Could you help me giving the translation in your language of this fairy tale personnage ? My definition of mith is to focus on the hypotesis that it reflects a kind of man whom is object of intense ambivalence in women ( maybe with some differences among the different countries). On Oxford Dictionary he is : " both handsome and of admirable character". Well, it sounds a little bit like if defining a woman " both handsome and clever". It seems that you must be very lucky to find a partner with both these qualities ! There is more : usually Prince Charming save an unlucky woman ( from fairy tales to the wonderful " Pretty Woman" whore of the Julia Roberts film ). This phantasy seems to be related to the freudian definition of " the nurturing mother and the defending father "...but ...there is something more, probably different among the countries.
Can't you consider it's a masculine fantasy, as far it managed to survive as a myth in patriarchal societies?
Well, I considere it a fantasy whose I listen to in that moment. Sure, I listened it also from a man. But I wanted to begin with the easy question: how it is widespread in different countries and cultures? Concerning your hypoyesis in first instance I would wonder if sometime a man would like to be his mother "Prince Charming". But I dont want to propose at the moment the egg and chicken question. Indeed, gender are not symmetrical.
Giovanni Portuesi I was meaning "Prince Charming" was a model, more than anything, for men. It gives them where to tend to seduce women. As a matter of a fact, it is almost the unique model disposable. It also satisfies mothers.
Maria Garcia Jimenez
Maybe. But primarily I was interested in the translation of this "myth", maybe in different countries there are different "nuances" in imagining this "myth" and this could be reflected by the words used to describe him. Unfortunately asking this question to Google Dictionary would give unsatisfactory data, I' m afraid.
When using the term Mythology I would immediately turn to Carl Jung as he spent a great deal of time examining myth and its relation to human psychology.
"In other words, myths express wisdom that has been encoded in all humans, perhaps by means of evolution or through some spiritual process. For Jungians, this common origin in the collective unconscious explains why myths from societies at the opposite ends of the earth can be strikingly similar." -https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Classical_Mythology/Jungian_psychology
Jungian thought process suggests that these powerful narratives have been collected preserved across many generation because they have symbolic meaning to many of us.... not just one gender or another. And in a way the older these stories become the more "real" they become as they are able to speak and be intuitive and relevant to the lives of people spanning different generations and experiences. In a way something core to the human condition, that many can identify with in some way. To this end people don't need to identity to the story in the same way or with the same characters, much of that comes from personal experience. Have the stories you noted existed before written language and had an oral tradition?
If you are interested in gender specific interpretations and ideas, you should reference his work on the Anima and Animus. Additionally books like "King Warrior Magician Lover" (Male Archetypes), "Goddesses in every woman" (female archetypes), or "The hero within" in order to understand the concept better as well as common archetypes typically expressed by those genders (it should be noted we all have all archetypes within us, men can access the great mother for example).
You may find this resource interesting as well... albeit a little off topic
https://www.hccfl.edu/media/724354/archetypesforliteraryanalysis.pdf
@Jared Smendik. I dont work with a junghian approach but your reference is very interesting.
I think the jungian approach is very important to consider for you question.
Additionally, such stories are not typically just for male fantasy or female fantasy. It's often the relationship between, and the historical roles each plays. Such dynamics are played out so frequently and often that they are easily observed and turn to story, then applied to myth.
In Polish it is 'ksiaze z bajki' which would translate more as 'a prince from a fairy tale'. The main description would be closer to a 'officer and gentleman' and 'a knight in a shining armour'. I think he is presented rather as handsome but also kind and a protector.
@Larry Carlson : I find your statements correct, but my scholar viewpoint is that myth is product of many minds, across centuries. A myth can be viewed as the sedimentation of desires or the worries of the people in a narrative thought. Indeed, it can benefit someone in a moment, but in my view it cannot be born simply from the benefits deriving from it. Anyway , even a contro-myth can be a myth as well. The prince charming and cinderella could be the product of "patriarchal culture" but we can observe today some films and novels that are made of the anti cinderella and the anti-prince charming, i.e. derive from them.
