SOURCE: Birberick, Anne L. “Fatal Curiosity: d'Aulnoy's ‘Le Serpentin vert.’” Papers in French Seventeenth-Century Literature XXVI, no. 51 (1999): 283-88.

In this essay, Birberick looks at d'Aulnoy's adaptation of the classical story of Psyche and Cupid in the fairy tale “Le serpentin vert.”

The word curiosité calls to mind the idea of an intense, at times uncontrollable passion for knowledge. As the Dictionnaire universel informs us “[le curieux est] celuy qui veut tout savoir & tout apprendre”. Yet the desire to know and to learn is not always portrayed in a positive light, for the same dictionary also makes a distinction between two kinds of curiosity: “une bonne et une mauvaise”. In possessing the first kind, one seeks to understand “les merveilles de l'art & de la nature”; in possessing the second kind, one seeks to uncover “les secrets d'autruy”.¹ Although these two types are not explicitly marked according to gender, it...