Romance, in its earliest surviving form, was called โerotika pathemataโ by the Greeks - tales of erotic suffering.
Marina WarnerIf you want to learn about a culture, you look at what buildings the people lived in but you also want to know about their cosmos.
Marina WarnerThe more one knows fairy tales the less fantastical they appear; they can be vehicles of the grimmest realism, expressing hope against all the odds with gritted teeth.
Marina WarnerAn interesting example is that the worst woman in the book, who is so cruel and violent, is the sorceress in "The Prince of the Black Islands." She's a beautiful young woman, and she has turned her husband into stone from the waist down. A traveling sultan finds him, in his dreadful state, and the man petrified from the waist down tells his sad story...how his wife comes every afternoon and beats him until the blood runs down. She's just unwontedly, arbitrarily cruel.
Marina Warner