Further to Maria Garcia Jimenez
's point about patriarchal culture, of course most European writers of fairy tales (Charles Perault, the brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, etc.) were men. While for some women Prince Charming is a phantasy, he is only a male-constructed one, so from the point of view of desire in psychoanalytic terms, his authenticity is quite problematic. You might be interested in Angela Carter's short story collection, 'The Bloody Chamber' - a feminist text which the author says is designed to 'extract the latent content' from fairy tales including 'Bluebeard'. I'd say that most of the time when a British person uses the word 'myth' colloquially, they mean a story which is untrue or a popular misunderstanding. Sometimes it refers to something which may or may not be true. It's also inseparable from the idea of legend, and from Greek, Norse etc. mythology. There's also the idea of 'urban myth' in contemporary culture.
@Helene Goodman: your reference seems interesting, I will check it. But myth or fairy tale are interesting for me when they are told across the centuries and widespread thanks also the oral trasmission. The fact that original writer was a man or a woman can be important but it s not the force that can keep alive a "myth" or a " fairy tale" Fairy tale are tipically a tale that an adult want to tell and a child want to listen. Something like RG: the more you are read the more is your score ( mutatis mutandis).
You may be familiar with Yuri Berezkin's database (http://ruthenia.ru/folklore/berezkin). It is in Russian (an English outdated version of the site is here: http://ruthenia.ru/folklore/berezkin/eng.htm, but it is much less complete than the Russian one) but, if you don't read Russian, the translation into English or Esperanto using Google translate can give a general idea of the content of the tales. There are many stories where the "Prince Charming" motif plays a big role.
You can also use the Aarne-Thompson-Uther index to find other references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aarne%E2%80%93Thompson_classification_systems. See also: http://www.mftd.org/index.php?action=atu
I hope it will help you a little bit. Good luck with that.
Personally, as a young woman, I was feeling insulted by such a trivial and common desire you were almost socially forced to: a tall handsome blonde with a great uniform and a lot of military medals. You weren't suppose to fall in love with his mind, or his knowledge, no, the uniform with shinny medals was clearly enough for women. I always thought and still think it represent a kind of hysteria, trying to fit in social destiny (when there is none for women except raising kids), a bit like Majorcan converted Jews, screaming Catholic orations at church, terribly wanting to be seen as what they have been turned into. Slaves of their slave alter ego. Could be named the Majorca syndrome. That's what globally affects women in the world. And that's why I'm not that surprised you call it, as a man, a feminine fantasy.
Fred Romano well I dont know how to answer to your statement. We could call the "Prince Charming " situation and assume the hypothesis that is a human fantasy. Still I heard very often women telling me such a fantasy and rarely men telling me a similar fantasy. My question was about different meaning in different countries.
As an anthropologist working with Amerindian people, I'm sure it is not a "human" fantasy. This hypothesis is easily denied by common Anthropology. If your hypothesis was that it is a fantasy widespread by European colonization of the globe, than you might be close to verifiable evidence. Anyway, "prince charming", in Portuguese, is "príncipe encantado", which translates literally to the English term. Although the Spanish term for this is "príncipe azul", with the same meaning, but the literal translation for this would be "blue prince".
How interesting that in portuguese, the prince is also charmed (encantado). The Spanish way is absolutely terrible and reminds girls to watch out "blood" (race) issues. A blue prince is a prince with catholic ancestors 4 sides. And I can't believe adult Italian women are still jammed into this kind of crockery, designed by men, if not for a desire to seduce Italian men following the usual stereotypes that tranquilize them.
You're right, Fred Romano, that's true, "encantado" is more like "charmed" than "charming" (the later would find another word in Portuguese also: "charmoso", someone who is somehow elegant, attractive, adorable or seductive, something not fully encompassed by "encantado").
I find the observation about the meaning of " encantado" as " charmed" interesting. Indeed it fetch also the meaning of a man that focus all his attention and care in the loved woman. In italian you say " Principe Azzurro " but dont think that it refers to the nobiliar race ( i.e blue blood ). I think that blu is the color of the sky, something high standing.
Very rightly observed, prince charming phenomenon, but parallel is cinderella, snow white, princess phenomenon; for me, literature is mostly based on beautiful woman and man romance and all sort of that type of things; as human beings tend to attract stories filled with that type of fictional romance; and then the fairly good part of their lives pass in dreaming about some prince charming for females and cinderrella for males. Idea behind beautiful man and woman is that 80-90% of us, individuals are mediocre looking like average looking, but all are spending their time, while thinking of some madonna or brad pitt according to gender type.
Basically, in Italian, the meaning seems the same than in spanish: girls, watch out blood issues. Azzuro relies with Mary (blue is her color) and the catholic religion.
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