How to use this Page

Today I thought I’d take a closer look at the differences between fables and parables and come up with some recommendations for readers of all ages who enjoy a little learning with their leisure. A fable is: a short story that conveys a moral to the reader, typically with animals as characters. A parable is: a short story designed […]

I enjoyed writing the blog post Books with the word ‘Girl’ in the title so much, I thought I’d do one for books that have ‘boy’ in the title. At first glance, I thought this one might be easier, but let’s see how I go. The first book that comes to mind for me is […]

Jean de La Fontaine’s verse fables turned traditional folktales into some of the greatest, and best-loved, poetic works in the French language. His versions of stories such as “The Shepherd and the Sea” and “The Hen that Laid the Eggs of Gold” are witty and sophisticated, satirizing human nature in miniature dramas in which the outcome is unpredictable. Here we compare La Fontaine’s versions to the enduring tradition of Aesop’s fables from the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Aesop’s Fables.

THE SHEPHERD AND THE SEA
Jean de La Fontaine

A neighbour of the goddess of the deep
lived free of care on earnings from his sheep,
content with what he had, which to be sure
was modest, though it was at least secure.
He liked to watch the ships return to land,
unloading treasures on the strand.
They tempted him; at last he sold his flock,
and traded all the money on the main;
he lost it when the vessel struck a rock.
The trader went to tend the flocks again,
not as the owner that he used to be,
when sheep of his had grazed beside the sea;
not Corydon or Tircis as before,
just Peterkin and nothing more.
In time he had enough, from what he gained,
to buy some of the creatures clad in fleece.
And then, when winds blew gentle and restrained,
to let the ships unload their goods in peace,
this shepherd could be heard to say:
“You want our money, Madam Sea;
apply to someone else, I pray,
for on my faith, you’re getting none from me.”
This is no idle tale that I invent;
it is the truth that I have told,
which through experience is meant
to show you that a coin you hold
is worth a dozen that you hope to see;
that with their place and rank men must agree;
that thousands would do better to ignore
the counsels of ambition and the sea,
or else they suffer; one perhaps may thrive.
The oceans promise miracles and more,
but if you trust them, storms and thieves arrive.

THE SHEPHERD AND THE SEA
Aesop

There was a shepherd tending his flocks in a place beside the sea. When he saw that the sea was calm and mild, he decided that he wanted to make a voyage. He sold his flocks and bought some dates which he loaded into a ship. He then set sail, but a fierce storm blew up and capsized the ship. The shepherd lost everything and barely managed to get to shore. Later on when the sea had grown calm once again, the shepherd saw a man on the beach praising the sea for her tranquility. The shepherd remarked, “That’s just because she’s after your dates!”

THE HEN THAT LAID THE EGGS OF GOLD
Jean de La Fontaine

Wanting it all will lose it all,
and avarice does that. So let me call,
to give some evidence for what I say,
on him who owned a chicken who would lay
(or so in fable we are told)
a golden egg each day.
Deciding that inside her she must hold
a treasure-house of gold,
he killed her, opened her, and found the same
as in the hens from which no riches came.
He had destroyed the jewel of his store.
Those people always seeking more
can learn a lesson from this dunce.
How many of them recently have passed
from wealthy man to pauper all at once
because they wanted wealth too fast!

THE MAN AND THE GOLDEN EGGS
Aesop

A man had a hen that laid a golden egg for him each and every day. The man was not satisfied with this daily profit, and instead he foolish;y grasped for more. Expecting to find a treasure inside, the man slaughtered the hen. When he found that the hen did not have a treasure inside her after all, he remarked to himself, “While chasing after hopes of a treasure, I lost the profit I held in my hands!”

Jean de La Fontaine (1621-95) followed a career as a poet after early training for the law and the Church. He came under the wing of Louis XIV’s Finance Minister, Nicolas Fouquet, and later enjoyed the patronage of the Duchess of Orléans and Mme de La Sablière. His Fables were widely admired, and he was already regarded in his lifetime as one of the greatest poets of his age. Christopher Betts was Senior Lecturer in the French Department at Warwick University. In 2009 he published an acclaimed translation of Perrault’s The Complete Fairy Tales.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only literature articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: Images from Selected Fables. Used with permission via the public domain.

The post A tale of two fables: Aesop vs. La Fontaine appeared first on OUPblog.

