Hamilton, Anthony (c.1646–1720), exiled English writer of French parodic fairy tales. The son of expatriates from the court of Charles II of England, Hamilton was educated in France from an early age. He served in Louis XIV's army in France and then fought for James II in Ireland. Upon his return to France, he became well known in Parisian circles for his letters, light verse, and fairy tales. He is also the author of the fictionalized Mémoires du comte de Grammont (1713).
His three novel‐length fairy tales, Le Bélier (The Ram), Histoire de Fleur‐d'Épine (Story of Mayflower), and Les Quatre Facardins (The Four Facardins), were published posthumously in 1730, but written in all likelihood during 1703–4. Containing often obscure allusions to life at Louis XIV's court, Hamilton's tales are among the earliest examples of parodic French fairy tales. Indeed, their (usually) subtle wit is often compared to Voltaire's, even if their use of satire is less explicit. Hamilton's use of parody takes numerous forms, all of which exaggerate established fairy‐tale conventions. On a general level, farcical dialogue, frequent hyperbole, and play with onomastics are staple features of Hamilton's tales and set them apart from those of his contemporaries. Several other traits are particularly noteworthy for their influence on 18th‐century French fairy tales. With the knight‐errant motif, Hamilton creates plots of dizzying complexity, with numerous embedded stories, that render the protagonists more comical than exemplary. In The Four Facardins, for example, there are four different heroes, the first of whom is injured fighting a lion, must accomplish two tests to be healed, rescues a maiden in distress, battles a giant, and undertakes another series of tests for a nymph just in the first few pages! The nature of many of the adventures recounted is also comical and prefigures the ‘licentious’ tone of many later French fairy tales. In both The Four Facardins and The Ram, for instance, a princess is obliged to go naked until an intrepid knight defeats her adversary. The allegorization of historical events, persons, and places that was to become so popular later is especially evident in The Ram, which uses the fairy‐tale form to relate anecdotes about a house in the gardens of Versailles that Louis XIV gave to the comtesse de Grammont, Hamilton's sister. But by far the most obvious parodic device is the frame narrative, which Hamilton uses to present The Four Facardins and The Story of Mayflower as continuations of The Thousand and One Nights, translated/rewritten and published by Antoine Galland beginning in 1704. In his tales, Hamilton's Sultan and Dinarzade express impatience with the stories told by Scheherazade in Galland's work. And in so doing, Hamilton mocks The Thousand and One Nights and the French public's enthusiasm for it.
While obscure allusions and complex plots make Hamilton's tales difficult, their tone and stylistic features charted a new course for the literary fairy tale in France.
Bibliography
- Clerval, Alain, Du frondeur au libertin: Essai sur Antoine Hamilton (1978).
— Lewis C. Seifert
