Abstract

The animal is an integral part of the literary fancy, and especially the fancy of the marvellous. Yet the birth of the fairy tale, as a literary genre, is due to the French storytellers’ quill in the end of the 17thcentury. That way a true fashion for fairy-tales arises, strengthened by the entrance of the oriental fairy-tale in the early 18th century. The 1730’s bring the parodic reaction, together with the influence of libertinism. The question, in view of parodic processes and the presence of libertinism in these fairy-tales, is then to understand how the animals enter storytellers’ critical and subversive intentions. We propose a few answers to that question through the analysis of the bestiary in Tanzaï et Néadarné, the first parodic and libertine fairy-tale of Crébillon fils.