best stories usually start with the words “once upon a time” and it seems appropriate that I

start my dissertation with the same words. Once upon a time, a little girl was born and she was

not quite perfect. A little too uncoordinated and a little too opinionated, her family worried what

would become of her as soon as she left the safety of her home. They knew that it was bound

to happen someday, since the girl was headstrong and keen on doing things her own way. They

resolved to become the girl’s fairy godparents, offering support and love when she needed it.

They made the girl realise that it was ok to occasionally stray from home, because there would

always be someone waiting whenever she returned. Over time, the little girl became a woman

and developed a mind of her own. She worked hard on finding her “happily ever after”, always

remembering that she would not have made it so far without the help of her very own fairies.

I have encountered many “fairies” in my life, people who brightened my day with a

mere smile or a kind word. I want to use this section to particularly thank the “fairies” who have

made this dissertation possible. First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude towards

my supervisor Dr. Van Durme. Her patience, advice and expertise made all the difference.

Secondly, I would like to thank my family and friends. They mean the world to me and I am

forever grateful for their continuous support. Finally, I would like to thank my grandparents for

showing me that magic does exist. Thank you for giving me ample opportunities to make my

dreams come true. It is to you, marraine and pepe, that I dedicate this master dissertation.

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Table of Contents

1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 6

2 Once Upon a Time: Modernism and Fairy Tales........................................................... 11

2.1 On Fairytale Studies ................................................................................................... 11

2.2 On Modernist Studies................................................................................................. 18

2.3 Modernist Fairytale Studies: An Interdisciplinary Approach.................................. 22

3 Contextualising Edith Sitwell’s Fairytale Poems ........................................................... 25

3.1 Fairy Tales in the Modern Era ................................................................................... 25

3.2 The Personal Nature of Edith Sitwell’s Fairytale Poems......................................... 29

3.3 Differences in Reception............................................................................................ 32

4 When the Shoe Fits: Sitwell and Fairytale History........................................................ 35

4.1 Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy - Les Contes des fées .................................................... 36

4.1.1 Characterisation .............................................................................................. 38

4.1.2 Narration ......................................................................................................... 40

4.1.3 Intertextuality ................................................................................................. 43

4.1.4 Style ................................................................................................................ 45

4.2 The Modernists ........................................................................................................... 47

4.2.1 Edith Sitwell and modernist ballet ................................................................ 47

4.2.2 Edith Sitwell and modernist poetry ............................................................... 51

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5 The Sleeping Beauty (1924) ............................................................................................... 57

5.1 Traditional Fairy Tale or Fairytale Retelling? .......................................................... 58

5.1.1 Chronotope ..................................................................................................... 58

5.1.2 Attitude to the supernatural ........................................................................... 60

5.1.3 Characterisation .............................................................................................. 61

5.1.4 Optimism ........................................................................................................ 62

5.1.5 Action versus character development ........................................................... 64

5.1.6 Narratological features ................................................................................... 65

5.2 Fairy Tale or Myth?.................................................................................................... 66

5.2.1 Chronotope ..................................................................................................... 67

5.2.2 Attitude to the supernatural ........................................................................... 68

5.2.3 Characterisation .............................................................................................. 68

5.2.4 Optimism ........................................................................................................ 70

5.2.5 Action versus character development ........................................................... 71

5.2.6 Narratological features ................................................................................... 72

5.3 Concluding Remarks .................................................................................................. 73

6 Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927) ........................................................................................... 75

6.1 Fairy Tale, Fairytale Retelling or Myth? .................................................................. 76

6.1.1 Chronotope ..................................................................................................... 76

6.1.2 Attitude to the supernatural ........................................................................... 77

6.1.3 Characterisation .............................................................................................. 78

6.1.4 Optimism ........................................................................................................ 79

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6.1.5 Action versus character development ........................................................... 80

6.1.6 Narratological features ................................................................................... 81

6.2 Concluding Remarks .................................................................................................. 81

7 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 83

8 Works Cited ......................................................................................................................... 87

9 List of Abbreviations .......................................................................................................... 95

(27 370 words)

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1 Introduction

We stand outside our own time, outside Time itself maybe (Tolkien 32)

Fairy tales have been around for centuries and have inspired many artists and authors. Ann

Martin states that “the sheer variety of fairy tales in modernity suggests that the texts [are] an

almost inescapable source of reference for the writers” (7). While she refers to modernism in

particular, the statement is applicable to almost every literary movement. Both in the past and

in the present, writers have used fairytale themes and motifs to create expectations in terms of

content and structure. For instance, the words ‘once upon a time’ immediately evoke certain

associations that shape the reading experience. In recent years, scholars have shown an

increased interest in the relationship between fairy tales and literary movements as works by

Jack Zipes (2006), Vanessa Joosen (2008) and Ruth Bottigheimer (2012) illustrate. Numerous

studies have appeared on the Victorian and postmodern period, whereas studies on the modern

period have been scarce. Laura Martin affirms that “there is not much scholarship yet on fairy

tales and modernism” (694), despite some notable exceptions such as Ann Martin’s Red Riding

Hood and the Wolf in Bed: Modernism’s Fairy Tales (2006). Studies on modernist fairytale

poetry are almost non-existent, even though most modernist poets alluded to fairytale content.

Mieder even goes as far as to claim that all poets at least once referred to fairy tales during their

careers (752). There is no conclusive evidence that can explain the lack of scholarly interest,

but there are some indications as to why modernist fairytale poems are often disregarded in

favour of more canonical works. The most likely explanation can be traced back to the rise of

postmodernism, the literary movement that succeeded the modernist period. During the second

half of the twentieth century, fairy tales “enjoyed an explosive popularity in North America and

Western Europe” (Bacchilega 3) and scholars became enraptured by the vast amount of fairytale

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retellings. Especially the works of female poets such as Anne Sexton, Olga Broumas and

Maxine Kumin received a lot of attention, partly because their work was much more accessible

on a material and intellectual level than that of their modernist counterparts. Harries asserts that

these kind of poems are “constantly reread, discussed and written about, [while] other texts

from the same era fade into the background, or the shadowy recesses of the stacks, or archives,

or rare book rooms” (20). Postmodern fairy tales rose to prominence, while most fairytale

poems that were written in the first half of the twentieth century gradually disappeared from the

literary canon. They became neglected texts, which is why they are currently “hard to get a hold

of, hard to comprehend and hard to pin down” (Dowson and Entwistle 60). Furthermore, many

of the modernist fairytale features were transferred to the postmodern period and grouped

together as exclusively postmodern techniques. As a result, the modernist fairytale tradition was

largely forgotten and twentieth-century fairytale retellings became associated with

postmodernism. This seems to be confirmed in studies by Cristina Bacchilega (1997), Elizabeth

Wanning Harries (2001) and Vanessa Joosen (2008). While they all address the relationship

between postmodern authors and their literary predecessors, they never explicitly refer to the

modernist fairytale tradition. It is this evolution that, combined with the difficulties researchers

encounter in locating modernist poems, in part explains why there has been so little interest.

Generally speaking, fairytale studies are still in their infancy when it comes to their

integration in university programs. A comparison of English literary programs at the five

Flemish universities shows that there are few courses devoted to children’s literature and even

fewer to fairy tales in particular. Fairytale studies remain an underdeveloped research area, a

relative novelty that contrasts with the more canonical adult literature taught at universities.

Their obscure position in Flemish literary programs is somewhat odd, especially since fairy

tales “have been produced in English literature in a variety of genres (novels, poetry, short

stories, picture books) and for a broad range of age groups” (Joosen 459). Fairy tales and

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fairytale retellings have been an unmistakable part of English literary history and have been

transformed so many times that “the creation of a new fairy tale is not merely a re-creation or

variation of a fixed form, but art” (Bernheimer 4). The association between art and fairy tale is

necessary for this dissertation as well as for the rediscovery of modernist fairytale creations as

a whole, since it opens academics’ eyes to the literary, aesthetic and artistic qualities of the

tales. It is exactly this kind of eye-opening that this dissertation hopes to achieve with the

discussion of two forgotten fairytale poems by a modernist author.

The Sleeping Beauty (1924) and Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927) were both written in the

1920s by one of the grand literary ladies of the time, Edith Sitwell. Dowson and Entwistle assert

that “in terms of publications, awards, works of criticism, innovations and reputation, Sitwell

[was] the major woman poet of the twentieth century. Her work appears in most anthologies

between 1925 and 1965” (20). Sitwell wrote twenty poetry collections in her lifetime as well as

nine non-fictional works, one novel and an autobiography that was published posthumously.

Her modernist contemporaries admired her work so much that her reputation in the first half of

the twentieth century easily matched that of other famous modernist poets such as T.S. Eliot

and W.B. Yeats. Her fame dwindled in the second half of the twentieth century though and has

only been restored in recent years as critical studies and biographies indicate. Poetry collections

such as Façade (1922) and Bucolic Comedies (1923) have received the most attention, while

others are still waiting for their turn “under the microscope in extended interpretative analyses”

(Bobby 8). The latter is true for the two fairytale poems Sitwell wrote, since none of them have

ever been singled out for further research. This dissertation changes that oversight by

foregrounding the ways in which these modernist poems can be deemed fairytale material. More

specifically, the analysis wants to focus on the combination of fairytale and mythological

characteristics as it is this particular combination that warrants the poems’ unique position

within fairytale history. This dissertation argues that such a combination is special and inserts

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features from both modernist and fairytale studies to illustrate the poems’ innovative nature.

Each study of modernist fairytale poetry is already revolutionary in its own right, but this study

does something new by concentrating on two different aspects. Both fairytale history and

fairytale characteristics will be taken into account, as it is this twofold focus that enables this

dissertation to contribute something new to existing research on (modernist) fairytale poetry.

To support the findings in a coherent manner, there are several subdivisions. The first

chapter introduces some insights from studies on fairy tales and modernism. Since it would

have been impossible to address all authors that ever published something on the topic, only

some representatives were selected and included in this dissertation. It was a deliberate choice

to redirect the focus from well-known scholars such as Greimas and Propp to relatively new

ones such as Joosen and Harries. Their theories on fairy tales and fairytale retellings seamlessly

correspond with modernist notions of tradition and innovation, which is why their writings will

serve as a theoretical framework for the analysis later on. Bruno Bettelheim’s ideas on myths

and fairy tales will also be used, since his work can be considered “an absolutely relevant

intertext for fairy-tale retellings” (Joosen 250). The second chapter contextualises the fairytale

works. The first part deals with fairy tales in their broadest sense, by touching upon their

presence in the modernist era as well as upon the somewhat artificial debate between high and

popular culture. The second part narrows the context down to the fairytale poems in particular

and takes a closer look at their personal nature and their differences in reception. Edith Sitwell’s

life is briefly addressed to accentuate some of the personal features, but this is the extent of the

biographical information that is provided in this dissertation. More comprehensive studies on

her life include Victoria Glendinning’s Edith Sitwell: A Unicorn among Lions (1981) and

Richard Greene’s Edith Sitwell: Avant Garde Poet, English Genius (2011). The third chapter

centres on fairytale history and fairytale parallels. Once again a choice was made to forego

obvious authors such as Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm in favour of a less obvious

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one. The first part examines similarities between Edith Sitwell and Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy,

one of the most popular French conteuses of the seventeenth century. Sitwell used the

conteuses’ “dramatic narrative structure, frightening plot lines, and endings that were discursive

or disheartening” (Joyce 30) to achieve a level of innovation that surpassed contemporary

fairytale works. The second part addresses modernist influences from the different arts as well

as modernist defamiliarisation techniques. This part may seem out of place in a chapter devoted

to fairytale history, considering that most modernist authors were Sitwell’s contemporaries, but

it is nonetheless necessary. The modernist movement shaped the way in which Sitwell wrote

and its characteristics need to be included in order to fully grasp the poems’ special place in

(fairytale) history. The fourth and fifth chapter analyse each fairytale poem separately by

focussing on characteristics from traditional fairy tales, fairytale retellings and myths. It should

be noted though that the analysis of Prelude to a Fairy Tale is smaller in scope than that of The

Sleeping Beauty, mainly because there are almost no academic studies on the poem. The

conclusion then looks ahead at the future and offers some advice on how to best analyse

modernist fairytale texts. In the end, all elements are recapitulated and a door to another time is

opened. As J.R.R. Tolkien once said, fairy tales “have now a mythical or total unanalysable

effect, […] one which it cannot spoil or explain; they open a door on Other Time, and if we

pass through, though only for a moment, we stand outside our own time, outside Time itself

maybe” (32). By discovering the timeless elements within Edith Sitwell’s fairytale poems, this

dissertation not only hopes to shed some light on modernist fairy tales but also on the modernist

era as a whole. In accordance with Tolkien, the hope is to discover something more about a

time that both lies beyond and within the reach of (scholarly) imagination.

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2 Once Upon a Time: Modernism and Fairy Tales

The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in (Auden)

This chapter does not address any specific modernist fairytale poems, but provides a theoretical

framework for the analysis in subsequent chapters. There appear to be as many definitions and

theories as there are scholars and it therefore seems useful to start with a clarification of some

key concepts. Different aspects of modernist and fairytale studies will be emphasised to create

an interdisciplinary theoretical approach that combines elements from both research fields.

While most scholars focus on either modernism or fairy tales, they need to be brought together

“to explore what fairy tales mean in and to modernism” (A. Martin 13).

2.1 On Fairytale Studies

While there were some influential fairytale studies in the first half of the twentieth century –

such as Propp’s structural approach (1928) or Jung’s psychoanalytical approach (1930s) –, most

scholarly works on fairy tales were written in the second half of the twentieth century. From

the 1970s onwards, the increased interest in fairy tales led to a “fairy-tale renaissance” (Joosen

3) as the amount of fairytale retellings and fairytale studies expanded. Various theories and

methods emerged during this period, all accentuating different aspects of fairy tales and the

time in which they were written. This makes it challenging to find a universal definition that

encompasses all features of a fairy tale. This has also been observed by Harries, who claims

that “nothing is more difficult than to try to define a fairy tale in twenty-five words or less, and

all dictionaries fail miserably” (6). Not one dictionary entry is able to convey the complexity

that is typical of the genre and researchers therefore often feel the need to divide fairy tales into

smaller and more comprehensible units. For the purpose of this dissertation, three different

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categorical pairs need to be addressed in order to establish workable fairytale units: oral folk

tales and literary fairy tales, traditional tales and fairytale retellings, and fairy tales and myths.

The first categorical pair addresses the differences between two variants, namely by

contrasting the oral folk tale with the literary fairy tale. Fairy tales are part of folklore and have

their roots in oral culture, which is why the first tales were transmitted orally and written down

only later. Oral folk tales were collected and transformed into written fairy tales for a more

cultivated audience from the seventeenth century onwards, as fairytale collections by Charles

Perrault and the Brothers Grimm illustrate. Jens Tismar was the first modern scholar to

formulate the differences between the categories in the late 1970s – early 1980s and it has been

used ever since as a theoretical framework for fairytale research. Jack Zipes paraphrased these

categorical differences in his introduction to The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales (2000):

[The literary fairy tale or das Kunstmärchen] distinguishes itself from the oral folk tale

(das Volksmärchen) in so far as it is written by a single, identifiable author; (2) it is thus

synthetic, artificial and elaborate in comparison to the indigenous formation of the folk

tale that emanates from communities and tends to be simple and anonymous; (3) the

differences between the literary fairy tale and the oral folk tale do not imply that one

genre is better than the other; (4) in fact, the literary fairy tale is not an independent

genre but can only be understood and defined by its relationship to [others] (xv).

This distinction is useful, mainly because it accentuates the singularity and intertextuality of

the literary fairy tale. The selected poems within this dissertation can all be deemed literary

fairy tales, as they are written by a specific author and as they use allusions to either fairytale

or mythological material. They are all carefully constructed writings that offer many possible

readings, depending on the theoretical and cultural framework that authors and readers use.

Most known fairy tales are in fact literary fairy tales. Even canonical tales like “The Sleeping

Beauty” and “Cinderella”, which were written in the seventeenth century and popularised in

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the twentieth century, are intertextual and equivocal in nature. In the introduction to Off with

Their Heads! (1992), Maria Tatar has claimed that “our fairy-tale canon is drawn for the most

part, from collections produced by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, and those

collections are marked by strong rewritings (in the case of Perrault) and by repeated editorial

interventions (in the case of the Grimms)” (xxi). By definition, all fairy tales discussed and

alluded to in subsequent chapters can be considered literary fairy tales instead of oral folk tales.

Henceforth, the term fairy tale will only be used in reference to the literary fairytale genre and

its specific characteristics. The literary fairy tale’s attention to form and intertextuality provides

the groundwork for the analysis and allows for further categorisation due to their occurrence in

both modernist and fairytale studies (cf. infra).

The second categorical pair evolved from the definition of the literary fairy tale and was

first defined by Harries in 2003. Harries contrasted compact tales with complex tales, the latter

corresponding more or less to the literary fairy tale. Compact tales are one-dimensional and

unmediated, whereas complex tales are “‘intertextual’ and ‘stereophonic’, Roland Barthes’s

terms for the ways all writing is intertwined with other writings” (Harries 17). This

categorisation has its merits and is certainly useful in its consideration of allusions to other

works, but it is too narrow to be considered an addition to Tismar’s literary fairytale

characteristics. Vanessa Joosen therefore alters Harries’ definitions to create a more innovative

fairytale distinction, one that takes into account several intertextual relations as well as the

readers’ expectations. She distinguishes traditional fairy tales from fairytale retellings, in which

the former do not stress intertextuality to the same extent as the latter. Traditional fairy tales are

based on conventional fairytale patterns, whereas fairytale retellings like to toy around with

these conventions to create something new. Both came into being roughly around the same

time, though fairytale retellings only became popularised from the twentieth century onwards.

