Beauxbatons Academy of Magic is a French magic school in the fictional universe of ''Harry Potter'' created by the British author

J. K. Rowling Joanne Rowling ( ; born 31 July 1965), known by her pen name , is a British author and philanthropist. She is the author of ''Harry Potter'', a seven-volume fantasy novel series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has List of best-sell ...

. ''Beauxbatons'' () translates from French as "beautiful sticks".

Description

In the fourth book of the series, ''

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'' is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. It is the fourth novel in the ''Harry Potter'' series. It follows Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, a wizard in his fourth year at Hogwar ...

'' (2000), students from Beauxbatons arrive at

Hogwarts Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry () is a fictional boarding school of magic for young wizards. It is the primary setting for the first six novels in the '' Harry Potter'' series by J. K. Rowling, and also serves as a major setti ...

to take part in the Triwizard Tournament. They arrive in a carriage, brought by winged

Palomino Palomino is a equine coat color, genetic color in horses, consisting of a gold coat and white mane (horse), mane and tail; the degree of whiteness can vary from bright white to yellow. The palomino color derived from the breeding of Spanish hor ...

horses. Beauxbatons is described as a

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. They have existed for many centuries, and now extend acr ...

located in the

Pyrenees The Pyrenees are a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. They extend nearly from their union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast, reaching a maximum elevation of at the peak of Aneto. ...

mountains of southern France full of ice sculptures and forest

nymph A nymph (; ; sometimes spelled nymphe) is a minor female nature deity in ancient Greek folklore. Distinct from other Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature; they are typically tied to a specific place, land ...

s. Beauxbatons has a preponderance of French students, though Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Luxembourgers and Belgians also attend in large numbers. The delegation is led by headmistress Madame Olympe Maxime, a half-

giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''wiktionary:gigas, gigas'', cognate wiktionary:giga-, giga-) are beings of humanoid appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''gia ...

ess; despite her proportions, she is beautiful, graceful, and well-dressed. Also singled out is Fleur Delacour, the Beauxbatons champion in the Triwizard Tournament, a beautiful girl with silvery hair who is a quarter- veela.

Students

Students of Beauxbatons are described rather stereotypically, mainly as beautiful long-haired girls and attractive boys, in contrast with the serious and surly students from the Eastern European school Durmstrang. They have good manners and in general are positive, while the unpleasant appearance of Durmstrang students implies their dishonesty. Similarly, the carriage of the Beauxbatons is well-lit and nice, while the ship, by which the students of Durmstrang arrive, is gloomy. They speak French and stereotypical, heavily accented English. Jean-François Ménard, the translator of ''Harry Potter'' into French, wrote Madame Maxime as arrogant with very correct, aristocratic speech, while Fleur's tone was more distrustful. Ménard made these choices because "you cannot write French with a French accent". In the screen adaptation ''

'', Beauxbatons students are all female and Durmstrang students are all male, in contrast to the books which portray both schools as

co-educational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to ...

Criticism

The portrayal of the two foreign schools has been criticized as stereotypical. On the whole, the students of Beauxbatons, just as the students of Durmstrang, are homogeneous, not showing the

cultural diversity Cultural diversity is the quality of diverse or different cultures, as opposed to Monoculturalism, monoculture. It has a variety of meanings in different contexts, sometimes applying to cultural products like art works in museums or entertainment ...

of Hogwarts. The contrast between Durmstrang and Hogwarts can be interpreted as an allusion to the war of the West with the bad from the East, as described in the

gothic fiction Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror (primarily in the 20th century), is a literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name of the genre is derived from the Renaissance era use of the word "gothic", as a pejorative to mean me ...

of the nineteenth century, and contrast between Beauxbatons and Hogwarts as an allusion to the competition between the reasonable and decent Great Britain and the licentious and decadent France. It has been argued that the appearance on the foreground of these old conflicts allows J K. Rowling to sublimate them, and to make them irrelevant to modern readers. The three different magic schools have also been interpreted as representing the Allies in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, with Beauxbatons standing in for France, in opposition to "Voldemort and his followers represent ngGermany".

References

Citations

Works cited