Puss in Boots

"Puss in Boots" (Italian: Il gatto con gli stivali; French: Le Maître chat ou le Chat botté; German: Der gestiefelte Kater) is a European fairy tale about an anthropomorphic cat who uses trickery and deceit to gain power, wealth, and the hand in marriage of a princess for his penniless and low-born master.

This article is about the 1697 European fairy tale. For other uses, see Puss in Boots (disambiguation).
"Puss in Boots"
Illustration 1843, from édition L. Curmer
CountryItaly (1550–1553)
France (1697)
LanguageItalian (originally)
Genre(s)Literary fairy tale
Publication typeFairy tale collection

The oldest written telling version is Costantino Fortunato (Italian for "Lucky Costantino") by Italian author Giovanni Francesco Straparola, included in The Facetious Nights of Straparola (c. 1550–1553), in which the cat is a fairy in disguise who helps his owner, a poor boy named Costantino, to gain his princess by duping a king, a lord and many commoners.[1][2] There is a version written by Girolamo Morlini, from whom Straparola used various tales in The Facetious Nights;[3] another version was published in 1634 by Giambattista Basile with the title Cagliuso. The most popular version of the tale was written in French at the close of the seventeenth century by Charles Perrault (1628–1703), a retired civil servant and member of the Académie française.[4] Puss in Boots appears in DreamWorks' Shrek franchise, appearing in all three sequels to the original film, as well as two spin-off films, Puss in Boots (2011) and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022), where he is voiced by Antonio Banderas. The character is signified in the logo of Japanese anime studio Toei Animation, and is also a popular pantomime in the UK.

Analysis

In folkloristics, Puss in Boots is classified as Aarne–Thompson–Uther ATU 545B, "Puss in Boots", a subtype of ATU 545, "The Cat as Helper".[5] Folklorists Joseph Jacobs and Stith Thompson point that the Perrault's tale is the possible source of the Cat Helper story in later European folkloric traditions.[6][7] The tale has also spread to the Americas, and is known in Asia (India, Indonesia and Philippines).[8]

Variations of the feline helper across cultures replace the cat with a jackal, fox or other animals.[9][10][11] For instance, the helpful animal is a monkey "in all Philippine variants" according to Damiana Eugenio.[12]

Greek scholar Marianthi Kaplanoglou states that the tale type ATU 545B, "Puss in Boots" (or, locally, "The Helpful Fox"), is an "example" of "widely known stories (...) in the repertoires of Greek refugees from Asia Minor".[13]

Adaptations
Main article: Adaptations of Puss in Boots

The phrase "enough to make a cat laugh" dates from the mid-1800s and is associated with the tale of Puss in Boots.[14]

The Bibliothèque de Carabas[15] book series was published by David Nutt in London in the late 19th century, in which the front cover of each volume depicts Puss in Boots reading a book.

References
Notes
    Footnotes
    1. W. G. Waters, The Mysterious Giovan Francesco Straparola, in Jack Zipes, a c. di, The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm, p 877, ISBN 0-393-97636-X
    2. Cristina Bacchilega; Danielle Marie Roemer (2001). Angela Carter and the Fairy Tale. Wayne State University Press. p. 24.
    3. Opie & Opie 1974, p. 21.
    4. Brown 2007, p. 351
    5. Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. pp. 58-59. ISBN 0-520-03537-2
    6. Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. p. 58. ISBN 0-520-03537-2
    7. Jacobs, Joseph. European Folk and Fairy Tales. New York, London: G. P. Putnam's sons. 1916. pp. 239-240.
    8. Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. p. 59. ISBN 0-520-03537-2.
    9. Uther, Hans-Jörg (2006). "The Fox in World Literature: Reflections on a 'Fictional Animal'". Asian Folklore Studies. 65 (2): 133–160. JSTOR 30030396.
    10. Kaplanoglou, Marianthi (January 1999). "AT 545B 'Puss in Boots' and 'The Fox-Matchmaker': From the Central Asian to the European Tradition". Folklore. 110 (1–2): 57–62. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1999.9715981. JSTOR 1261067.
    11. Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. 1977. p. 58. ISBN 0-520-03537-2.
    12. Eugenio, Damiana L. (1985). "Philippine Folktales: An Introduction". Asian Folklore Studies. 44 (2): 155–177. doi:10.2307/1178506. JSTOR 1178506.
    13. Kaplanoglou, Marianthi (December 2010). "Two Storytellers from the Greek-Orthodox Communities of Ottoman Asia Minor. Analyzing Some Micro-data in Comparative Folklore". Fabula. 51 (3–4): 251–265. doi:10.1515/fabl.2010.024. S2CID 161511346.
    14. "https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/enough+to+make+a+cat+laugh">enough to make a cat laugh
    15. "Nutt, Alfred Trübner". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35269. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
    Works cited

    Further reading
    • Blair, Graham (2019). "Jack Ships to the Cat". Clever Maids, Fearless Jacks, and a Cat: Fairy Tales from a Living Oral Tradition. University Press of Colorado. pp. 93–103. ISBN 978-1-60732-919-0. JSTOR j.ctvqc6hwd.11.
    • Kaplanoglou, Marianthi (January 1999). "AT 545B 'Puss in Boots' and 'The Fox-Matchmaker': From the Central Asian to the European Tradition". Folklore. 110 (1–2): 57–62. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1999.9715981. JSTOR 1261067.
    • Köhler-Zülch, Ines (1994). "Котаракът в чизми или хитрата лисица" [Puss in Boots or the Clever She-fox]. Български фолклор. XX (5): 20–32.
    • Neuhaus, Mareike (2011). "The Rhetoric of Harry Robinson's 'Cat With the Boots On'". Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature. 44 (2): 35–51. JSTOR 44029507. Project MUSE 440541 ProQuest 871355970.
    • Nikolajeva, Maria (2009). "Devils, Demons, Familiars, Friends: Toward a Semiotics of Literary Cats". Marvels & Tales. 23 (2): 248–267. JSTOR 41388926.
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