The chart on page ten summarises the differences between the tales, though it should be noted

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that not all features need to be present at the same time. The differences are based on a

traditional “horizon of expectation” (Joosen 20), a term which was first coined by Hans Robert

Jauss. It refers to the expectations readers have before they start reading a text and the manner

in which these expectations are met. For instance, readers of fairy tales anticipate black-and-

white characters who battle each other on their way towards a happy end. If these or other

fairytale elements are not present in the tale, the traditional horizon of expectation is disrupted

and the readers feel as if they have been cheated. In New Perspectives on Fairy Tales (2008),

Joosen connects these so-called ruptures to fairytale retellings and uses seven narratological

domains to indicate the ways in which fairytale retellings differ from traditional fairy tales. The

category style has been left out for this dissertation, since the poems’ stylistic elements have

already been described by scholars such as Michel Cusin (1979), Sonja Samberger (2005) and

Dowson and Entwistle (2005). The chart on the next page therefore only consists of six

narratological domains instead of the seven that were originally used by Vanessa Joosen.

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Differences between traditional tales and fairytale retellings according to Joosen1

1 This chart was created based on the information in Vanessa Joosen’s doctoral dissertation (2008), pages 20-26.

TRADITIONAL TALE

FAIRYTALE

RETELLING

Chronotope

One-dimensional

Indefinite time and space

Multi-dimensional

Definite time and space

Attitude to the supernatural

Magic non-intrusive

Serious wishes and curses

Realistic alternatives

Boundary magic and realism

Characterisation

Limited functions

Extreme contrasts

One-dimensional and flat

Matching exterior & interior

Diverse functions

No black-white distinctions

Multi-dimensional and round

Evil deeds put in perspective

Optimism

Optimistic

Good protagonist

Reward and punishment

Pessimistic and cynical

No clear-cut protagonist

Happy ending uncommon

Action versus

character development

Quick progress

Predictable order

No long descriptions

No focus on feelings

Psychological development

No predictable order

Long descriptions

Focus on feelings

Narratological features

Linear narration

Omniscient, 3rd p narrator

Simple narrativity: one plot

Not always linear narration

Marginal, 1st person narrator

Complex narrativity: # plots

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The selection of poems within this dissertation can be named fairytale retellings in terms of

narration, character development and optimism (cf. infra) and even the other features are

present to some extent. Joosen’s comparison will prove to be an excellent analytical tool for the

analysis in chapters three, four and five. It reinforces the notion of intertextuality present in

Tismar’s definition and it adds something new by touching upon the manners in which classical

fairy tales can be disrupted. These elements provide a clear theoretical foundation and can be

interpreted as a starting point to discuss the intertextual relation between myths and fairy tales.

The third and last categorical pair is one that broadens the scope to include mythology.

The relationship between myths and fairy tales is somewhat ambiguous in nature, since it is

hard to determine where myths end and fairy tales start. Bruno Bettelheim affirms that there is

no clear demarcation between the two literary genres: “in most cultures, there is no clear line

separating myth from folk tale or fairy tale; all these together form the literature of preliterate

societies” (25). Many fairy tales incorporate elements from myths and some fairy tales even

seem to have been directly derived from them. It is this literary ambiguity that has led scholars

such as Mircea Eliade (1968), Bruno Bettelheim (1977), Marina Warner (1995) and Jack Zipes

(1994) to investigate the relationship between both genres. They all tried to formulate

distinctive theoretical frameworks, either from psychoanalytical, folkloristic or literary points

of view. However, “myths and folk tales blended very early in the oral tradition, and in many

modern oral and literary narratives it is very difficult to tell them apart” (Zipes, Fairy Tale as

Myth 3). This was the case for Edith Sitwell’s fairytale poems, which were a unique blend of

myths and fairy tales. Since these poems will be analysed in chapters four and five, an analytical

framework is needed that compares fairytale features with mythological ones. The chart on the

next page uses Bruno Bettelheim’s insights from The Uses of Enchantment (1977) to summarise

the differences between both genres, though the psychoanalytical focus has been filtered out.

While the book dates back to the 1970s, the observations are still applicable to current research.

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Differences between myths and fairy tales according to Bettelheim2

2 This chart was created based on the information in Bruno Bettelheim’s book (1977), pages 8-13, 25-27, 36-46

and 62. The subsections were derived from Joosen’s doctoral dissertation (2008), pages 20-26.

MYTHS

FAIRY TALES

Chronotope

Definite time and space

Majestic and unique events

Indefinite time and space

Ordinary and homely events

Attitude to the supernatural

Spiritual force

In touch with divinity

Magical/fantastical force

In touch with primitive ideas

Characterisation

Unique characters

Proper names

Clash mortals vs. gods

Superhuman protagonist

Typical characters

General/descriptive names

Clash good vs. evil

Non-superhuman protagonist

Optimism

Pessimistic

Tragic ending

Reward in heaven

Optimistic

Happy ending

Reward on earth

Action versus

character development

Adult reasoning

Symbolic descriptions

Psychological development

Childish reasoning

Simple descriptions

Logical and simple progress

Narratological features

Cyclical narration

Complex narrativity: #plots

Demands made on listener

Linear narration

Simple narrativity: one plot

No demands made on listener

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The comparison is structured according to Joosen’s narratological domains and can be deemed

an addition to fairytale studies. It allows for a discussion of mythological allusions as one of

the poems’ most prominent intertextual features. Since myths and fairy tales were “embedded

in the childhoods of so many modern theorists and artists” (A. Martin 35), it is both necessary

and helpful to study these literary genres together. There are of course many more theories and

methods when it comes to fairy tales, but the combination of these three categorical pairs creates

the best framework for the analysis of the fairytale poems within this dissertation.

2.2 On Modernist Studies

Like fairytale studies, the amount of studies on modernism has increased in the last couple of

decades. Davis and Jenkins observe “a remarkable renaissance in the study of modernist

literature” (3) as well as an increase in methods and theories. Numerous definitions exist and it

is almost as hard to find a concise definition for modernism as it is for the fairy tale. This was

observed by Sonja Samberger who states that “any definition of modernism is an attempt at

fixing the characteristics of a certain style of writing (or art), and there is not one definition but

many” (19). It is indeed difficult to find a definition that contains all the features of modernism,

mainly because the modernist movement was known for its enormous diversity. Several schools

followed each other in rapid succession and it would be an inconceivable task to include all of

them in this overview. This section will therefore only focus on those features that prove to be

the most suitable for a comparison with fairy tales, namely the modernist clash between

tradition and innovation and the use of the mythic(al) method. Together with the previously

mentioned fairytale categories, they will provide the means for a thorough discussion of

Sitwell’s two fairytale poems: The Sleeping Beauty (1924) and Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927).

Deceuninck 19

The modernist movement started at the beginning of the twentieth century and lasted

until the mid-1940s.3 It was known for its hodgepodge of different styles and moods, which

were later either discussed as separate entities or grouped together under the term ‘avant garde’.

Paul Peppis describes the avant garde as “an unprecedented irruption across the West of

oppositional artistic movements, experimental art and writing, little magazines and alternative

presses, unconventional performances, and spectacular happenings” (28). In an ever-changing

society, many things happened at the same time and many people found it difficult to keep up

with them. They became focussed on expressing their own individuality, fearing that they

would otherwise get lost in the twentieth-century mass culture. The same was true for most

modernist authors, who also wanted to find their place in society. They felt the need to compose

their work in an entirely new manner, to explore the possibilities of everything the arts had to

offer. They combined or transformed elements from several artistic domains to make new and

heterogeneous art forms that expressed their own identity. Their ambition to make it all new

was in this context somewhat paradoxical, however, because many modernist authors were only

able to create something new by referring to the past. Fernald has noted that “the relation of

modernist writers to their past was far richer, more complex and more contentious” (13) than is

usually assumed and it can be worthwhile to investigate this modernist obsession with tradition

and innovation. It will become clear that this not only allows for a discussion of modern

intertextuality, it also establishes valuable connections between modernist and fairytale studies.

The modernist quest for innovation was often marked by an ambivalent attitude towards

tradition. This was expressed by T.S. Eliot, who was not only one of the most well-known

authors and literary critics of the modernist era but also someone whom Edith Sitwell

considered a dear friend. Eliot introduced the notion of tradition in an essay entitled “Tradition

3 While there is no consensus over the exact dates, most modernist overviews usually use a 1900-1945 timeframe.

See Samberger (2005), Davis and Jenkins (2007) and Dowson and Entwistle (2005).

Deceuninck 20

and the Individual Talent” (1921) as something that should be felt rather than imitated. Mere

imitation was not enough, modernist writers had to look at their literary predecessors if they

wanted to become aware of their own position in time and space. According to Eliot, tradition

was the key to innovation and each work of art needed to be constructed in relation to the past:

No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his

appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot

value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. […]

What happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens

simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it (Eliot 153).

Overlap between the past and the present was encouraged, as long as the artist did something

new with the source material. These insights are useful in so far as they can be applied to

modernist fairytale poems. Fairy tales have been part of literary history for centuries and can

be considered part of the tradition Eliot referred to. They were readily available material that

modernists could use and adapt in any way they liked, since they were aware that the audience

would recognise them without any difficulty. The possibilities were endless, ranging from mere

allusions to full-fletched adaptations and parodies. Modernist poets seemed to favour the

intertextual technique of allusion though, which is why this will be the focus of the analysis.

Contrary to definitions of fairy tales and modernism, a straightforward definition of allusion is

relatively easy to find. Abrams defines allusion as “a passing reference, without explicit

identification, to a literary or historical person, place or event, or to another literary work or

passage” (13). It is one aspect of intertextuality that reoccurs quite frequently in modernist

fairytale poetry, presumably because it enabled authors to combine traditional content with

innovative techniques. By inserting references to fairy tales, the poems became variable and

instable texts that could be interpreted in various ways depending on the readers’ state of minds.

Deceuninck 21

That tradition and innovation could coincide with one another through the use of

allusions was something that was once again noted by T.S. Eliot. He reviewed James Joyce’s

work in an essay called “Ulysses, Order and Myth” (1923) and invented the term mythic method

to refer to the ways in which allusions were used. Following his previous theories on tradition,

Eliot believed the mythic method to be a wonderful combination of past and present literary

features. It allowed authors to be traditional as well as innovative, a feat which was not easily

achieved in the modern era. The modern society was forever changing and its changeable

character needed to be expressed one way or another. Eliot was convinced that allusions

provided the answer, because they created “a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and

antiquity” (qtd. in Lodge 101) that dismissed straightforward interpretations. His observation

is useful, because it indicates the overlap between modernist texts and fairytale retellings. Like

modernist texts, fairytale retellings strive to be innovative by toying around with traditional

conventions. They, too, create a ‘continuous parallel’ between the past and the present and often

insert allusions to create ambiguity. That is why Joosen claims that fairytale retellings can only

be understood in relation to a “source-text, the so-called ‘pre-text’, which is the traditional fairy

tale” (13). Since there are so many versions of traditional tales, it is, however, hard to determine

which version is made intertextual in the first place (A. Martin 8). Simple meaning is rejected,

since readers have to figure out for themselves how they want to interpret the text and intertext.

Both modernist writings and fairytale retellings use the mythic method to create “sites of textual

and social interaction, where readers negotiate literary norms” (A. Martin 9) and it is as such

possible to argue that the mythic method has a wider scope than modernist literature. It can be

linked to other literary genres, such as folklore and fairy tales, as well as to almost every other

Deceuninck 22

literary movement.4 Only some minor alterations are needed to be able to do that. Eliot’s initial

focus on myths is too narrow-minded to be transferred to other domains and the definition thus

needs to be tweaked to include other literary genres. This was also argued by Rachel Blau

DuPlessis, who stated that a more “capacious term” (117) was needed. She redefined the mythic

method as an inclusive theoretical concept that incorporated several different elements such as

culturally important stories (like fairy-tales and folklore), conventional narratives and

their teleology (like the marriage/death plots of nineteenth-century novels),

mythological/religious materials (Greco-Roman, Christian, Norse, sometimes Jewish

and more) and ideologies (DuPlessis 117).

By bringing fairy tales into the equation, DuPlessis was one of the first scholars to illustrate

how modernist and fairytale studies could be brought together to establish an extensive

analytical framework. Most modernist theories and definitions provide ample opportunities

towards a more accessible interdisciplinary approach, especially once researchers become

aware of their use and relevance. How this cross-fertilisation can be achieved on a practical

level will briefly be discussed in the next section and again in the conclusion of this dissertation.

2.3 Modernist Fairytale Studies: An Interdisciplinary Approach

It has been mentioned before that studies on the relationship between modernism and fairy tales

have been limited. The publication of Ann Martin’s book Red Riding Hood and the Wolf in Bed

in 2006 was a first attempt to redeem the situation, with its profound discussion of fairytale

allusions in novels by Virginia Woolf, Djuna Barnes and James Joyce. The book is usually

considered to be one of the most extensive studies on the interplay between modernist prose

4 This was confirmed in the article “The Mythic Method and Intertextuality in T.S. Eliot’s Poetry” (2012) by

Manjola Nasi. He believes that the mythic method can be found in almost every literary era, both on a practical

and theoretical level. It is important to note that Nasi used the mythic method and intertextuality interchangeably.

Deceuninck 23

and fairy tales. Unfortunately, no similar work exists on the connection between modernist

poetry and fairy tales. While Jacquilyn Weeks’ doctoral dissertation Fairies, Fairy Tales and

the Development of British Poetics (2011) tentatively addresses the need for a more thorough

insight in modernist fairytale poetry, it never specially touches upon modernism. The future

looks promising though, because a new online journal on fairy tales and myths will be published

in 2015. The semi-annual Transformations: A Journal of Myths and Fairy Tale Studies hopes

to increase scholarly interest by focussing on fairy tales and modernism in prose and poetry. 5

In anticipation of such a study, an elementary interdisciplinary approach needs to be

invented for the analysis of modernist fairytale poems. Even though some scholars have tackled

Edith Sitwell’s fairytale poetry before, they have never solely paid attention to the intersection

between modernism and fairy tales. Samberger (2005) focusses mostly on stylistic and poetic

features, Dowson and Entwistle (2005) discuss gender characteristics and Van Durme (2012)

analyses its relation to contemporary musical compositions. None of them take fairytale history

into account, nor do they try to bring modernist and fairytale studies together. It almost seems

as of this were impossible to do, as if “high modernism [was] not the best place to look for

parallels” (Van Durme 177) with fairy tales. This dissertation argues that such a combination

is nonetheless possible, by inserting some features from both research fields that lend

themselves perfectly well to an interdisciplinary approach. Each study of modernist fairytale

poetry is innovative in its own right, but this study does something new by dividing the analysis

in two different parts. The first part puts Edith Sitwell’s fairytale poems in line with major

fairytale retellings throughout the centuries, while the second part examines her poetry

according to fairytale conventions. The main focus lies on the use of allusions, a technique

which was used by renowned modernists such as T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Ezra Pound and

5 The co-editors are Jacquilyn Weeks and Julie Sauvage. For more information about the journal, consult the

websites: http://english.uiowa.edu/people/julie-sauvage or https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/54305.

Deceuninck 24

Virginia Woolf as “a form of gate keeping, an exercise in exclusivity” (Hanna 61) that frustrated

readers to no end. Most of the times, the references were difficult to grasp and an addendum

with notes was required to understand the poetry. This also seems to have been the case for

Edith Sitwell’s fairytale poems, though no such addendum was ever added by either herself or

her editors. Researchers such as Margaret Bond Odegard (1956), Richard Greene (2011) and

the ones already mentioned have been fascinated by Sitwell’s use of allusions and have tried to

uncover references to art, music and theatre in the last couple of decennia. They usually ignored

fairy tales and fairytale retellings as a point of reference, presumably because these tales

represented “the volatile relationship between high art and mass culture” (Huyssen vii).

Modernist works were seen as variable and exclusive, whereas fairy tales were stable and

accessible. This can explain why an analysis of Edith Sitwell’s fairytale features has never been

done before. Chapters two until five attempt to change that oversight, by examining specific

fairytale references. Both known and unknown fairy tales and fairytale retellings will be

mentioned to illustrate how fairytale history was used to undermine tradition. Chapter four and

five specifically zoom in on techniques connected to fairytale retellings and on the manners in

which these techniques unsettle the readers’ horizon of expectation. The modernist use of the

mythic method will be discussed as a combination of fairytale and mythological characteristics,

mainly because they are the two most prominent literary genres in Sitwell’s fairytale poetry.

The overall aim is to demonstrate how a modernist poet managed to manipulate both traditional

fairytale and mythological conventions to create an entirely new work of art. Ultimately, this

dissertation’s interdisciplinary framework wants to show the possibilities of cross-fertilisation.

By combining different research areas with one another, typical blind spots are revealed and a

new kind of understanding comes about that is both useful and practical in scholarly research.

Deceuninck 25

3 Contextualising Edith Sitwell’s Fairytale Poems

These tales rank next to the Bible in importance (Auden 240)

The introductory quote by W.H. Auden was not far from the truth in regards to fairy tales in the

modernist era. By the end of the nineteenth century, it could no longer be denied that fairy tales

had become as widely acceptable and as popular as the Bible. They had penetrated all layers of

society and fairytale collections were as a result guaranteed to be instant bestselling successes.

This chapter will zoom in on this evolution by examining the peculiar position of fairy tales

within the literary landscape. It would be impossible to discuss Edith Sitwell’s fairytale poems

without at least referring to the presence of fairy tales in the modernist era. The first part will

outline the ambiguous position of fairy tales in the debate on high and popular culture, whereas

the second and third part will contextualise Sitwell’s fairytale poetry in particular.

