It’s our last LIT(erature) Summer episode and the end of Season One! We’re looking at the original 18th Century French fairy tale Beauty and the Beast and trying (unsuccessfully) to not reference Disney. We delve into other Beast and Beauty tales and the lasting impact of the story on literature, film, and culture.

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Further Reading

Prominent Adaptations

1987 TV series

1991 Disney animated film

1997 The Beautician and the Beast

2011 Beastly

2012 TV series

2014 French film

2017 Disney live-action remake

Novel Retellings

Beauty and Rose Daughter, Robin McKinley

Beastly, Alex Flinn

A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas

Hunted, Megan Spooner

Cruel Beauty, Rosamund Hodge

The Beast’s Heart, Leife Shallcross

Uprooted, Naomi Novik

Rhonda’s blog post on Disney Princesses as Jane Austen heroines

Dark origins of Beauty and the Beast (this article credits de Beaumont, unfortunately, but it gives a great background on the sources for the tale)

An illustrated edition of the original novella

Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy Book

Psychology of Beauty and the Beast

A look at the psychology in the Disney musical

that-matter.net/2016/09/17/why-beauty-and-the-beast-is-a-disturbing-tale-of-abuse-and-dysfunctionality-disguised-as-a-disney-love-story/">Deconstructing the myth of women loving men into better people

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