The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales

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Voltaire

Voltaire (pseudonym of François Marie Arouet, 1694–1778),
French author, political polemicist, and Enlightenment philosopher. In his fairy tale ‘Le Taureau blanc’ (‘The White Bull’, 1774), Voltaire freely mixes reality and the marvellous in an ironic critique of Old Testament stories. Built around the literal interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's metamorphosis into a white bull, the tale features humanized talking animals and a princess who reads Locke. True to the Enlightenment belief in rational enquiry, Voltaire specifically targets the Garden of Eden myth and denounces a God that would forbid knowledge to humanity.

Adrienne E. Zuerner

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