3.1 Fairy Tales in the Modern Era

Edith Sitwell’s fairytale poems were certainly not a standalone occurrence in the modernist era.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, fairy tales “as an institution had expanded to include

drama, poetry, ballet, music, and opera” (Zipes, When Dreams Came True 23). They had

become an integral part of modern culture, especially due to the efforts of fairytale collectors

and storytellers in France, Germany and Denmark. These foreign tales were in turn translated

and published for a British audience, which is why Edith Sitwell was already familiar with “the

fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Andersen” (TCO 38) at a young age. There were

almost no British equivalents in existence, mainly because the fairytale genre was slower to

develop in Great Britain than on the Continent. Instrumental in establishing a British fairytale

tradition was Andrew Lang, who started a noteworthy fairytale collection in 1889 that lasted

Deceuninck 26

until 1910. Stein asserts that “although criticized for being unscientific, his fairy-tale books

were enormously popular and did much to establish an academic interest in the fairy tale in

Britain” (206). His twelve volumes did not only contain fairy tales from popular authors such

as Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, but also included fairy tales from less well-known

French, Norse and Russian authors such as Madame d’Aulnoy and Madame de Beaumont.

Since Lang’s collection alone consisted of no less than four hundred and thirty-seven different

fairy tales, it should come as no surprise that the early twentieth-century fairytale canon was so

incredibly varied that it inspired all kinds of authors. They based their work on existing literary

fairy tales, while at the same time creating literary fairy tales of their own. Examples include

fairytale operas by Giacomo Puccini and Paul Dukas (Benson 704), Ballet Russes performances

that included either fairytale themes or fairytale content (Benson 648), musical compositions

by Ravel and Debussy that were based on seventeenth-century French fairy tales (Hannon and

Duggan 385) and twentieth-century surrealist paintings that could “unquestionably be

considered fairy-tale works” (Bernheimer 73). Kate Bernheimer does therefore not exaggerate

when she claims that “from the early twentieth century to the present, fairy tales have had an

explosive effect on a vast range of contemporary art” (74). Researchers have mostly focused on

the relationship between fairy tales and the modernist visual or performing arts, however, either

intentionally or unintentionally choosing to avoid modernist literature as an artistic fairytale

domain. They neglected to discuss the interplay between both literary genres, despite the

omnipresence of fairy tales in the modern era. Especially modernist poetry was deemed

incompatible with fairy tales, even though many modernist poems contained “direct fairy-tale

references, and its poetic language – striving through new syntax to make new meaning – [was]

fairy-tale-like in tone” (L. Martin 694). It is in this context useful to look at the debate between

high and popular culture, since it emphasises some of the prevailing tendencies in modernist

research. The distinction explains the divergence between fairy tales and modernist poetry and

Deceuninck 27

adds further proof to the insights that were provided in the introduction and in chapter one.

The difference between high and popular culture is often addressed in modernist studies

as “ideal types or stereotypes. They are […] American versions of the original German

distinction between Kultur and Massenkultur, which are usually translated as ‘culture’ and

‘mass culture” (Gans 5). Most studies strictly separate them from one another, even though the

distinction was less artificial and less strict in real life. Raymond Williams is usually quoted on

the topic, since he was the one of the first authors that theorised the difference between the two

forms of culture. According to him, popular culture is defined as “’well liked by many people’;

‘inferior kinds of work’; ‘work deliberately setting out to win favour with the people’; culture

actually made by the people for themselves” (Storey 5). Fairy tales seem to conform to all these

definitions and can thus be interpreted as part of popular culture. They were used by both

commoners and artists to attract and entertain all layers of society, no matter their positon or

their education. Additionally, mass-distributed fairy tales were considered inferior to

individualised ‘cultured’ literature from the Victorian era onwards and were often banned to

nurseries and schoolrooms as something to be chiefly affiliated with children. For instance,

Andrew Lang explicitly stated that his fairytale collection was “intended for children, who will

like, it is hoped, the old stories that have pleased so many generations” (1). Lang’s words reveal

the effects of mass distribution, since the inclusion of fairy tales within children’s culture and

mass culture had caused people to look at fairy tales in a somewhat benevolent manner. The

observation is particularly remarkable in light of (modern) fairytale history. Fairy tales were at

one point in time deemed ‘highly cultural’ works that were written for an adult audience in an

exceedingly intelligent manner. Maria Tatar even asserts that “fairy tales were never really

meant for children’s ears alone. Originally told at fireside gatherings or in spinning circles by

adults to adult audiences, fairy tales joined the canon of children’s literature (which is itself of

recent vintage) only in the last two or three decades” (The Hard Facts of the Grimm’s Fairy

Deceuninck 28

Tales xxvi). In the centuries preceding the modernist era, literary fairy tales frequently consisted

of gruesome and complicated storylines that were more appropriate for adults than for children.

To illustrate, Snow White’s stepmother was punished to wear burning shoes until she died,

Cinderella’s stepsisters were punished by birds who pecked their eyes out, Sleeping Beauty and

her prince had to kill the cannibalistic queen to save their children and Little Red Riding Hood

was raped before being eaten alive by the wolf. It was not until the nineteenth century that “fairy

tales for children were sanitized and expurgated versions of the fairy tales for adults” (Zipes,

Fairy Tale as Myth 14). The result of this extensive simplification was that fairy tales became

firmly entrenched in popular culture from the end of the nineteenth century onwards. It should

be noted though that there was a distinct difference between traditional fairy tales and fairytale

retellings. Whereas traditional fairy tales were indeed popular domain, fairytale retellings were

often deemed high cultural domains. DiBattista and McDiarmid have observed that the

distinction between the two cultures was not as straightforward as many theorists would like to

believe, since most artists seemed to view popular “cultural phenomena and entertainments

unique to their times […] as an inalienable part of modern life, hence unavoidable subject matter

whose forms as well as content might be assimilated or reworked, playfully imitated or

seriously criticized” (5). Fairy tales were an equally ‘inalienable part’ of the modernist era and

were often used by artists to create new high art forms. Their position in the cultural debate was

ambivalent, since their traditional forms belonged to popular culture while their innovative and

subversive forms frequently belonged to high culture. Edith Sitwell’s fairytale poems exemplify

this ambivalent position perfectly, since both popular and high culture were present to some

extent. The poems were based on traditional fairytale content, while their wittiness and their

poetic artistry made them ‘high art’ to be read by a more cultivated audience. They were as

such the perfect example of cross-fertilisation between fairy tales and modernism, between high

and popular culture and between individualised and mass culture.

Deceuninck 29

3.2 The Personal Nature of Edith Sitwell’s Fairytale Poems

Edith Sitwell wrote The Sleeping Beauty (1924) and Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927) during the

interbellum, at a time when people often looked inwards to make sense of the outside world.

Both of her modernist fairytale poems address her life, though The Sleeping Beauty does so to

a larger extent than Prelude to a Fairy Tale. It can be assumed that Sitwell chose fairy tales as

a framework, because “the loneliness that seemed to pervade them” (TCO 39) echoed the

loneliness that she had felt as a child. Her poetry mirrors the sentiment behind many of Hans

Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, such as “The Little Mermaid” and “The Little Match Girl”,

since they too were often about young women who felt abandoned by their loved ones. The

poems can be interpreted as an attempt to come to terms with the past and there are as such

many scenes that depict Sitwell’s life “as a child and a young girl” (TCO 60). Unfortunately,

these personal scenes were often overlooked by readers and reviewers. Case in point was Edgell

Rickword who wrote a positive review about The Sleeping Beauty in The Times Literary

Supplement of 1924, but who remarked that the “most sensitive poets often construct masks for

their emotions rather than expose their keenest feelings. We may have every respect for such a

course in its relation to character while regretting its effect on art” (204). Rickword failed to

recognise the profound emotions behind the poem’s complexity, even though they were every

bit as real and as keen as he wanted them to be. The critic Stanley J. Kunitz fared slightly better

in March 1931 when he noticed that, while Edith Sitwell could “annoy one to distraction with

her hyperbolic artifices, her Gallicisms, her Chinoiseries” (339), she managed to put “in her

verse as well as in her prose […] the accents of her heart” (341). These two reviews illustrate

that Sitwell’s poetic artistry often succeeded in distracting readers from looking for the poems’

origins or from uncovering the hidden emotions, at least until Edith Sitwell herself indicated

their more personal nature in her autobiography. The Sleeping Beauty was mainly written about

her past as a child, whereas Prelude to a Fairy Tale focused on her feelings as “a poet who had

Deceuninck 30

been disappointed in her search for a husband” (Greene 178). While Sitwell’s personal

experiences are not the key focus of the analysis, it is nonetheless worthwhile to discuss some

of them in the context of her fairytale poetry. Entire studies can be devoted to the interplay

between her life and work, but the examples here are only meant as a means to contextualise

the poems. They lay bare the intricacies of Sitwell’s mind, while they at the same time underline

the reasoning behind some of her narrative choices. Since allusions to Sitwell’s life were more

profound in The Sleeping Beauty, the examples will be centered solely on that fairytale poem.

A first striking feature of The Sleeping Beauty is that the fairytale protagonist has

absentee parents. In Perrault’s tale of “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood”, the heroine has

loving parents who dote on her and who are very much involved in the destruction of the

spinning wheels. They eventually decide to leave their child behind, but not without making

sure that their daughter never has to doubt their love for her. Sitwell’s heroine is less fortunate

and has to rely more on the help of her servants than that of her parents. The king is only

mentioned once in canto three, whereas the queen is so panicked that she seems to lose all

rational thought. She settles for an image of her daughter “formed to please the Court” (SB 4.39)

and disappears completely from sight from canto five onwards. It is the ancient chamberlain

who decides to protect princess Cydalise from Laidronette’s horrible curse and who whisks her

away from the palace: “For after Laidronette’s wild rage was spent,/The chamberlain to the

child’s nursery went/And sped her far away, like the East Wind/To worlds of snow, far from

the fairy’s mind” (SB 4.44-47). He is also the one who orders the maids to destroy all the

spindles and it is he who, together with the other servants, becomes a surrogate family to the

young princess. The major characters are therefore mostly servants, ranging from kitchen maids

to governesses and gardeners. They were modelled after Lady Londesborough’s servants, who

all “seemed so ancient that they seemed to have strayed out of the eighteenth century” (TCO

59). Lady Londesborough was Edith Sitwell’s maternal grandmother with whom she spent a

Deceuninck 31

lot of time. Since she often stayed in her grandmother’s house amongst servants, it can be

understood why many of the fairytale servants were based on Londesborough’s real-life

counterparts. A second feature is linked to the first one, namely the decision to use a gardener

as narrator for the embedded framework. This seems an odd choice, especially since a

traditional fairytale narrator is “usually a ‘third-person’ narrator who, thanks to the naturalizing

‘once upon a time’ fairy tale frame, is usually considered to be objective” (Bacchilega 3).

Sitwell’s choice only makes sense when once again taking into account her childhood. Her

father was an absent presence in her life, someone who was more obsessed with his landscaping

projects than his children (Greene 25). All three Sitwell children have at one point in time

commented upon their father’s obsession with gardens and Edith Sitwell has also

inconspicuously touched upon it in her autobiography. In describing her paternal grandmother’s

old gardener, she claimed that he “spoke of flowers tenderly, as fathers sometimes (I suppose)

speak of their children” (TCO 59). The words between brackets are telling in light of her

relationship with her father, since George Sitwell was not the most affectionate of men. It is

possible that she chose a gardener as narrator to create similarities with a father who was partly

responsible for the loss of her youthful dreams. This seems to be exemplified in canto nine,

which describes the youth of princess Cydalise: “The princess was young as the innocent

flowers/That bloom and love through the bright spring hours” (SB 9.1-2). It is the gardener’s

task to look out for the flowers’ wellbeing and failure to do so leads to flowers that “bruise and

wound the heart and sense/With their lost and terrible innocence” (SB 9.39-40). Sitwell’s

narrative choice can thus be considered another way of addressing the past. Other examples

include the presence of the Dowager Queen, who is too consumed by the past to do something

to help the princess, the stuffed parrot which symbolises “the stifling effect of her conventional

upbringing” (Dowson and Entwistle 65) and the reoccurrence of Queen Anne’s portrait that

must have served as a reminder of long hours of portrait posing with several family members.

Deceuninck 32

These examples are certainly not exhaustive, but they are illustrative of the person that hid

behind the fairytale façade. It is important to keep this in mind, especially since other examples

will come to light during the analysis of the fairytale poems in chapters four and five. They

reveal the more personal nature of Sitwell’s poetry and they counter Rickword’s criticism that

she did not expose her deepest feelings.

3.3 Differences in Reception

While Edith Sitwell’s modernist fairytale poems were written in the same style and based on

similar content matter, they were received and transmitted in a vastly different manner. Whereas

The Sleeping Beauty had great success and became popular immediately after its publication,

Prelude to a Fairy Tale disappeared almost entirely into the background from the moment it

was written. Several factors account for this discrepancy in terms of reception, not in the least

Edith Sitwell herself. Her letters and autobiography indicate a certain pride towards The

Sleeping Beauty and stress the emotions that were involved in the literary endeavour. The poem

was extremely personal and included many references to either people, places or art that Edith

Sitwell had encountered. Whether the readers were familiar with all the allusions was another

question altogether, but the poem was definitely prized for its stylistic and artistic excellence.

Prelude to a Fairy Tale on the other hand was less personal and seemed to have been perceived

by Sitwell as a watered down version of her first fairytale poem. Her attempt to write “another

modernist fairy tale, this time Cinderella or ‘Cendrillon’ intertwined with a retelling of the story

of Venus and Psyche from which it is thought to derive” (Greene 178) was not met with the

same enthusiasm as The Sleeping Beauty and Sitwell started to resent it soon after it was written.

Even though she republished a shortened version with the new title Prelude to a Fairy Tale in

March 1927, she never really got over her initial dislike. She shunned the poem in her later

correspondence as a letter to Pavel Tchelitchew illustrates: “I once wrote a very bad poem based

Deceuninck 33

on that. One day I may write a good one” (qtd. in Greene 179). That day never came to pass

though, since she abandoned writing major fairytale retellings immediately after the publication

of the Cinderella poem. It is likely that her own ambiguous feelings caused the two poems to

be transmitted differently. Sitwell favoured The Sleeping Beauty and decided to include it in

almost all of her poetry collections. It is consequently relatively easy to find full copies of the

poem in libraries and book stores. There is even a digitalised version of the entire poem on the

Surlalune fairytale website, which is devoted to the preservation of traditional fairy tales and

fairytale retellings. In contrast, almost no full copies of Prelude to a Fairy Tale can be found.

Sitwell included it in early poetry collections up until the 1930s, but it is almost impossible to

find it in later editions. The website www.poetryexplorer.net has a copy of the poem, but it is

difficult to determine to which extent it matches Sitwell’s original due to the many changes she

made during its publication history. The title is an example of such a revision and further

distinguishes Prelude to a Fairy Tale from The Sleeping Beauty. It can be assumed that both

fairytale poems were initially named after their fairytale heroines, namely Cinderella and the

Sleeping Beauty, but something must have made Sitwell decide to discard a direct comparison

between her second fairytale poem and its prosaic counterpart. Based on her letter to

Tchelitchew, it is likely that she felt disappointed in herself and that she did want to associate

her work with a well-known fairy tale. That is why Prelude to a Fairy Tale continues to linger

on the praecipe of fairytale history, whereas The Sleeping Beauty does not shy away from a

direct comparison with its literary ancestors. These differences lend additional support to the

assumption that Sitwell perceived the poems differently and can partly explain why most

researchers have differentiated between The Sleeping Beauty and Prelude to a Fairy Tale. That

is, most scholars have paid attention to Sitwell’s first fairytale poem as works by Odegard

(1956), Cusin (1979), Glendinning (1981), Samberger (2005), Dowson and Entwistle (2005)

and Greene (2011) illustrate. The poem was easy to access and provided them with the means

Deceuninck 34

to research different aspects, ranging from stylistic features to biographical ones. Furthermore,

The Sleeping Beauty “was well received and the first of her works to appear simultaneously in

an edition in the United States” (Dowson and Entwistle 63). Due to its widespread popularity,

the poem remained one of Sitwell’s most well-known poems and never disappeared into the

background like so many other works from the same era. In comparison, Prelude to a Fairy

Tale was a totally different story. A lot harder to access, the poem never achieved the same

amount of admiration and was almost never mentioned by scholars. Ann Martin describes the

poem merely as a rewriting of “Cinderella” Sitwell was involved in (36), Greene only states

that Sitwell felt negatively towards the original (178) and Glendinning and Odegard mention

the poem’s existence as an afterthought. It almost seems as if the authors have all adopted

Sitwell’s careless attitude towards the source material and it is as such difficult to find entire

studies on the poem. Even though both poems are interesting in their own right and deserve to

be investigated for what they are, only The Sleeping Beauty has received scholarly attention in

the past. This dissertation attempts to do something about that misunderstanding, by bringing

both fairytale poems together in an analysis for the first time ever.

Deceuninck 35

4 When the Shoe Fits: Sitwell and Fairytale History

We all carry, inside us, people who came before us (Callanan 159)

It has been mentioned in the first chapter that a distinct difference between oral folk tales and

literary fairy tales is their relation to the past. Whereas oral folk tales “lack any relation to past

and future, to time altogether” (Lüthi 11), literary fairy tales can never be disconnected from

the past. That is why literary fairy tales often contain either direct or indirect references to

historical, literary and artistic characters or events. In the last fifty years, research on these kind

of references has increased and many allusions have been unveiled. However, each new

discovery led to new research questions and many fairy tales refused to conform to single

interpretations as a result. This was also pointed out by Robyn McCallum, who believed that “a

definitive textually grounded interpretation is infinitely deferred partly because of […] the

impossibility of collecting every version and variant, and partly because any interpretation is in

part the product of the culture in which it is produced” (22). Every analysis of fairy tales

depends on a number of circumstances and not one analysis can claim to state the whole truth.

This part will only concentrate on one aspect of literary fairy tales, namely their relation to the

past. The connection between Sitwell’s fairytale poems and fairytale history has never been

studied before, even though ample evidence can be obtained to prove the interaction. The

examples provided here were not chosen at random, but were based on their prevalence both in

the modernist era and in Edith Sitwell’s own life. Mme d’Aulnoy’s tales continued to be

published in fairytale collections and probably came to Sitwell’s attention through Maurice

Ravel (Van Durme 178), and the modernist contemporaries were chosen because of their ability

to inspire with clever inversions and poetic ingenuity. Though this chapter will chiefly stress

similarities between the tales in terms of style and content, it should be noted that there was

Deceuninck 36

also frequently overlap between the ways in which the works were perceived by the audience.

