Schedule of Weekly Readings and Questions

Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre, 9-72.

Darnton asserts: "folktales are historical documents" (13). Do you think that fairy tales are reliable historical sources for learning about peasant life in the Old Regime?

What view of women, of family life emerges from the fairy tales?

Why is the trickster important in the peasant world?

Do the fairy tales point to the demise of the Old Regime?