Audiobook · read by volunteers
Stories from Pentamerone
Giambattista Basile (1575–1632)
Read by Joy Chan · 32 chapters · 7 h 43
About the book
Long before the Brothers Grimm, long before Perrault, an Italian courtier named Giambattista Basile gathered fifty tales and set them in a frame: ten women telling five stories each over five days, to entertain a royal household. The result, known as the Pentamerone, is one of the oldest great collections of European fairy tales, and listeners will recognise the bones of many familiar stories in it, including versions of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, but in a bolder, bawdier and far more violent form. Basile wrote in the Neapolitan dialect, and his tales are alive with proverbs, boasting and sudden turns of fortune. The language is colourful, the humour is earthy, and the invention never flags. This recording offers a selection from the work, in English. Be warned that these are not stories for the nursery.
Introduction
Giambattista Basile, who died in 1632, was a poet and courtier who served various princes in Italy. His great collection of tales, written in the Neapolitan dialect, was published after his death, in the years 1634 and 1636, under the title Lo cunto de li cunti, or the Tale of Tales, and it later became known as the Pentamerone because of its five-day structure.
The collection is among the earliest large anthologies of European fairy tales, and it holds versions of stories that would later become famous through other hands, including Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots and others. Yet the tone is unlike the polished versions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Basile's style is baroque, rich in metaphor, proverbs and comic exaggeration, and his tales are often cruel, funny and surprising in ways that shocked later readers.
The English version heard here is a selection rather than the whole work. It contains thirty-two sections and runs for about seven and a half hours, read by a LibriVox volunteer.
It is a fascinating listen for anyone interested in the roots of the fairy tale, and for those who would like to hear how much these stories changed on their way to the nursery. The tales are cruel, comic and brilliantly inventive, and they give a startling view of the world before the fairy tale became a children's genre. Listeners who enjoy folklore, or who simply like to be surprised, should find much to enjoy in the collection.
Public domain
Giambattista Basile died in 1632: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text