This was especially true for the writings of Edith Sitwell and Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy, with

whom this overview will start.

4.1 Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy - Les Contes des fées

Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Comtesse d’Aulnoy (1650-1705) was one of the most

important conteuses of the seventeenth century and someone who helped to establish the literary

fairytale genre. Born into a rich aristocratic family, she was raised to be a well-mannered and

well-educated woman fit to be someone’s wife. She was married off when she was barely fifteen

years old to the wealthy but older baron d’Aulnoy, a marriage which her family would soon

come to regret. They hatched a plot against the baron in the hopes of removing him from Marie-

Catherine’s life, but they failed to complete it and, in turn, created even more dire circumstances

for the young woman. She was arrested on charges of conspiracy (but never convicted) and

spent some time imprisoned as punishment for her family’s crimes. As soon as she was released,

she decided to travel the Continent before setting up a separate household in Paris. By 1690,

she and her husband had completely separated and lived in different parts of the country. While

he was gambling and drinking, she was looking after their six children, “living a semi-religious

life and conducting a literary salon. It was [also] at this time that she began to write the fairy

tales that have kept her reputation alive” (Blamires 70). She continued to work on them until

she died and managed to establish a literary reputation that rivaled that of Charles Perrault. Her

Les contes de fées (1696) and Contes nouveaux ou les fées à la mode (1697) remained

enormously popular in France and were even partially translated in English a couple of years

later. Considering the life that she led and the countless fairy tales that she produced, it is strange

then that “aujourd’hui, de Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy, le grand public connaît presque rien”

(Mainil 19). Marina Warner (1995), David Blamires (2008) and Ruth Bottigheimer (2002) have

Deceuninck 37

all commented upon this evolution and have remarked that d’Aulnoy gradually receded into the

background in favour of male storytellers. Nineteenth-century translations “made her edifying

by deadening her language, her tone, her chosen balance between the lyric and the mordant”

(Warner 166) and it is only in recent years that her original wit and artistry have been discovered

in scholarly research. Just as Bennett named Edith Sitwell a forgotten modernist, so could

Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy be named a forgotten conteuse. In fact, many similarities exist

between d’Aulnoy and Sitwell. While these similarities have never been researched before, it

can nevertheless be said that both authors “responded to many of the same social and literary

cues” (Bottigheimer 3). They were both extremely well-liked by their contemporaries and they

did much to renew the literary scene of their time. Mme d’Aulnoy was in part responsible for

the acclaim of the fairytale genre and is usually credited to be the one who invented the term

fairy tale, while Edith Sitwell was partly responsible for the wide-spread appeal of modernism

due to her involvement in the movement and her support of relatively unknown authors. They

were both innovators in their own right and a force to be reckoned with in the literary field,

which is why it is peculiar that their fairy tales have been gathering dust until the 1970s. Jane

Tucker Mitchell has discerned that “there is relatively little written specifically about the tales,

most writers treat [them] in a general fashion along with other writers of fairy tales” (31). While

Mitchell’s work specifically addresses Mme d’Aulnoy’s tales, the same can be more or less

said for Edith Sitwell. She too is often treated in the same breath with other authors from the

same era and it is only in the last three or four decennia that she has gotten the attention that

she deserves. It seems only right to bring these two ‘forgotten authors’ together by focussing

on the similarities between Mme d’Aulnoy’s tales and Edith Sitwell’s fairytale poems. They

will be centered on four domains, namely characterisation, narration, style and intertextuality,

and they will prove Bottigheimer’s claim that both authors used complementary literary cues.

Deceuninck 38

4.1.1 Characterisation

In terms of characterisation, direct parallels can be drawn between the two fairytale narratives.

The most obvious examples are the characters of Laideronnette and Chatte Blanche, who were

both heroines in Mme d’Aulnoy’s tales and who were incorporated in Sitwell’s Sleeping Beauty

fairy tale as side characters. Laideronnette was originally the protagonist of “Le Serpentin

Vert”, a tale about a young princess who is cursed with ugliness by an evil fairy as soon as she

is born. As Mainil has observed: “comme La Belle au bois dormant, une fée qui n’a pas été

invitée vient interrompre le baptême et la scène des dons” (149). Laideronnette decides to hide

away her ugliness from the world and finds shelter in the land of the Pagodas, where she

encounters a green serpent that takes care of her. Enchanted by his conversation, she marries

the green serpent on condition that she never tries to look at him before seven years have passed.

Laideronnette fails to keep her promise and both she and the green serpent are punished for

their actions. After many trials and tribulations, true love wins out, however, and both the green

serpent and Laideronnette become beautiful human beings who live happily ever after as king

and queen of the Pagodas. It is telling that Sitwell chose Laideronnette to be the evil fairy that

curses princess Cydalise, especially since Laideronnette was originally the one who was cursed.

The experience would normally enable her to understand the princess’s plight, but the opposite

is true. This begs the question whether Sitwell’s version of Laidronette is identical to Mme

d’Aulnoy’s original. Usually textual clues can help to determine which version of a character

is made intertextual in the first place, but here they do nothing but cause confusion.

Laidronette’s status as a princess and her name are reminiscent of the early stages of “Le

Serpentin Vert”, before Laideronnette “is transformed into a beautiful woman and given the

name Queen Discrete” (Zipes, Art of Subversion 52). However, her attitude and her age do not

correspond with this timeline. She is described as an old and wicked fairy who spreads darkness

wherever she goes, the complete opposite of the virtuous young woman present in Mme

Deceuninck 39

d’Aulnoy’s tale. Her speech starts with the words: “I am very cross because I am old/and my

tales are told/and my flames jewel-cold” (SB 1.123-125), which indicates that her story has

already been told. Something must have happened at the end of Mme d’Aulnoy’s tale that made

Laidronette the person who she is and readers are left to wonder what that was. Taking into

account the original, Laidronette’s name then becomes more than a passing reference and

includes a wealth of background information on the character. Without the name, Laidronette

would be a mere caricature of a villain. She would serve as nothing more than the antagonist

who moves the story forward and she would remain underdeveloped. It can be assumed that the

intertextual reference was used to eliminate black-and-white distinctions and to create a

multifaceted character. Furthermore, by creating a twisted version of a beloved fairytale

character, Sitwell was able to put herself in a long line of fairytale history while at the same

time distancing herself from it. The same was true for her treatment of Chatte Blanche, who

was another heroine created by Mme d’Aulnoy. Originally an enchanted princess cursed to live

as a cat, Sitwell banned the character to the sidelines and transformed her into a fairy who works

as a nursery maid for the young princess. The traditional fairytale features are all left out, so

that only her speech and her appearance in canto four remind readers of “La Chatte Blanche”:

The fairy Chatte Blanche rocks you slow,

Like baskets of white fruit or pearls

Are the fairy’s tumbling curls -

Or lattices of roses white

Where through the snows like doves take flight.

Do, do,

Princess, do,

How furred and white is the fallen snow (SB 4.3-10).

Deceuninck 40

The similes and descriptions create similarities between the princess’s nursery maid and the

beautiful white cat who was the protagonist of the original tale. Sitwell’s reasons for including

Chatte Blanche remain unclear, but it probably had something to do with the palace in which

she lived. Chatte Blanche’s kingdom was surrounded by walls “qui représentaient l’histoire de

toutes les fées, depuis la création du monde jusqu’alors; les fameuses aventures de Peaud’Ane,

de Finette, […], de la Belle au bois dormant, de Serpentinvert et de cent autres, n’y etoient pas

oubliées” (d’Aulnoy, CDF 458). Her transfer to the palace of Sleeping Beauty may indicate

that she has brought along the entire fairytale history and her presence as a nursery maid can

hence embody direct transmission of fairytale conventions. This example once again

exemplifies Sitwell’s ability to use tradition in a puzzling manner. While the character of Chatte

Blanche has ties to Mme d’Aulnoy’s tale, she is just different enough to make the readers doubt

the resemblances between both versions of the characters. Like d’Aulnoy before her, Sitwell

refused to adhere to one frame of reference when it came to fairytale characters. She opted to

blend several styles, themes and motifs with one another instead so as to create highly

intertextual tales similar to “Le Serpentin Vert” and “La Chatte Blanche”. It is by definition

possible to claim that both women responded to the demands of their own time, by “blending

[…] older motifs with the newer ideas of [their] own time, thus appealing to man’s instinctive

yearning for primitive beliefs while keeping him in touch with his own times” (Mitchell 109).

4.1.2 Narration

On the level of narration, the overlap between the tales of Mme d’Aulnoy and Edith Sitwell

continued. For instance, the use of an embedded framework was a technique favoured by the

French conteuses, as they often created tales that were “set within a longer narrative, or simply

framed with an introductory dialogue” (Harries 106). This was noticeably absent from

traditional fairy tales told by men and seems to have been restricted to female storytellers only.

By creating her own kind of embedded framework, it can be assumed that Sitwell included

Deceuninck 41

herself once more in the history of the conteuses. Even though “no English translation has ever

included Mme d’Aulnoy’s frame tale peritexts” (Raynard and Bottigheimer 170), they were

still present in many French editions and Edith Sitwell likely encountered them either directly

or indirectly through her acquaintances. Of the two poems, The Sleeping Beauty is the one that

shows the most similarities with the narrative style of the French conteuses. It starts off with a

gardener who “was old as nightingales/that in the wide leaves tells a thousand Grecian tales”

(SB 1.43-44) and who warns travellers to stay away from the woods. He is a somewhat peculiar

character, especially since his skills set extends far beyond the reach of a common gardener.

Not only is he able to play the bagpipe, he also manages to tell a tale that is filled with mythical

and oriental allusions. He functions as an intradiegetic and allodiegetic narrator who, as a

secondary witness, is able to tell the story of the Sleeping Beauty to a traveller who passes by:

Thus spoke the ancient man, wrinkled like old moonlight

Beneath dark boughs. Time dreamed away to night,

And while I heard the leaves like silver cymbals ring

He told me this old tale of Beauty’s mournful christening (SB 1.61-64)

By doing this in such a manner, Harries observes that Sitwell followed the conteuses’ example

since their earliest fairy tales were “also told by a character in the [narrative], sometimes in very

contrived situations” (64). While the presence of the educated gardener may seem absurd at

first sight, it makes sense when understanding him to be another layer meant to create

confusion. That is, the inclusion of an embedded framework adds another interpretative layer

to the poem and establishes one more subplot. If the readers want to understand all of it, they

have to actively navigate between the past and the present as well as between the several story

lines that are interwoven into the poem. In contrast, Prelude to a Fairy Tale has no embedded

framework and starts in medias res. Nonetheless, it can be argued that the entire poem serves

as an introductory frame for either Mme d’Aulnoy’s “Finette Cendron” or for Charles Perrault’s

Deceuninck 42

“Cendrillon”. The heroine is fleetingly introduced in the poem, whereas the tale of Cupid and

Psyche is foregrounded. The characters function as foreshadowing, since “the germs of folk-

tale were also those of myth” (Mitchell 102). Despite the extradiegetic and heterodiegetic

narrator in the second poem, temporal and spatial confusion is still achieved through the use of

several plots. As such, both poems refuse to conform to traditional narratological conventions

connected to fairy tales. The lack of a happy end is another feature that defies fairytale tradition

and can once again be linked to the French conteuses. Mme d’Aulnoy ends four of her fairy

tales on a tragic note and, while this may seem a small number, it is remarkable that they even

exist in the first place. Fairy tales normally do not deviate from the ‘happily ever after’ pattern,

but when they do “the mood is stoic, the author shrugs her shoulders with cool irony; dourness

also aligns the late seventeenth-century fairy tale with the comic fantasist’s mode” (Warner

164). The same kind of irony is present in the fairytale poems. The heroines are not granted a

happy end and they are both doomed to remain in a trance-like state. The tale of the Sleeping

Beauty ends with “the brutish forests close around/the beauty sleeping in enchanted ground”

(SB 25.1-2), while the Cinderella-like tale ends with a heroine whose “radiance is/still

unawakened by the spring light’s kiss” (PFT ll. 592-593). Sitwell does not create princes or

fairies that can save the heroines, instead she defies the traditional endings and choses to let

them venture into the dream-like world on their own. Like the French conteuses, Sitwell

recognises that not every fairy tale requires a happy ending. It is more important to include a

moral, albeit an implicit one. When the gardener urges the stranger to “never sigh for a strange

land/and songs no heart can understand” (SB 26.35-36) or when time is deemed something that

merely “shapes the poem’s close/and measures our small distance to the sun/and moments like

his bee-winged motes that run” (PFT ll. 555-557), the moral always seems to be that it is

fruitless to long for a time gone by. Like in many of d’Aulnoy’s fairy tales, readers are taught

that true growth can only be achieved when they look forwards instead of backwards.

Deceuninck 43

4.1.3 Intertextuality

The intertextual technique of allusion was a third feature that both authors had in common,

though the technique cannot be attributed to Mme d’Aulnoy alone. Many authors used allusions

in their works and it would be incorrect to claim that Sitwell merely followed d’Aulnoy’s lead.

However, the common source material and the manner in which the allusions were applied hint

at specific similarities between the two authors. Especially their use of mythological allusions

are worth mentioning. Bottigheimer has discerned that Mme d’Aulnoy created characters that

“shared their world with gods and mythical creatures like Eolus, Boreas, Zephir, Aurora, Diana

and [others]” (9), thus transforming both traditional myths and fairy tales. Sitwell did the same

in her fairytale poems, albeit in two different ways. In The Sleeping Beauty, myths and mythical

characters were chiefly evoked through similes and metaphors. For instance, the presence of

Laidronette at the christening is compared to the unbidden presence of the goddess Eris at the

wedding of Thetis and Peleus. When Laidronette enters the palace, “the little fawning airs are

trembling wan;/and silver as Leda’s love, the swan,/the moonlight seems, the apricots have

turned to amber,/cold as from the bright nymph Thetis’ chamber” (SB 1.111-114). Like

Laidronette, Eris was not invited to the festivities and she retaliated by creating discord amongst

the goddesses. She threw a golden apple into the audience, meant for the fairest goddess of

them all, and inadvertently created the Trojan War as a result. That is, the Trojan prince Paris

was brought into the equation to name the fairest goddess and he chose Aphrodite in exchange

for the most beautiful woman on earth: Helen, the daughter of Leda and Zeus. With just a few

well-chosen words, Sitwell was able to allude to a complex mythological narrative and thus set

the tone for the rest of her poem. The actions of Laidronette and Eris continue to linger long

after they are gone, which is evidenced from the names and actions later on in the narrative. It

is no coincidence that Cydalise played “at Troy Town in the palace garden, tossed/and through

the smiling leaves of summer lost/a round compact gold ball, the smaller image/of this hard

Deceuninck 44

world, grown dry of any love” (SB 12.8-12). By featuring a golden ball in a town named after

Troy, Sitwell continued the myth of the golden apple and invited her readers to search for even

more clues. Not only did she thereby create consistency, she also revealed some of the major

themes of the poem. Forgotten tragic beauties featured prominently in the story (cf. chapter

four) and were often addressed through the use of mythological allusions. This was similar to

“la manière personnelle dont Madame d’Aulnoy se sert de la mythologie. Ils vont de la simple

allusion à une partielle ou totale réécriture du mythe” (Defrance 219). Sometimes myths were

merely mentioned in passing to reinforce the themes and motifs of the fairy tale, other times

myths were completely rewritten to include the fairytale characters. The former was true for

Sitwell’s Sleeping Beauty tale, the latter for her Cinderella tale. In her Prelude to a Fairy Tale,

fairytale characters are added to the myth of Cupid and Psyche instead of the other way around.

The myth functions as the main narrative, the fairy tale as the subplot. That is why Cinderella

and the Greco-Roman god Mars can be mentioned in one and the same breath: “But Cinderella

found the servants out/and Marshal Mars loud-roaring with the gout/and aiming his old rusted

blunderbuss/at nothing firing; with that martial fuss” (PFT ll. 105-108). These characters can

encounter one another without difficulties in the land of fantasy and it is perfectly normal for

them to have a conversation with one another. The cross-fertilisation between myths and fairy

tales was in that respect more conspicuous than in The Sleeping Beauty, but the “clever turns

of thought that greatly delight the unsuspecting reader” (Mitchell 91) were still present. That is

the reason why the relation between myths and fairy tales is such an important part of the

analysis in the succeeding chapters. The Greco-Roman characters were more than mere

allusions, they were a way of concealing “lower-class tales with an abundance of literary and

cultural references” (Zipes, The Irresistible Fairy Tale 32). Like d’Aulnoy before her, Sitwell

expertly transformed traditional fairy tales and myths into witty and innovative works and is

thus possible to say that the similarities between them went beyond the use of mere allusions.

