Beauty and the Beast From Myth to Fairy Tale

Students of folklore and myth rightly link the fairy tale of “Beauty and the Beast” with Apuleius' version of the legend of Cupid and Psyche written in the second century of our era. Both the myth and the fairy tale provide suggestive and rewarding examples when analyzed from a psychological point of view. This study will trace the common elements of a number of versions, starting with the tale of the Latin author, and show the evolution of a few types towards a classic form. The basic assumption from which this essay draws its inspiration is that the psychological (not to say analytical) approach to such texts as fairy tales can only enhance their literary significance. For myths and fairy tales are the beautiful and symbolical expression of man's wisdom—and madness—in the form of “childish” entertainment.

The hundreds of versions of “Beauty and the Beast” found throughout the world are as many echoes of the myth of Cupid and Psyche. When Apuleius incorporated the tale within the larger narrative of his Metamorphoses (better known as the Golden Ass) he intended to provide an interlude to entertain one of his characters. The story tells of an old woman who comforts a young girl, prisoner of a group of ransomers, by telling her the legend of Cupid and Psyche. In its first narration the legend is introduced as a pure fairy tale: “Come, I'll tell you a pretty story and beguile you from your sorrows by an old wives' tale.” The story is familiar: Psyche, the youngest and most beautiful daughter of a king and queen, had been judged so handsome by mortals that Venus, in a fit of jealousy, dispatched her son, Cupid, to humiliate Psyche. She ordered him to make Psyche fall in love with the vilest of mortals. But Cupid betrayed his mother by disguising himself as a monster who ravishes