The Translation of Transgressive Interiority: Rooting Catherine Breillat’s Barbe bleue in the Word-Image Dynamics of Early Illustrations

Abstract: From the first appearance of the illustrations of Simon Fokke and Jacques de Sève in the 1742 Coustellier edition, to, significantly, the unsigned ink drawing of the 1797 Devaux edition, there emerges striking depictions of an interiority hinted at but ultimately unarticulated in Charles Perrault’s tale “La Barbe bleue.” This article examines how the representation of complex intimacy found in contemporary, visually rich, adaptations of the Bluebeard narrative—specifically Catherine Breillat’s film Barbe bleue —originates in reading the illustrations of these eighteenth-century French illustrated editions against the subtleties of Perrault’s textual choices.