Deceuninck 45

4.1.4 Style

Style and particularly the use of elaborate descriptions was a fourth area in which both authors

excelled and the last one to be discussed here. Their works were instances of “narrative art,

bristling with invention, wit, and a kind of poetic justice” (Barchilon 358) and seemed to have

been written with an adult audience in mind. Their attention to detail and their zest for

intellectual wordplay made the works popular in their own era, but unfortunately also caused

them to disappear in later years. Harries has observed that readers started to prefer the simplified

fairy tales of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm in the nineteenth and twentieth century,

thereby abandoning the more “baroque descriptions and romance situations” (Harries 44) of

Mme d’Aulnoy and her successors. The fixed, accessible formats and conventional language

typical of traditional fairy tales were consequently neither present in d’Aulnoy’s fairytale

collections nor in Sitwell’s fairytale poetry. Their tales were instead complex narratives

“enhanced by [an] imaginative style, [an] unusual vocabulary and [a] natural flow of language”

(Mitchell 136). Both women were able to create marvellous contexts with just a few felicitous

phrases, as was clear from their description of the pagodes. These characters appeared in “Le

Serpentin Vert” and The Sleeping Beauty (1924) as Laidronette’s subjects, creatures that were

both fantastical and mythical in nature. Mme d’Aulnoy described them in great detail and

concretised them greatly, whereas Edith Sitwell left much to the imagination and preferred to

set the mood by creating elaborate and despondent comparisons. While the resulting tales were

different in terms of content, they were the same in terms of stylistic eloquence. Both authors

created an atmosphere that set the mood for the rest of the story and, through their word choice,

they indicated how they wanted their characters to be seen. D’Aulnoy seemed to consider

Laidronette and the pagodes as not that different from the rest of the world. They were no typical

black and white fairytale characters and they did not deserve to be treated as such. In contrast,

Sitwell seemed to view Laidronette and the pagodes as irredeemable and unwanted creatures:

Deceuninck 46

Les uns sans brans, les autres sans pied, des bouches à l’oreille, des yeux de travers, des

nez écrasés: en un mot il n’y pas plus de différence entre les créatures qui habitent le

monde, qu’il en avait entre ces pagodes (d’Aulnoy, NC 379)

Her dwarfs as round as oranges of amber

Among the tall trees of the shadow clamber […]

And ancient satyrs whose wry wig of roses

Nothing but little rotting shames discloses;

They lie where shadows, cold as the night breeze,

Seem cast by rocks, and never by kind trees. (SB 1.162-163, 1.168-171)

In addition to the peculiar word choice in the excerpts, the name of Laidronette’s kingdom also

deserves some attention. The word pagoda refers to an oriental temple and seems a rather odd

choice for the name of a fairytale kingdom. It is likely that the name was an indication of the

authors’ interest in foreign cultures, an interest which they had acquired while travelling the

continent (Greene 170, Mainil 152). Though both authors were inspired by foreign cultures,

Edith Sitwell easily surpassed Mme d’Aulnoy first steps into the oriental world. She inserted

the most exotic elements, as was evidenced from cantos seventeen until twenty-two in The

Sleeping Beauty and from the first few stanzas of Prelude to a Fairy Tale. These cantos were

rife with foreign features, ranging from Italian and Spanish music to Chinoiseries and marriage

proposals by African kings and sultans. Together with other stylistic elements such as

repetitions, symbols and rhythms, they showcased her ingenuity and added yet another element

to the overall complexity of the poems. They were representative of the interaction between

different cultures, different styles and different authors and they further emphasised the relation

between Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy and Edith Sitwell. The overlaps between the fairytale

techniques were thus “not mere excess or self-indulgent play, but rather subtle guides for

reading” (Harries 43) the poems and for understanding their position towards fairytale history.

Deceuninck 47

4.2 The Modernists

Edith Sitwell and modernism were almost synonymous with one another, since she was one of

the most active authors within the movement. She was enormously popular in the first half of

the twentieth century and was at the time close friends with renowned modernists such as T.S.

Eliot, W.B. Yeats, Dylan Thomas, Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein. Her literary salons were

a gathering place for all kinds of people; “apart from the writers, musicians and artists, there

were Londesborough relatives, who regarded the other guests as something of a mystery”

(Greene 113). They likely formed the inspiration for many of her poems, including her two

fairytale ones. Though Sonja Samberger (2005) and Debora Van Durme (2012) have already

researched some of the parallels between Sitwell’s poetry and other modernist works, their

research has never solely focussed on her fairytale poems. This section will do something about

that, by extending their research to the realm of fairy tales and fairytale compositions.

4.2.1 Edith Sitwell and modernist ballet

Personal letters indicate that Edith Sitwell was never one to really care for ballet, which is why

it is odd that her fairytale poems seem to be indebted to two well-known ballet performances

of the early twentieth century: Diaghilev’s “The Sleeping Princess” (1921) and Ravel’s “Ma

Mère L’Oye” (1912). Greene claims that Sitwell wrote her two fairytale poems at a time when

she “became swept up in [her brother] Sacheverell’s devotion to the Ballet Russes, which had

returned to London in September 1918” (150). Her brother had befriended the founder of the

Ballet Russes, Sergei Diaghilev, and often took his sister to see the colourful ballet

performances. It is likely that he took her to a performance of “The Sleeping Princess”, which

premiered in London in 1921 and which ran for 114 performances. Both the ballet and the

musical score by Tchaikovsky could be considered fairytale retellings, with both productions

“assigning new names to the characters, creating additional characters and episodes, and

Deceuninck 48

enhancing the magical aspect of the story” (Nikolajeva 609). The ballet followed the traditional

tale closely in terms of content, but was innovative in terms of costumes and sets. According to

the National Gallery of Australia, the costumes and sets were so excessive and detailed that

they left the ballet company almost bankrupt. They state that the “lavish use of expensive

materials and couture-like construction and detailing, with the final detail of every costume

personally overseen and approved by Diaghilev” (National Gallery of Australia) cost Diaghilev

a fortune, forcing him to close the production after only a couple of months had passed.

Nonetheless, the extravagant costumes struck a chord with Sitwell and resonated in her

description of the party guests who entered the castle at the moment of the princess’ christening:

“Oh, the pomp that passed those doors; /Trains still sweep the empty floors, /Pelongs, bulchauls,

pallampores, /Soundless now as any breeze/Of amber and of orangeries/That sweeps from isles

in Indian seas/” (SB 1.65-70). The materials that Sitwell used to describe the costumes were a

far cry from the materials that were typically used in the twentieth century. They were more

commonly associated with orientalism, an association which Sitwell would continue to evoke

in both fairytale poems. Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927) starts with a description of forgotten

beauties and the ladies’ attire is once more reminiscent of the lavish costumes used in the ballet:

All kinds of watered silks those great sprays wet, --

The gros de Sidon, foulard pekinet,

And Chine de Syr the wind loves; trellises,

All gilded by the heat, spangle the dresses

With emerald grapes; like flashing water, thin

Cashmere Alvandar and nacre pekin

Show by the lake’s clear temple and great domes

In Venus’ park where little Psyche roams (PFT ll. 11-18).

Deceuninck 49

Sitwell invites her readers on a journey that goes beyond ordinary twentieth-century life and

uses the rich unique materials as a form of escapism. The foreign materials serve as a way of

distancing herself from the mass production of common materials such as cotton and linen and

at the same time stress the pre-eminence of orientalism in the first half of the twentieth century.

The oriental focus was also noticeable in other ballet performances, such as the one by

Maurice Ravel. Originally a piano piece, then a musical score, and finally a ballet performance,

“Ma Mère L’Oye” was based on well-known fairy tales by French authors (Zank 121). Sitwell

herself said that she used the music as a source of inspiration while writing her fairytale poems

and there are indeed several elements that find their echo within her poems. Van Durme has

already discussed most of the similarities in her doctoral dissertation (2012), but it is worth

mentioning in this dissertation as well. Ravel’s fairytale suite mainly needs to be addressed in

order to understand the importance of the character of Laideronnette. In his suite, the tale of

Laideronnette and the tale of the Sleeping Beauty are two distinct fairy tales. The heroine of

Ravel’s third piece “Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes” is Laideronnette, a young princess

who gets cursed by the evil fairy Magotine at the moment of her birth. In contrast, the heroine

of “Pavane de la Belle au Bois Dormant” is Aurore, a young princess who gets cursed by the

evil fairy Carabosse at the moment of her christening. Both the names of Aurore and Carabosse

were associated with known variants of the fairy tale in the early twentieth century, mainly due

to Tchaikovsky’s musical score. Sitwell was one of the first authors to alter the names of the

female characters and it is likely that she cross-referenced Ravel’s interpretation of the tales in

order to do so. Ravel’s take on Laideronnette is important information for the readers, since it

offers crucial background information on a character that remains otherwise vague in Sitwell’s

fairy tale. Readers are left to wonder what has happened to a character who was once deemed

worthy to be the heroine of her very own fairy tale. Consequently, her presence within Sitwell’s

poem adds another layer to the meaning of the tale and provides a new perspective to both the

Deceuninck 50

original tale of Madame d’Aulnoy and to the musical score of Ravel. Even more striking in this

respect is that Sitwell also seemed to have adopted the oriental focus of Ravel’s score. Van

Durme states that “the spirit of Ravel’s piece is congenial to Laidronette’s appearance in The

Sleeping Beauty. Ravel’s Impératrice introduces excitement and brilliance […and] it

pentatonicism adds an instantly exotic flavour” (179). Sitwell mirrors this exotic flavour in

several descriptions as well as in a couple of characters. The Sleeping Beauty (1924) has the

most obvious references to oriental cultures. In canto eighteen, two foreign men are resting side

by side. One of them ‘is swarthy as the summer wind-/A man who travelled from a far

country;/The other Soldan in his pomp and panoply/Seems like le Roi Soleil in all his

pride/When his gold periwig is floating wide” (SB 18. 4-8). Not only is it odd to include the

men in the fairy tale, it is also paradoxical to compare the sultan and the Sun King with one

another. The sultan represents oriental cultures, while the Sun King represents civilised western

cultures. However, Sitwell’s mocking reference to the gold periwig indicates that she would

prefer a primitive culture over an artificial and material one. In canto nineteen, Sitwell then

evokes the Spanish culture with references to siestas, castanets, orange trees and tambourines

and introduces the readers to the “Soldan and the King of Ethiop’s land/[who] approach as

suitors for your daughter’s hand” (SB 19.50-51). Suitors from the princess’ own kingdom never

present themselves, only foreign princes and kings ask for her hand in marriage. In Prelude to

a Fairy Tale (1927), the references to orientalism are less obvious and are more evoked through

descriptions and similes. For instance, the lake by which Cupid and Psyche roam is four times

compared to “the Great Wall of China’s domes and arches” (PFT l. 58), even though the myths

and mythological characters discussed in the tale were Greco-Roman. Though traditional fairy

tales were usually known for their straightforward and one-dimensional universes, the

references to foreign cultures nevertheless make sense considering Sitwell’s intent to write

modernist poems. Modernist fairytale poems such as Sitwell’s were known for disrupting the

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readers’ horizon of expectation and the foreign locations, references and characters would have

been inserted as a way to defamiliarise traditional fairytale conventions. The lavish ballet

performances and dramatic musical scores of her time inspired her to write exotic and

extravagant scenes unlike anything anyone had ever seen before in fairy tales and they further

enabled her to establish a unique position within the modernist and the fairytale genre.

4.2.2 Edith Sitwell and modernist poetry

Like fairy tales, modernist poetry is a multifaceted genre. Numerous theories and approaches

exist, each one accentuating different aspects, and it would be impossible to refer to them all in

this chapter. Instead, this section will focus on the modernist features the ‘artistic outlaws’ used,

a name which was created by Sonja Samberger to describe a group of female authors who

“emphasized their individuality and pursued their own styles quite independently” (26).

Samberger groups the techniques of Edith Sitwell, Amy Lowell, Gertrude Stein and Hilda

Doolittle together to demonstrate the similarities between these four independent authors. Her

insights regarding modernist defamiliarisation techniques are especially important, because

they accentuate the disruptive modernist qualities of the poems. The term defamiliarisation was

first coined in 1917 by the Russian scholar Victor Shklovsky and has been used ever since in

modernist studies. András Bálint Kovács defines defamiliarisation or ostrannenie as “the usage

of such poetic narrative devices that thwart the audience’s automatic associative processes and

provoke the audience to find other ways of making sense of the work of art” (Jullier 178).

Kovács refers to a disruption of the readers’ horizon of expectation and acknowledges the time

that readers need to figure out for themselves how they want to deal with the unfamiliarity and

uncertainty of the disrupted narrative. The term is useful, because it can be linked to both

modernist and fairytale research. Even though Edith Sitwell likely used defamiliarisation

techniques as a way of connecting with other modernist authors, they nevertheless had a direct

impact on the content, structure and perception of her two fairytale poems.

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Samberger argues that Sitwell used defamiliarisation techniques both on the level of the

text and the intertext: via multidimensional temporal universes, colourful language and

complex allusions. On the level of the text, Sitwell created multidimensional temporal universes

in both fairytale poems. In The Sleeping Beauty (1924), there are two main universes that are

situated at different points in time. Both the ancient gardener and the traveller are part of the

present time, which is the time when the story of princess Cydalise is told for the first time.

They are both storytellers within that universe and they both share responsibility for conveying

information to the readers. The traveller disappears once the story shifts to past time and the

ancient gardener becomes solely responsible for conveying the narrative of the Sleeping

Beauty. The entire tale takes place in past time and the traveller has to wait until the gardener

rejoins the present-time universe before he can once again become a part of the narrative. Less

obvious is the multidimensionality within Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927). While the entire tale

seems to take place within a single temporal universe, close inspection of the allusions reveal

that this is not the case. The Roman Julius Caesar is mentioned in the same breath as the

Romantic poet Lord Byron, the Roman god Mars and the eighteenth-century officer Horatio

Nelson. The allusions refer to different eras and the entire narrative seems to jump from one

timeframe to another. Since Sitwell herself wrote the poem as a series of dream sequences, it is

likely that she did not feel the need to create a single temporal universe for her characters.

Through her allusions and her narratological choices, she was more interested in “combining

the past and the present, the timeless and the temporal” (Samberger 64) than in creating a single

temporal universe consistent with traditional fairy tales. Traditional fairy tales usually take

place within an indefinite, one-dimensional universe where there are no other temporal clues

than the words ‘once upon a time’ and ‘happily ever after’. However, the Cinderella poem

Sitwell wrote deviated from traditional patterns and was, due to its use of temporal

defamiliarisation, more in line with modernist works than with traditional fairytale ones.

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The connection with modernism was further emphasised by the use of “colourful nouns,

verbs and adjectives” (Samberger 138). Her sentences recall a world of imagination, a world

where fantasies and dreams are free to roam in child-like wonder, but they are the same time

too excessive to completely lose yourself in. Her intricate language reveals her need to question

“the serious connection between names and objects by naming as many things and persons as

possible” (Samberger 138). That explains why almost all of her fairytale characters have proper

names, such as princess Cydalise, housekeeper Mrs. Troy, the kitchen maids Jane, Anne,

Audrey and Phoebe, the farm-maid Rosa and the fairies Laidronette and Chatte Blanche. Their

proper names indicate that their existence surpasses that of ordinary fairytale characters, who

usually “remain [...generic or] unnamed, thus facilitating projections and identifications”

(Bettelheim 40). By naming her characters, Sitwell moved away from the realm of traditional

fairy tales and firmly settled her fairy tales within the modernist tradition. Her linguistic style

differed from the simplistic, repetitive style that was commonly used in traditional fairy tales.

Though repetitions appear in the fairytale poems, they always appear with minor alterations in

order to disrupt the readers’ expectations. In The Sleeping Beauty (1924), the gardener’s

introduction and final address seem the same at first sight, but there are slight differences. The

young man described in the introduction as a ‘mere felon’ is in the final address named Jonah,

a man who “met an ancient satyr crone,/Cold as the droning wind the drone/Hears when the

thickest gold will thrive/Summer-long in the combs of the honey-hive” (SB 26.15-18). The old

crone convinces Jonah to sail for a foreign land, but he drowns before he can arrive there. This

is new information, as there were never any specific clues in the introduction as to why the

young man sailed “for a far strand/To seek a waking, clearer land” (SB 1. 13-14). The ambiguity

that clouded Jonah’s demise in the introduction is solved and serves as a reminder of what can

happen to men who leave their homeland searching for foreign treasures. The implicit moral

seems to be that it is better to stay at home and appreciate all the things you already have. Unlike

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traditional fairy tales, the moral can only be deducted by decoding the altered repetitions. In

Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927), the repetitions create a kind of never-ending loop. The polka

starts with a demure “(tra la la la-) trap the Fair” in line 189 and then builds in crescendo towards

lines 217-223: “Tra la la la, trap the Fair./Tra la la la la --/ Tra la la la la --/ Tra la la la la la la

la/La/La/La!” There is no simple resolution in sight like in traditional fairy tales and it almost

seems as if the characters will forever be stuck in their trance-like dance. The dance at the same

time celebrates and ridicules the simplicity of fairy tales, another illustration of Sitwell’s wish

to both honour and distance herself from traditional fairy tales. The poems’ repetitive structure

can confuse readers of traditional fairy tales, who are more used to simple solutions and

chronological narratives. It is likely that Sitwell consciously used intricate names, descriptions

and repetitions to deviate and defamiliarise the traditional fairytale genre as it was then known.

On the level of the intertext, one more defamiliarisation technique can be found.

Complex allusions were often used by modernist authors to defamiliarise both the real world

and the fictional world, a technique which Sitwell also liked to use. Her allusions to Greco-

Roman mythological characters are worth mentioning in this context, since they both

complicated and emphasised the underlying themes of the fairytale poems. They were inserted

as some sort of “‘mythological quotations’, thus some distant and artificial creations, and

fragments [were] used in order to convey the dilemma of ‘the status of the art and the artist in

an ever-changing and destructive world’” (Samberger 49). In The Sleeping Beauty (1924),

almost all allusions to Greco-Roman female characters are linked to tales of doomed beauties.

Leda’s seduction by Zeus is mentioned when Laidronette enters the castle for the first time, the

rape of Philomela by her brother-in-law Tereus and her subsequent transformation to a

nightingale is alluded to in the description of a gardener who was “old as tongues of

nightingales/That in the wide leaves tell a thousand Grecian tales” (SB 1.43-44), the pursuit of

Daphne by Apollo is addressed in canto eighteen and the love between Endymion and Selene

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is referred to in canto seven. While all these characters were considered to be extremely

beautiful, their beauty always resulted in heartbreak and misery. Leda and Helen were in part

responsible for the destruction of Troy, Philomela and Daphne were forced to leave their human

existence behind and Endymion eventually succumbed to an eternal slumber. Female beauty

was as such not prized to the same extent as in traditional fairy tales. Fairytale protagonists such

as Snow White and Sleeping Beauty have names that reflect their beautiful features, whereas

fairytale antagonists usually have hideous features. The beautiful characters are destined for a

happy end, the hideous characters are destined to meet their demise. Sitwell, however, turned

these conventions upside down. The beautiful princess Cydalise does not receive a happy end

and is destined to sleep forever, whereas the ugly Laidronette is the one who gets to have the

last laugh. The allusions defamiliarise the value traditional fairy tales bestow upon female

beauty and seem to warn the readers beforehand that a happy end might not be in store for the

princess. In Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927), the focus lies on a dream-like world. Dreams are

the central theme of the narrative, since the entire tale can be interpreted as one dream sequence.

Greco-Roman characters are no longer merely alluded to, but appear beside fairytale characters.

For instance, the innocence of Cupid and Psyche is mentioned alongside Mars and Cinderella:

“But Cupid too was dreaming, could not wake./Still held: for deep within his woodland

cottage/Mars waits for little Psyche with his pottage,--/That scullion Cinderella who now

lives/To take the honey from the straw thatched hives” (PFT ll. 85-90). Disrupting the

boundaries between fairy tales and myths, Sitwell made Mars and Cinderella neighbours. Only

in the dream world could such a situation be “possible and probable. Time and place does not

exist; on an insignificant basis of reality the imagination spins and weaves new patterns: a blend

of memories, experiences, spontaneous ideas, absurdities and improvisations” (Strindberg 176).

Readers do not have to understand the Greco-Roman characters’ background stories, their

presence alone is enough to warrant the poem’s peculiar dreamy nature. By inserting them as

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full-fletched characters instead of referring to them via similes and metaphors, Sitwell

emphasised the absurd character of the dream and defamiliarised the idea that fairytale

characters live in isolation in a fairytale world. In contrast to her first fairytale poem, her

mythological allusions thus defamiliarise traditional fairytale characterisation instead of female

beauty. Everything becomes possible, which includes cross-characterisation between different

literary genres. In fact, all Sitwell’s defamiliarisation techniques are illustrative of how

modernism made everything possible. During the modernist era, boundaries between the known

and the unknown disappeared and “familiarity […did] not necessarily lead to a better

understanding” (Samberger 148). In an ever-changing world, even something as stable as the

fairytale genre was not secure anymore. Traditional fairytale patterns were mixed and matched

and elements from different artistic fields were added in order to create something entirely new.

The modernists’ intent was to disrupt the readers’ expectations, which is why their fairytale

creations were more in line with fairytale retellings than with traditional fairy tales. Even though

Edith Sitwell’s fairytale poetry closely resembled fairytale works by Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy

in terms of narratological choices and modernist works by the artistic outlaws in terms of

defamiliarisation, her poems nevertheless can also be interpreted as fairytale retellings. They

are unique writings that hold a special position both in modernist and in fairytale history.

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5 The Sleeping Beauty (1924)

Once we have accepted the story, we cannot escape the story’s fate (Travers 55)

The Sleeping Beauty (1924) was the first fairytale poem Edith Sitwell wrote and can

undoubtedly be named her most popular one. The poem consists of twenty-six stanzas and

recounts the story of Cydalise, a young princess who is cursed by the evil fairy Laidronette at

the moment of her christening. Laidronette, who feels slighted for not being invited to the party,

curses Cydalise to prick her finger on a spinning wheel as soon as she is of age: “For if the

Princess prick her finger/Upon a spindle, then she shall be lost/As a child wandering in a glade

of thorn/With sleep like roses blowing soft, forlorn” (SB 1.134-137). The curse sends the entire

palace staff in a frenzy, as they are desperate to save the young princess before it is too late.

From that moment onwards, Sitwell deviates from the well-known variants of “The Sleeping

Beauty” as the focus is replaced to the household staff. The heroine and her family members

are moved into the background, whereas the hero is completely removed from the narrative.

The prince, who normally is responsible for kissing the young princess awake, is warned off by

the old gardener at the entrance of the woods. The gardener tells him that it is better to “keep

my lad, to the good safe ground” (SB 1.10) and all future potential candidates are forbidden to

enter the “brutish forests [that] close around/The beauty sleeping in enchanted ground” (SB

25.1-2). The princess is forced to remain asleep forever and there is no hope of her ever escaping

her cursed fate. The story refrains from ending with the happily ever after that readers are

accustomed to and is, as such, more in line with disruptive fairytale retellings than with

traditional fairy tales. In fact, most fairytale elements within the poem suggest that Sitwell’s

modernist work can be interpreted as a fairytale retelling. This will be explained in the next

section by means of Joosen’s distinction between fairytale retellings and traditional fairy tales.

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5.1 Traditional Fairy Tale or Fairytale Retelling?

The moment Edith Sitwell wrote The Sleeping Beauty (1924), she was probably unaware of

how her poem would contribute to the fairytale genre. That is not to say that she did not choose

the genre for a reason, but her reasons had more to do with accepting her childhood memories

than with purposely creating a new fairy tale (cf. chapter two). She never consciously addressed

each narratological domain in the same way fairytale scholars do, which is why they have never

troubled themselves by turning their gaze to Sitwell’s fairytale poetry. Fortunately, Joosen’s

dissertation offers a framework that enables scholars to look beyond traditional research

methods. Her theories allow for the discovery of fairytale features in forgotten works, as the

focus lies on fluidity and disruptions of the fairytale genre. She raises two important questions,

which will be used as guidelines for this analysis: 1) “how fluid are the boundaries between the

two genres [of traditional fairy tales and fairytale retellings], and how have they been disrupted?

2) Why do authors feel the need to disrupt them in the first place?” (Joosen 27). The answers

to these questions will be provided throughout this chapter and will be recapitulated at the end.

5.1.1 Chronotope

Traditional fairy tales normally are one-dimensional and are situated within an indefinite time

and space, whereas fairytale retellings are multi-dimensional and take place within a definite

time and space. Traditional fairy tales have a universal and timeless appeal, since no contextual

clues are needed to understand the narrative. Everyone can imagine ‘a castle in a faraway

kingdom’ or ‘an enchanted forest’, no matter when or where one lives. In contrast, fairytale

retellings often have a very specific spatial and temporal setting. Readers need to decode

contextual clues if they want to discover the tale’s exact time and location. Sitwell’s poem

corresponds with the traditional fairytale genre when it comes to the chronotope. The narrative

is mostly set in an enchanted forest, where nature seems to be the only one that is truly living:

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Then birds like Fortunatus moved again

Among the boughs with silent feathered feet -

Spraying down dew like jewels amid the sweet

Green darkness; figs, each like a purse of gold,

Grow among leaves like rippled water green and cold.

‘Beneath those laden boughs,’ the gardener sighs,

‘Dreaming in endlessness, forgotten beauty lies. (SB 1.48-54)

Trees and birds are full of life, surprising travellers with their colourful presence, whereas the

characters from the narrative are either completely forgotten or so ancient that they seem to

have come from another time altogether. The entire tale is one-dimensional in scope as almost

all actions take place on the castle grounds within the enchanted forest. There is a brief scene

in canto one where Laidronette returns to her “vast palace/Where now, at last, she can unleash

her malice” (SB 1. 151-152) and there is canto eighteen where “beneath a wan and sylvan

tree/Whose water-flowing beauty our tired eyes/Can feel from very far, two travellers lie” (SB

18.1-3), but these scenes are too brief to really include it as part of a multi-dimensional universe.

There are never any indications as to where the story takes place, apart from the location of

princess Cydalise’s suitor in canto twenty, which warrants its universal and timeless appeal.

While the iconic words “once upon a time” are missing, the story is indeed set in an indefinite

time as there are never any specific clues that determine the time in which the tale is set. Both

the presence of the ancient gardener and the adverbs of time such as “long since” and “far

beyond time’s sleepy bond” (SB 1.41-42) indicate that the tale took place in the past, but that is

as far as temporal clarifications go. Intertextual references to mythology and the Bible also

provide little evidence for the determination of an exact chronotope. It indeed reveals that the

tale is set in a time when both mythological and biblical tales were known, but this is the case

for almost all fairy tales. An example would be the traditional tale of “Snow White”, where the

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heroine eats a poisoned apple reminiscent of Eve’s Original Sin. Since intertextual references

remain limited to well-known old stories, the spatial and temporal setting never becomes

explicit and the chronotope never gets the chance to move beyond that of traditional fairy tales.

5.1.2 Attitude to the supernatural

The connection to traditional fairy tales remains consistent when it comes to the poem’s attitude

to the supernatural. The tale is centered upon a non-intrusive magical curse that drives the story

forward, a curse that is unavoidable no matter how hard the household staff tries to destroy it.

They remove all the spindles from the castle and forbid its use on the castle grounds, but they

make a fatal error in never informing Cydalise about the curse. As such, the princess’ first

reaction upon seeing a spindle is one of curiosity: “Oh, the curious bliss!.../It pricks my finger

now. How strange this is -/For I am like that lovely fawn-queen dead/Long since – pierced

through the pool-clear heart’, she said” (SB 14.102-105). The princess’ lack of information

about an object that could potentially harm her as well as her inquisitive nature leads to her

undoing, an event which is typical of traditional fairy tales. The same sequence of events is

repeated on a smaller scale in the gardener’s framed narrative of Jonah. Jonah too is

advised/cursed by an old crone to do something he should not do and he too meets his ultimate

demise because of all-encompassing curiosity. Both Cydalise and Jonah remain asleep at the

end of the narrative, cursed until eternity to be nothing more than memories. Like most fairytale

authors, Sitwell left out explicit morals and created wicked fairies and old crones to implicitly

address the possible dangers that people could encounter in life. The magic behind the

predictions of the old crone and Laidronette firmly settles the story within the boundaries of the

traditional fairy tale. Whereas no child would ever be cursed with the prick of a spinning wheel

for having an inquisitive nature and whereas no traveller would ever be punished by drowning

for wanting to leave his or her homeland behind, the serious nature of the magical curse

nevertheless cautions readers to be careful when encountering new things. In real life, children

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would not have needed a curse. Their caretakers would have made them aware of possible

dangers and they would have been able to avoid somewhat similar circumstances.

5.1.3 Characterisation

The boundaries between traditional fairy tales and fairytale retellings first start to become hazy

in terms of characterisation. There are more than thirty characters in the narrative, an unusually

high amount for a fairy tale. They range from kitchen and country maids to faraway kings,

queens, princes, princesses and even ghosts. Like in traditional fairy tales, the characters remain

one-dimensional and flat as there never is any real progression. When “from the shrilling fire

leaps Laidronette./The ghostly apparition that appeared/Wagged from her chin a cockatrice’s

beard;/She crouches like a flame, the adder-sting/Of her sharp tongue is ready, hear her sing”

(SB 22.18-22), it becomes obvious that she has not changed a bit. She is still the hideous creature

that appeared in canto one and she is still out for revenge. Mrs. Troy remains the cross old lady

that roams the halls of the castle, the queen remains obsessed by the past, the household staff

keeps performing their tasks without question, the young princess who “grew in beauty till she

seemed/That gentle maid of whom Endymion dreamed” (SB 7.-3-4) remains beautiful forever

and even joins Endymion in his endless beauty sleep from canto fourteen onwards. The

characters never have a moment of self-realisation, they never move beyond their self-

proclaimed stupor and they are therefore never able to break Laidronette’s curse. Moreover,

despite the multitude of characters, the fairytale functions remain limited and several roles are

not fulfilled. There is a clear antagonist in the figure of Laidronette, but there is no clear

protagonist as in the traditional Sleeping Beauty tale. Princess Cydalise only appears

sporadically and has to share the spotlight with other characters such as kitchen maid Jane,

housekeeper Mrs. Troy, the gardener, the governess and even with the ghost of princess

Jehanne. There is no male hero in the story, mainly because there was never a third fairy in

Sitwell’s tale who countered Laidronette’s curse with her own wish of true love’s kiss. In fact,

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most characters do not seem to have a function usually associated with fairy tales. They belong

to Sitwell’s fairytale world rather than to the fairytale world created by Perrault and the Brothers

Grimm. They are minor deviations from the traditional fairytale pattern, especially compared

to the character of Laidronette. As mentioned in chapter three, the name of Laidronette was

associated with the fairytale heroine of Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy. By naming the evil fairy

Laidronette, Sitwell seemed to ensure a double reading of both tales. Laidronette’s evilness

indicates that there must have been a sequel to d’Aulnoy’s tale, which ended with the beautiful

Laidronette living happily ever after in the land of the Pagodas. Sitwell’s Laidronette, however,

has become evil and has come to possess so much magic that she is able to curse the princess.

The need to discover what has happened to Laidronette lessens the impact of her actions to

some extent, as readers know from the original tale that the honourable Laidronette could never

have become evil without a reason. It is likely that Sitwell’s inclusion of the name Laidronette

was meant to put her evil deeds into perspective, as such an action would have made “the black

and white distinction between good and evil fade […]” (Joosen 23). Though the name may

seem insignificant to most, it can indeed be interpreted as a first conscious attempt to move

away from traditional interpretations of “The Sleeping Beauty” towards a more ambiguous one.

5.1.4 Optimism

Though there are many versions of the fairy tale with many different takes on the antagonist,

ranging from a cannibalistic mother-in law to an ogre and a fairy who can transform into a

dragon, they all have one thing in common. They all share the happy end, by which time the

prince and the princess are reunited with one another to live happily ever after in their kingdom.

From the nineteenth-century onwards, it had become standard for traditional fairy tales to end

on a happy note. There were a few rare exceptions such as some tales by Hans Christian

Andersen, but those tales never achieved the same status as the ones that ended happily. Conny

Eisfeld argues that “even [when they did not] end with a happy ending, many of them still

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provide[d] the reader with optimistic impressions” (17). Edith Sitwell was the odd one out,

since she did neither in her tale. Rather than ending with an optimistic message, she

pessimistically doomed her Sleeping Beauty to remain asleep until eternity. She silenced the

entire castle until only the surrounding birds, trees and flowers could be heard. She only allowed

nature to run its course, each new day beginning with the colourfulness of flowers and the

serenity of the eternal sleeping princess: “Like bunches of country flowers/Seem the fresh dawn

hours./And the young dawn creeps/Tiptoe through my room…/Never speaks of one who

sleeps/In the forest’s gloom” (SB 25.15-20). There are three possible explanations as to why

Sitwell decided to end the poem on a sour note. The first possible explanation has to do with

the personal nature of the poem. As mentioned in chapter two, Sitwell wrote the poem as a

means to deal with the memories of her parents. Since they never fully accepted her as their

own, she had to find a way to express her grief. Her decision to let the princess sleep and her

message to kitchen maid Jane to “forget the pain/In your heart. Go work again” (SB 24.26-27)

were illustrative of the difficulties she experienced and could be interpreted as ways of

comforting herself. The second possible explanation was touched upon by Van Durme. She

notes that “the princess’ eternal slumber allows her to preserve her little girl’s fantasy world

forever” (174). The lack of a hero to kiss the princess awake may then have more to with

keeping the fairytale patterns alive than with disrupting them. Rather than forcing the princess

to grow up, get married and have children, Sitwell allows her heroine to be asleep forever in a

child-like innocence. The interpretation of the ending in that case changes from a bleak one to

a friendlier one. The third and last possible explanation is related to Sitwell’s fairytale princess.

The princess is not the same paragon of virtue as she is in other fairy tales. She is someone who

teases others, who “through the curtains […plays] ‘Bo-Peep’,/with fleecy lamb-tailed clouds

when she should sleep” (SB 7.7-8) and she seems to have somewhat of a mischievous attitude.

Since she is not above other children in that respect, it is possible that Sitwell wanted to prove

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that she should not receive any special treatment. Like all other children, she should accept the

consequences of her actions, even when it costs her something so dearly as her ability to stay

awake. Though it is unclear which of these reasons lay behind Sitwell’s decision to deviate

from the usual fairytale optimism, it definitely led to a break from the traditional fairytale genre.

5.1.5 Action versus character development

The break from traditional fairy tales continued in terms of character development. Though the

presence of flat characters normally hints at traditional fairytale actions, the focus of the poem

lies more on narration, conversation and lament. The feelings of the characters are centralised,

from the thoughts of jaded beauty Mrs. Troy who laments silently “how harmless has been my

life -/Yet when a young girl I had strife!” (SB 22.62-63) to the Dowager Queen’s inner turmoil

that “the rose, the peach, and the quince-flower red/And the strawberry flower in the snow are

dead./If none of the rose-tribe can survive/The snow, then how can our poppet [Cydalise] live?”

(SB 5.2-5). Long descriptions are preferred over action-packed sequences, as is evidenced from

the various elaborate symbols, similes and metaphors that are used in the poem. Thoughts rather

than actions drive the story forward, since the only two major actions that occur are the

disruption of the christening and the enactment of the sleeping curse. In both instances, it is

Laidronette who sets about a sequence of events that impacts the succeeding cantos. Her

presence in canto one causes the palace inhabitants to wonder “what beauty ripens from dark

mold/After the sad wind and the winter’s cold?/But a small wind sighed, cooler than the

rose/Blooming in desolation, ‘No one knows.’” (SB 8.21-24). The servants fruitlessly try to

thwart Laidronette’s plans to enact the curse, but come to realise in canto fourteen that all their

attempts have been for naught. Laidronette’s reappearance in canto fourteen sets about the curse

that puts the young princess asleep. From canto fifteen onwards, the palace inhabitants are then

left to wonder what has to happen now that the curse is in effect, but once again reach the

conclusion that nothing can be done. They have to resume their work and forget about the

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sleeping beauty who remains hidden in the fairytale forest. Though Vanessa Joosen states that

“some retellings, particularly those in the form of poems, leave out a substantial part of the

action, because it is assumed that the reader is already familiar with the plot” (24-25), Sitwell’s

fairytale poem seems to do more than just leave out a substantial part of the tale. It refuses to

let the characters undertake any form of action that could save the princess and, in doing so,

completely disrupts the predictable order of the traditional fairy tale. The main conflict of the

tale never gets resolved and the poem ends in the same way as it started, with the idea that long

forgotten beauties should stay forgotten and that it is better not to dwell on the past for too long.

5.1.6 Narratological features

That there is no predictable fairytale order in the poem has as much to do with the narratological

choices as with the focus on character development. Though narration has already been

discussed in chapters two and three, some aspects will be repeated in this context. The narrator

of the embedded tale is the ancient gardener, a character who lingers on the margins of the

actual fairy tale. He appears in canto three, when “through the broad green leaves the gardener

came/With a basket filled with honeyed fruits of dawn” (SB 3.1-2), but that is the extent of his

physical involvement in the fairy tale. He does seem to have ears and eyes everywhere,

however, since his rendition of the tale includes the conversations and inner thoughts of

different characters inside and outside the castle walls. Examples of the latter include canto one

when Laidronette rejoins her servants in the land of the Pagodas, canto thirteen where Malinn

and the sun have a conversation near the sea and canto eighteen where a sultan and a distant

traveller are talking in a faraway country. The gardener’s ability to shift between different

locations, perspectives and time zones enables him to create several side plots within one and

the same tale. Even the allusions to the mythological characters are a way of creating multiple

plots, since readers have to understand their content in order to envision the richness of the

fairytale world. Though the fairy tale is told in a chronological order, the shift between the past

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and the present causes the poem to deviate from the traditional fairy tale. The narration within

the embedded tale closely resembles that of a third person omniscient narrator, since the

information seems to come from a neutral source who is privy to the thoughts of different

characters on different locations. The gardener never inserts his own opinion in the narration,

which makes it impossible to claim that the gardener is the first person narrator typical of

fairytale retellings. In contrast, the narrator of the frame tale is the lyrical I. As someone who

encounters the ancient gardener while travelling through the woods, the lyrical I describes

everything he hears and sees in canto one, lines one until sixty-four. As an outside character,

he becomes the marginal first person narrator that was missing in the embedded tale. Just like

the gardener, the lyrical I is part of Edith Sitwell’s enterprise to “make use of a more complex

and narratological organization of plot elements than a traditional fairy tale” (Joosen 25). Both

characters represent Sitwell’s ability to create a fairytale poem that both respected and disrupted

the fairytale genre as it was known in the twentieth century. Furthermore, they exemplify the

possibility of combining traditional fairytale features with those of fairytale retellings.

5.2 Fairy Tale or Myth?

During the modernist era, many poets used allusions to either fairy tales or myths as a way to

“interrogate, resist, affirm or reproduce cultural myths and values” (DuPlessis 125). Sitwell

went one step further and combined them with one another, to both resist and affirm tradition.

Though the allusions to the Greco-Roman characters have been noticed by Samberger (2005),

Dowson and Entwistle (2005) and Greene (2011), they have never been connected to fairy tales.

They have always been studied in isolation, despite the similarities between both literary genres.

Fairytale retellings and myths in particular have much in common, as the works of Joosen and

Bettelheim indicate. Their theories allow for an analysis of fairytale and mythological features.

Joosen’s two questions (cf. supra) remain applicable in this context, though now with the small

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distinction that the fluidity between fairy tales and myths is questioned instead of the fluidity

between traditional fairy tales and fairytale retellings. The elements discussed in this section

contribute to the analysis provided in the previous subsection. Possible overlap between

characteristics of myths and fairytale retellings has been filtered out in order to avoid repetition.

5.2.1 Chronotope

The narrative resembles traditional fairy tales in terms of spatial and temporal setting, but there

is some doubt as to the nature and tone of the events. Though most of the tale is centered on

ordinary and homely events, there are a few instances where the tale zooms in on unique ones.

Cantos seventeen until nineteen are examples of such unique events. Their presence is a mere

interlude, a moment to step back from the imminent threat that looms over the entire narrative.

The main focus lies on common servants’ activities within the castle. The tone often switches

between the grandeur of myths and the simplicity of fairy tales, the only deviation Sitwell

allows in terms of chronotope. Elaborate similes and metaphors are used to mythicize ordinary

tasks and events. For instance, the princess’ visit to a farm nearby the castle becomes an event

so rich in associations that it hardly seems to resemble simple fairytale formulas anymore. On

her visit, “the Princess passed goats, gold as wheat/With a kind white milky beat,/Under the

wide leaves mild as milk;/The billowing pigs with ears of silk;/Maternal cows with a white

horn/As hard and dry as rustling corn” (SB 10.41-46). The similes here create a world of

wonder, a world where each object receives an eccentric and elaborate connotation. Sitwell

does not seem to leave too much room for imagination, the readers are always told how they

have to see characters, events and objects. Like myths, the events are told in a detailed and

majestic manner that is too conspicuous to be considered part of fairytale tradition. However,

the events still take place within an indefinite time and space reminiscent of traditional fairy

tales. The chronotope is in that respect a perfect combination of myths and fairy tales, a

combination so peculiar that it could only have been included in a modernist fairytale retelling.

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5.2.2 Attitude to the supernatural

The narrative’s attitude to the supernatural is another example of the fluidity between myths

and fairy tales. Like in traditional fairy tales, magic causes the main conflict that sets the entire

fairy tale in motion. There are no divine or spiritual forces that interfere in the princess’ life,

though it can be argued that the presence of “all the whimpering sad ghosts” (SB 9.5-6) disturbs

the peace of the household staff. Their presence is unusual within a fairy tale, but can be

interpreted as a hint of what is to come for the beautiful princess. Princess Cydalise will await

the same destiny as the other lost princesses as soon as the curse is in effect. Like princess

Jehanne, she will be forced to roam the castle halls in her dreams and her (sleeping) presence

will haunt the servants so much that all they can do is talk about her in scared whispers.

Likewise, the references to myths also act as a form of foreshadowing rather than as an

indication of the supernatural world. The characters of Daphne and Endymion provide the most

obvious clues about the fate of the cursed princess. Like the princess, these characters were

once considered to be extremely beautiful. Their loveliness stunned both mortals and deities, a

situation which would eventually lead to their doom. Heavily pursued by supernatural forces,

both Daphne and Endymion were transformed into inanimate objects at the end of their stories.

The characters’ fate mirrors that of the princess, since all three of them were silenced forever,

unable to escape their cursed existence. Based on the contextual clues, it is then possible to

claim that Sitwell inserted references to these myths to foretell the fate of the princess.

Supernatural or divine forces do not fulfil the same roles as in myths, but instead remain locked

within the boundaries of allusion. They are merely inserted to enforce the inevitability of

Laidronette’s curse and the attitude to the supernatural remains as such more fairytale oriented.

5.2.3 Characterisation

This domain is once more the first place where Sitwell truly starts to blend the characteristics

of myths and fairy tales with one another. Though there is a definite clash between the evil

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Laidronette and the virtuous palace inhabitants, it never has the same effect as in the other

fairytale variants. The violent encounters with Laidronette emphasise the lack of action from

the other characters and reverse the traditional triumph of good over evil. Laidronette is the

only one whose wishes have come true at the end of the tale, a complete reversal of the

resolution so common in traditional fairy tales. Though these fairytale characteristics are

implemented with a twist, they nevertheless remain part of the traditional fairytale genre. The

one deviation Sitwell includes is the use of proper names, a feature typical of myths. Bruno

Bettelheim asserts “that every myth is the story of a particular hero […]. Not only do these

mythical characters have names, but we are also told the names of […] the other major figures

in a myth” (40). In contrast, fairy tales more often use generic names to refer to the character’s

physical or mental attributes. Edith Sitwell combines both generic and unique names with one

another in her first fairytale poem. Most female characters are named, such as Spanish beauties

“Dolores, Inez, Manuccia, Isabel and Lucia” in canto nineteen, “Dido, Queen of Carthage” in

canto six, country maids “Phoebe, Audrey and Anne” in canto two and princess Cydalise in

canto six. Most male characters have generic names and are referred to as mere gardeners,

chamberlains, kings, sultans and travellers. There are many possible readings of such a division.

Feminist readings could interpret the division as an assertion of femininity, psychoanalytical

readings could interpret it as a triumph of the female self and cultural readings could interpret

it as a reflection of modern society. Though these interpretations all have their merit, there

seems to have been more at stake. Samberger states that the fairytale characters have “merely

exchangeable names, they are used as images rather than as individual characters, and their

names alone evoke many associations” (184). Rather than creating characters with unique

background stories, Sitwell used names that recall a world of associations. As soon as the

readers became familiar with those associations, Sitwell started to tear them apart. The fluidity

of names meant that gardeners could become literate and musical narrators, that chamberlains

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could become protective father figures, that the beautiful human Laidronette could become the

evil wicked fairy that curses Cydalise and that the destruction of Troy could be linked to the

cross old housekeeper. The names resulted in hazy boundaries between myths and fairy tales,

between tradition and renewal, and further linked the poem to the genre of fairytale retellings.

5.2.4 Optimism

The narrative’s pessimistic end has been discussed above, but the inclusion of myths perhaps

provides a fourth reason why Sitwell included a different end than was usual. Bruno Bettelheim

notes that “a significant difference between [fairy tales and myths…] is the ending, which in

myths is nearly always tragic, while always happy in fairy tales” (37). In the case of the fairytale

poem, the inclusion of myths strangely provides a glimmer of hope instead of one of desolation.

Like many characters from myths, the princess is unable to find redemption on earth. She is

turned into an inanimate object at the end of the narrative and there is no hope of her ever

turning back to an animate form. The only possible redemption the princess can hope to find is

if she ever travels to heaven. The idea seems to be confirmed in several cantos of the poem,

most noticeably in canto four. Angels visit the young princess in her nursery room and teach

“her how to be sweet and wise/With kisses faint as butterflies” (SB 4.26-27). They describe

heaven to the princess, which seems an absolute paradise for children. There they never have

to climb into bed at certain hours, they never have to say difficult prayers and they are free to

dance to their heart's content. The latter becomes significant when taking into account the name

of the princess. Cydalise could have been a reference to the French ballet “Cydalise et le chèvre-

pied”, which was first performed in 1923 (Alexandre 69). If princess Cydalise indeed had the

skills set of a prima ballerina, she would have marvelled at the opportunity of being able to

dance in heaven. She would have been transfixed by “the lips and eyes/That spoke of some far

undimmed paradise” (SB 11.28-29) and she would have been amazed by their descriptions:

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They said, ‘When you go up to heaven

The nursery clock shall never strike seven.

Your boudoir shall be of white satin,

You shall not say your prayers in Latin –

But you shall dance a minuet

On heaven’s floors: frizzed mignonette

Shall seem your curls, of heaven flowers

Most fair; and you shall sit in bowers

Of honeysuckle sweet as those pink fires

Whereby the angels dry their locks upon the light’s gold wires.’ (SB 4.28-37)

Since myths usually departed from the idea that their characters would obtain their reward in

heaven, this reference can be interpreted as a means to carry out a traditional feeling of

optimism. Despite the tragic end of the fairy tale, readers can find consolation in the idea that

the princess will at one point in time travel to heaven to dance with the other angels. To follow

this mythological convention means to believe in a happily ever after that is not immediately

noticeable but that is there nonetheless. In this context, the inclusion of myths can be considered

a replacement of the traditional fairytale patterns that were missing in Sitwell’s fairytale poem.

5.2.5 Action versus character development

Myths and fairytale retellings have much in common in terms of character development, with

the only difference that myths pay more attention to symbolic descriptions. Though Bettelheim

asserts that fairy tales and fairytale retellings also use “fantastic symbolic images for the

solution of problems” (40), the symbolic descriptions remain easily recognisable. Readers can

understand them without too much difficulty and they do not require too much reasoning.

Encounters with wicked fairies and old crones progress in a logic and simple order in fairy tales

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and one action sequence is rapidly followed by another. Myths on the other hand focus more

on the inner turmoil of the hero or heroine. Complex symbolic images are used to represent the

trials and errors of the protagonist and an adult-like reasoning is required to decipher them all.

Edith Sitwell’s poem corresponds more to myths than to fairy tales when it comes to the use of

symbols. Dowson and Entwistle argue that her fairytale poem “seems to demand a decoding of

symbols which cannot be fully translated” (62). One such symbol that frequently occurs is the

apple. The name itself appears only once in canto sixteen when lovers on a country fair “are

golden as the boy/Who gave an apple smoother than the breeze/To Lady Venus, lovely as the

seas;/Their lips are like the gold fires burning Troy” (SB 16.35-38). It is the only reference to

the physical item, all the other times the fruit is merely alluded to. For instance, when in canto

twenty-one “the thin flames seem gold and whispering leaves/Of trees in the Hesperides, whose

faint sound grieves” (SB 21.3-4), Sitwell seems to make another reference to apples, this time

to the ones that were stolen by Hercules in the garden of the Hesperides. Sitwell never specifies

the meaning of the symbol, but it can be assumed that the apples indicate the inevitability of

fate. Just as Paris and Hercules were unable to escape their fate, so were the fairytale characters

unable to escape theirs. Consequently, Sitwell’s use of myths is the most obvious within this

narratological domain. She establishes complex symbolic descriptions of mythic proportions

through the use of mythological references and asks her readers to interpret them on their own.

5.2.6 Narratological features

The demands Sitwell makes on the readers continue in terms of narration. Like in myths, the

narration shifts between the past and the present and is told in a cyclical order rather than in the

linear order of fairy tales. Like with the domain of character development, Sitwell uses complex

mythological symbols, repetitions and allusions as a means to establish the tale’s cyclical

nature. For example, cantos four and fifteen use the same soft and mesmerising tune. The

difference is that the references to the “honeyed tune” (SB 4.15) and the “honeysuckle sweet”

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(SB 4.36) of heaven’s environment have now become associated with the princess. The princess

has become someone who flows “like a tree that drips with gold” (SB 15.3), which could imply

that she in her dream-like state has found a place reminiscent of the heaven that was described

in canto four. Names, symbols and even actions are repeated and emphasise the recurrent

character of the narrative. Laidronette’s wish in canto one starts with the words “I will turn the

cream sour,/I will darken the bower,/I will look through the darkest shadows and lour -/And

sleep as dark as the shade of a tree/Shall cover you…Don’t answer me” (SB 1.129-133). Her

predictions start to become true as soon as she enters the palace in canto fourteen: “Butter and

cream/Turn hard as a jewel/The shrill flames scream,/The leaves mutter, ‘Cruel’ (SB 14.94-97).

The words are an almost perfect rendition of Laidronette’s wishes and link the cantos back to

one another. Likewise, the symbols and allusions to myths also contribute to the cyclical

narration. They create a recurrent effect, since they indicate that the same sequence of events

will keep on repeating itself. In turn, the lack of resolution leads to a rich and complicated

reading that is more in line with myths and fairytale retellings than with traditional fairy tales.

5.3 Concluding Remarks

To conclude this analysis, Joosen’s questions need to be brought to the foreground again. Her

first question about the fluidity of the boundaries between traditional fairy tales, fairytale

retellings and myths has in part been answered in her own doctoral dissertation. She reveals

that there are few works which “disrupt[…] the traditional horizon of expectation in all the [six]

aspects mentioned above. Most retellings affirm some of the traditional fairy-tale features,

while significantly subverting others” (Joosen 26). True to Joosen’s statement, Edith Sitwell’s

The Sleeping Beauty (1924) combines characteristics of traditional fairy tales and fairytale

retellings with one another. Though the tale deviates from traditional fairy tales in some

respects, it never completely loses sight of its fairytale origins. The tale continues to affirm the

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chronotope, attitude to the supernatural and characterisation typical of traditional fairy tales,

even though the optimism, character development and narration all point at fairytale retelling

features. Likewise, the use of myths and mythological features hints at the dubious nature of

Edith Sitwell’s tale. Rather than directly distorting or omitting traditional fairytale patterns,

myths allowed Sitwell to once more affirm and subvert traditional fairytale features. The

description of heaven in canto four is an affirmation of the optimism usually found in fairy

tales, while the gardener’s introductory and final address in cantos one and twenty-six are a

distortion of the tale’s usual narration. Ample examples were provided in the analysis, which

all proved that Sitwell indeed succeeded in dismantling the boundaries between traditional fairy

tales, fairytale retellings and myths. As to Joosen’s second question about the reasons why

Sitwell disrupted the readers’ expectations, Sonja Samberger’s study provides an answer.

According to Samberger, Sitwell purposely created a fairytale retelling that spoke “out against

a one-sided view of the world, be it that of established and unquestioningly used optimistic

‘wisdom’, or that of a hopelessly pessimistic attitude towards life. Truth can rather be found

somewhere in-between the two extremes” (186). By disrupting the readers’ expectations of

traditional fairy tales, Edith Sitwell wanted to echo a way of living that was not always as black

and white as in traditional fairy tales. Life was uncertain and ambiguous at times, an idea which

found its reflection in the deliberate combination and disruption of the three literary genres.

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6 Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927)

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream (Poe 97)

Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927) was the second fairytale poem Edith Sitwell wrote and received

a lot less attention and admiration than her first fairytale poem. The poem consists of six

hundred and one lines and combines the fairy tale of Cinderella with the myth of Cupid and

Psyche. The title of the poem indicates that the tale should be interpreted as a prelude rather

than as a full-fletched variant of a known fairy tale. The entire tale is set by a lake, which

“reflected/not at all what [people] had expected” (PFT ll. 65-66). The lake is a place where

boundaries between myths and fairy tales completely disappear, where fairytale witches and

princesses are able to exist in the same universe as mythological sirens, deities and nymphs. It

is should then be called no wonder that the entire tale reads more like a dreamy fantasy than

like a simple fairy tale. In fact, were it not for the threefold appearance of Cinderella’s name, it

is unlikely that anyone would have ever discovered the similarities with fairy tales. This

dissertation is to date the only one that has tried to research the poem in light of fairytale

features. Though the dream-like quality of the poem hides the fairytale features from view,

there are nonetheless many indications as to the poem’s status as a fairytale retelling. As Bruno

Bettelheim notes, the poem emphasises “the similarities between the fantastic events in myths

and fairy tales and those in adult dreams and daydreams, […only to express…] that which is

normally prevented from coming to awareness” (35). His remark allows for an analysis of

Sitwell’s dream-like fairytale poem that is similar to the one that was done in the previous

chapter. The next section will once again analyse the poem according to Joosen’s distinction

between traditional fairy tales, fairytale retellings and myths. The questions posed on page 58

will also be used again to discover the disruptive qualities of Sitwell’s second fairytale poem.

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6.1 Fairy Tale, Fairytale Retelling or Myth?

The moment Edith Sitwell wrote Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927), she had already established

her reputation as a poet of fairytale retellings. Her first fairytale poem had been met with

enormous acclaim, a feat which she was unfortunately unable to repeat with her second fairytale

poem. The poem went through several abbreviations and deviations, before eventually

disappearing from sight in the 1940s (cf. chapter two). The result was that it became almost

impossible to determine whether the poem was a fairy tale, a myth or something else altogether.

The next section tries to reveal the true nature of the poem by looking at it from a modernist

fairytale point of view. The theories of Joosen and Bettelheim are used once more, with the

difference that they are now combined within one subsection instead of two. There is too little

evidence and scholarly research on the fairytale poem to warrant and extensive analysis and the

results therefore remain limited to the broader overlap between fairy tales and myths.

6.1.1 Chronotope

The chronotope was the first domain where Sitwell started to blur the lines between myths and

fairy tales. The narrative starts “by the lake’s clear temple and great domes/In Venus’ park

where little Psyche roams” (PFT ll. 17-18) and then seemingly seems to shift between different

time zones and places. However, close inspection of the tale reveals that the characters merely

see reflections of other times and places. The narrative remains mainly situated within Venus’

park, which is described in lavish terms that enable readers to envision every small detail. The

lake and the forests surrounding it are taken directly from myths, since the goddess Venus is

the one who owns it. Other place names such as “Quebec or Carolina, Greece/Windsor Castle,

Cannes, or Nice” (PFT ll. 147-148) also occur as locations in the poem. Since they were mere

reflections or wishes, they can be interpreted as a means to emphasise the vastness of the world

rather than as an indication of different space continuums. In contrast, the time of the fairy tale

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never becomes specified. Though there are numerous allusions to historical figures, events and

places, it is almost impossible to determine a time frame. The inclusion of “palace stables/Of

Georgian architecture, steeple, gables” (PFT ll. 31-32) hints at a time close to Sitwell’s own

post-Georgian time, but the presence of the mythological and fairytale characters seem to rule

out such a definite time frame. Names waltz by one another in an endless succession, but never

allow for the determination of an exact temporal chronotope. In that respect, the chronotope

seems to correspond with myths in terms of spatial setting and with traditional fairy tales in

terms of temporal setting. As for the nature of the events, the tone becomes so excessively

unique and majestic that it even exceeds that of normal myths. Too many places, events,

characters, dances and songs are mentioned at the same time, thereby turning Venus’s park into

a fantastical place that deviates from the usual descriptions within the mythological tales.

6.1.2 Attitude to the supernatural

Slight deviations can also be found when it comes to the tale’s attitude to the supernatural.

There are some instances where magic is brought to the foreground, such as in the tale of Anne.

Anne is a woman “as white as snow/Or flowers that on dark branches grow” (PFT ll. 342-342)

who encounters an old witch when she tries to rescue a bird from the winter’s cold. The witch

grants Anne “two apples harsh and cold…/They were glittering like the air,/They were like the

crowns of gold/Cannibal kings do wear” (PFT ll. 394-397). The witch places a curse on them,

reminiscent of the curse that the evil stepmother put on Snow White in the traditional tale. The

apples are Anne’s undoing, since she literally melts away after eating them. Like in traditional

fairy tales, the seriousness of the curse determines the fate of the fairytale heroine. However,

most of the tale is not driven by serious magic curses but by ridiculous actions of divine forces.

Centaurs and centauresses perform a jodelling song from line 256 onwards, Neptune starts to

dance a polka in line 183, the airy sylphs waltz with one another from line 451 onwards and

Proserpine carries on a dramatic monologue about the wonder of hell starting from line 322.

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The characters are ridiculed to an almost alarming extent, a definite contrast from the serious

nature of myths. Divine and spiritual forces become the comic relief in the tale, whereas the

fairytale magic becomes the serious force. It is likely that Sitwell did this to disrupt the readers’

traditional horizon of expectation even further. The seriousness of myths was transferred to

fairy tales, whereas the somewhat unbelievable character of fairy tales was transferred to myths.

6.1.3 Characterisation

The characterisation also combines myths and fairy tales with one another. The characters

mentioned within the fairytale subplots are flat one-dimensional characters, characters who

never move beyond their original state. The beautiful sleeping princess remains beautiful,

Cinderella remains a kitchen servant and even Anne remains a woman “white as snow”, even

though only in the imagination of others. Even the characters within the mythological subplots

are one-dimensional and flat characters. They never undergo the same progression as they do

in myths and they are destined to remain ridiculous caricatural versions of their prosaic

counterparts. Unlike fairy tales and myths, there is no clash of any kind. There is no main

conflict that drives the entire tale forward, though there are a few minor conflicts that always

end with evil succeeding. The only feature that Sitwell does seem to adapt from myths and fairy

tales in its entirety is the use of names. Most characters are given unique names, ranging from

Mrs. Cow in line 268 and Miss Marigold in line 203 to literary figures such as William Tell and

Robinson Crusoe, mythological figures such as Venus, Mars and Psyche and historical figures

such as Horatio Nelson and Prince Albert. Generic names are more often given to groups of

beings such as the sylphs, the forgotten beauties, the daughters of Boreas, the centaurs and the

centauresses. The division between unique and generic names does therefore not have the same

effect as in the first fairytale poem, but nevertheless remains noticeable enough to point out.

Though this domain has the least noticeable fairytale and mythological features, instances such

as the names nevertheless hint at hidden aspects, be it that of myths or traditional fairy tales.

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6.1.4 Optimism

The odd combination of mythological and fairytale features continued within this domain.

Traditional fairy tales addressed in the tale end on a pessimistic note, similar to the one that

Sitwell used in her first fairytale poem. The cursed Anne does not have the chance to live

happily ever after with a husband in a castle but is instead melted on the spot, “a princess with

her long black hair” (PFT l. 310) is forced to remain asleep forever and Cinderella is destined

to live as a kitchen maid who continuously hears “life’s serenade/There in the […] gilded glade”

(PFT ll. 598-599). These characters do not receive the happy end customary in traditional fairy

tales and are instead doomed to live cursed lives. In contrast, the mythological characters do

not receive an end at all. They merely pass by in the narrative and the readers have to determine

for themselves whether characters such as Proserpine or Pluto get to have a happy end. Though

knowledge of myths can help to determine what happens to the characters, readers are

nevertheless free to think of their own end for the mythological characters. Even the entire fairy

tale ends without an end, since “this old world’s black renown/ [continues to keep] shouted in

all the gutters of the town” (PFT ll. 600-601). The entire tale keeps repeating itself in the echoes

of the town and the never-ending dance of mythological and fairytale characters alike never

seems to stop. This was especially odd, since it was usually the other way around in traditional

tales. Also odd in this respect is the lack of a clear-cut protagonist within the tale. Both

traditional fairy tales and myths usually have an obvious protagonist, either a superhuman one

or an ordinary one. The poem, however, seems to have multiple protagonists who are all

responsible for telling their own tale. They are a peculiar mixture of superhuman and ordinary

characters, ranging from gods and goddesses to witches, princes, princesses and even a fish

who “came like a little merry boy, --/He envied Master Cupid and his toy,--/He envied Master

Cupid and his game” (PFT ll. 45-47). Based on this evidence, it is possible to claim that Edith

Sitwell incorporated more features of fairytale retellings than features of the other two genres.

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6.1.5 Action versus character development

Though a lot happens in the tale, the focus lies more on character development than on action-

driven narration. Long descriptions and expressions of feelings are once more preferred, as is

evidenced from the description of the lake. Sitwell starts her narrative with a wistful description:

Clear as wisteria branches, waterfalls

Droop by the lake; each flashing bright bird calls

The name of beauties that have long passed by, --

Still mirrored in that lake… a long drawn sigh…

Alas that Tamburini, Malibran, forsake

These waterfalls… the serres-chaudes of the lake (PFT ll.1-6)

Her description recalls a lost world, a world where everything was serene and everyone enjoyed

a peaceful existence. The entire narrative in fact reminds of such a peaceful existence, where

merriment seems to be the main concern of the mythological characters. There are more serious

and pessimistic scenes in the poem, but they serve to emphasise the silliness of the overall tale.

This is also one of the reasons why there are no complex symbols in the poem. Not only would

complex symbols have taken away attention from the ridiculous tone of the events, it would

also have been difficult to use one (or several) symbols consistently in a tale with so many

different plots. As for the order of the events, the tale does prefer the unpredictable order of

fairytale retellings over the predictable order of traditional fairy tales. Fairytale and mythical

events follow each other in rapid succession. For instance, Proserpine’s monologue about

“hell’s flames [that] seem flowering rows of beans/As red as petticoats of queans” (PFT ll. 322-

323) is followed immediately afterwards by an adaptation of the fairy tale of Snow White.

Likewise, Cinderella is forced to work for as a servant only minutes after Mars has left for war.

These examples are proof of Sitwell’s ability to blend different literary genres with one another

and further confirm the belief that the fairytale poem can be interpreted as a fairytale retelling.

Deceuninck 81

6.1.6 Narratological features

In terms of narration, there is little to be said. There is no clear narrator as was the case for the

first fairytale poem. Everyone seems to share responsibility for the tale and the poem is as such

a strange mixture of songs, dances, reflections and tales. Everyone is responsible for his or her

own tale, which makes the overall narrative ambiguous at best and completely unreliable at

worst. The characters keep appearing in an endless loop, which enforces the idea of a cyclical

narration. The demands made on the readers are in that respect enormous, since readers have to

figure out how to place the several subplots within the overall tale. Unlike in The Sleeping

Beauty (1924) with its embedded tale and frame tale, Edith Sitwell never gives any clues as to

how to interpret the poem. It is perhaps possible to claim that the lack of a clear narrator was

meant to accentuate the dream-like quality of the narrative. Like in a dream, control is missing

and readers are expected to follow the unpredictable sequence of events without asking too

many questions. This too was a deviation from the standard norm prescribed by myths and fairy

tales and is once again more in line with the ambiguity typical of fairytale retellings.

6.2 Concluding Remarks

To conclude this analysis, it is necessary to refer to Joosen’s questions that were mentioned in

the previous chapter (cf. page 58). The question as to how Edith Sitwell disrupted fairy tales is

more obvious within her second fairytale poem than within her first fairytale poem. Deliberately

blurring the lines between myths, fairy tales and dreams, Sitwell created a universe wherein

fairytale and mythological characters could co-exist. Rather than the subtle affirmation of

traditional fairrytale feattures that was present in the first fairytale poem, this poem actually

completely disrupts both fairytale and mythological characteristics. They are always

implemented with such a huge twist that it becomes difficult to determine their meaning and

their relevance. Only close inspection of these features enables readers to trace back the origins

Deceuninck 82

of myths and fairy tales within the poem. Based on the evidence, it is in fact possible to claim

that the boundaries between myths and traditional fairy tales cease to exist within the tale. They

become intertwined with one another and thus provide Joosen with an extreme answer to her

question about the fluidity of the different literary genres. As to the answer to Joosen’s second

question, Sitwell likely disrupted the readers’ expectations for reasons similar to the ones that

were already mentioned in the previous chapter. As Samberger indicated, the fairytale poems

were “not restricted to the poet’s relationship to her lost childhood […,but could more] be seen

as referring to the modern world in general” (186). Even more so than Sitwell’s first fairytale

poem, Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927) referred to the uncertainty of the modern(ist) world.

Deceuninck 83

7 Conclusion

The end is where we start from (Eliot)

By the beginning of the twentieth century, traditional fairy tales held an ambiguous position

within the literary landscape. Often used by authors as a source of inspiration, fairy tales were

nonetheless mostly associated with popular children’s culture. Though fairytale collections had

been huge bestselling successes in the decennia preceding the twentieth century, adults had lost

interest in them and the collections were banned to nurseries and schoolrooms. Both authors

and readers felt as if they could no longer afford to cling to the child-like innocence of fairy

tales. In a world torn apart by violence and destruction, fairy tales offered a too optimistic view

of life. It soon became clear that authors had to swim against the tide if they wanted to make

their fairytale endeavours a remote success. Traditional conventions needed to be turned upside

down to reflect the uncertainty of the time. Edith Sitwell was one of the first authors who took

on the challenge to create a full-fletched fairytale retelling. She wrote The Sleeping Beauty

(1924) and Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927) in such a manner that they both affirmed and

distorted traditional fairy tales. They became quintessential examples of the modernist view on

fairy tales and provided unique research material for both modernist and fairytale researchers.

This dissertation approached Edith Sitwell’s fairy tales as a part of modernist fairytale studies.

A relatively new research area, modernist fairytale studies have yet to offer theoretical

frameworks that are 100% inclusive. None of the existing frameworks are able to address all

features of modernism and fairy tales, which is why researchers have to determine for

themselves which features they like to stress and which features they like to forego for the time

being. Choices need to be made, since each analysis can only hope to contribute a possible

correct interpretation instead of the correct interpretation (McCallum 22). For this dissertation,

Deceuninck 84

these choices included a combination of fairytale and mythological features. Theories from

Bruno Bettelheim and Vanessa Joosen were combined with modernist notions of tradition,

intertextuality and defamiliarisation to analyse the fairytale poems by Edith Sitwell in an

entirely new manner. The starting premise was that the poems’ combination of fairytale and

mythological features warranted a unique position within both modernist and fairytale history.

To prove the truth of that statement, both The Sleeping Beauty (1924) and Prelude to a Fairy

Tale (1927) were contextualised and analysed as examples of modernist fairytale retellings.

Both poems were written in the modernist era, at a time when traditional fairy tales

ceased to be and fairytale retellings became the norm. Chapter two revealed that the time in

which these fairytale retellings were written hid them from view in most modernist studies,

since fairy tales were often deemed too insignificant to be dealt with in scholarly research. High

cultural works were the standard, popular cultural works were of less importance. Luckily,

contemporary research by Ann Martin and Laura Martin has done much to alter this

misconception and modernist fairytale retellings are now more frequently brought to the

foreground. Chapter two also showed that Edith Sitwell herself was mainly responsible for the

lack of fairytale studies in connection to her poems. The personal nature of The Sleeping Beauty

(1924) and the obvious admiration by the readers caused scholars to focus more on the symbolic

features of the poem and less on the fairytale features. The abbreviations and corrections of

Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927) on the other hand caused scholars to dismiss the poem in its

entirety and almost no studies, fairytale or otherwise, were published on the poem. Chapters

three until five nevertheless revealed that there were many features in both poems that could be

directly translated to modernist fairytale studies. In terms of fairy tales, Edith Sitwell closely

followed the example of the seventeenth-century conteuse Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy and

thereby established herself as someone who fit in a long line of fairytale authors. The techniques

in terms of characterisation, narration, intertextuality and style created a fairytale pattern that

Deceuninck 85

deviated from the prosaic tales of the Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. In terms of modernism,

Edith Sitwell used references to modernist ballet and musical performances as well as

defamiliarisation techniques to further enforce the fairytale deviations. The third chapter

indicated that modernist fairytale studies could lead to a better understanding of the poems’

presence within history, when both fairytale and modernist features were accentuated. It

underlined Sitwell’s intent to create something that could hold its place within tradition and

modernism. The fourth and fifth chapter analysed each poem separately, though the analysis of

The Sleeping Beauty (1924) was far more extensive than that of Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927).

Other scholars will hopefully extend this analysis in future research, either by focussing on

other fairytale features or by focussing on the poem in its entirety. This dissertation has,

however, laid the groundwork for such analyses, since it was proven that both poems indeed

combined fairytale and mythological features with one another. Edith Sitwell followed and

disrupted the conventions of modernism and fairy tales to such an extent in her modernist

fairytale poems that she ensured its survival and appreciation to well in the twenty-first century.

As for the best possible way of analysing modernist fairytale texts, there seem to be no

conclusive answers. There is no single advisable method or technique that leads to definite

results. The best a researcher can do is look for “progressive, critical and creative interpretations

[that] reveal a history of ideology as well as history of adaptation, interpretation, and reception”

(McCallum 22). The theories of Vanessa Joosen seem to be a good starting point for all

modernist fairytale research, provided that the researcher links it to exclusively modernist

techniques. If he or she fails to do so, the danger arises that modernist studies and fairytale

studies continue to remain separate research fields. Possible future domains for cross-

fertilisation can range from stylistic features to intertextual features or can build on the

theoretical framework provided in this dissertation. Ultimately, the method only seems to be of

secondary importance. It is more important to brush off the dust from modernist fairytale

Deceuninck 86

studies, to make them a part of literary studies within universities’ literary programs. In that

respect, T.S. Eliot’s quote at the start of this chapter makes sense. This dissertation should not

be the last word that is said on Edith Sitwell’s fairytale poems, nor should it be the last word

that is said on modernist fairytale studies. It should instead mark the start of modernist fairytale

studies, both inside and outside Flanders. Only then can modernist fairy tales truly enjoy the

happy end that was so long denied to them.

Deceuninck 87

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9 List of Abbreviations

NC Nouveaux Contes de Fées (1719) – MC d’Aulnoy

PFT Prelude to a Fairy Tale (1927) – Edith Sitwell

SB The Sleeping Beauty (1924) – Edith Sitwell

TCO Taken Care Of (1965) – Edith Sitwell

CDF Le Cabinet des Fées (1785) – MC d’Aulnoy