        

Related Stories

• Selected fables about wolves and fishermen
• A Mother’s Day reading list from Oxford World’s Classics
• How to write a classic

 

The Fox and the Crow
By Manasi Subramaniam
Illustrated by Culpeo S. Fox
Karadi Tales
$17.95
ISBN: 978-81-8190-303-7
Ages 4 and up
On shelves now

In the classic Aesop fable of The Fox and the Crow where do your loyalties lie? You remember the tale, don’t you? Long story short (or, rather, short story shorter) a prideful crow is tricked into dropping its bread into the hungry mouth of a fox when it is flattered into singing. Naturally your sympathies fall with the fox to a certain extent. Pride goeth before the bread’s fall and all that jazz. Now there are about a thousand different things that are interesting about The Fox and the Crow, a collaboration between Manasi Subramaniam and Culpeo S. Fox. Yet the thing that I took away from it was how my sympathies fell, in the end, to the prideful crow victim. His is a miserable existence, owed in part due to his own self-regard and also to not seizing the moment when it presents itself. Delayed gratification sometimes just turns into no gratification. Lofty thoughts for a book intended for four-year-olds, eh? But that’s what you get when something as lovely, dark, and strange as this particular The Fox and the Crow hits the market. Gorgeous to eye and ear alike, the story’s possibilities are mined beautifully and the reader is left reeling in the wake. If you’d like a folktale that’s bound to wake you up, this beauty has your number.

A murder of crows gathers on the telephone wires. Says the text “When dusk falls, they arrive, raucous, clamping their feet on the wires in a many-pronged attack.” One amongst them, however, cannot help but notice a fresh loaf of new bread at the local bakery. Without another thought it dives, steals the bread, and leaves the baker angrily yelling in its wake. Delighted with its prize the crow takes to a tree branch to wait. “Bread is best eaten by twilight.” Below, a hungry fox observes the haughty crow and desires the tasty morsel. She sings up to the crow. “A song is an invitation. Crow must sing back.” He does and, in doing so, loses his prize to the vixen’s maw. The last line? “A new day breaks. An old hunger aches.”

Turning Aesop fables into full picture books is a bit of an art. If you read one you’ll find that it’s remarkably short on the page. It requires a bit of padding on the author’s part. Either that or some true creativity. Look, for example, at some of the best Aesop adaptations out there. Some artists choose to go wordless (The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney). Others get remarkably loquacious (Lousy Rotten Stinkin’ Grapes by Margie Palatini). In the case of Subramaniam, she makes the interesting choice of simplifying the text with long, luscious words while expanding the story. The result is lines like “Crow’s stomach burns with swallowed song” or “Oh, she’s a temptress, that one.” No dialogue is necessary in this book. Subramaniam shoulders all the work and though she doesn’t spell out what’s happening as simply as some might prefer (you have to know what is meant by “Crow’s pride sets his hunger ablaze” to get to the classic Aesopian moral of the tale) it’s nice to see a new take on a story that’s been done to death in a variety of different spheres.

Artist Culpeo S. Fox is new to me. From Germany (for some reason everything made a lot more sense when I learned that fact) the man sort of specializes in foxes. For this book the art takes on a brown and speckled hue. Early scenes look as though the very dirt of the ground was whipped into the air alongside the crows’ wings. Yet in the midst of all this darkness (both from the story and from the art) there’s something incredibly relatable and kid-friendly in these creatures’ eyes. The crow in particular is rendered an infinitely relatable fellow. From his first over-the-shoulder glance at the bread cooling on the windowsill to the look of pure eagerness when he alights on a private branch. It’s telling that the one moment the eye is made most unrelatable (pure white) is when he’s overcome with fury at having basically handed his loaf to the fox’s maw. Fury can be frightening.

It’s also Fox’s inclination to change from a horizontal to a vertical format over and over again that makes the book unique in some way. It’s probably the element that will turn the most people off, but it’s never done without reason. To my mind, if a book is going to go vertical, it needs to have a reason. Caldecott Honor book Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens, for example, knew exactly how to make use of the form. Parrots Over Puerto Rico in contrast seemed to do it on a lark rather than for any particular reason. In The Fox and the Crow each vertical shift is calculated. The very first encounter between the fox and the crow is a vertical shot. Most interesting is the next two-page spread. You find yourself not entirely certain what the best way to hold book might be. Horizontal? Vertical? Upside down? Only after a couple readings did I realize that the curve of the crow’s inquiry-laden neck echoes the fox’s very same neck curve (albeit with 75% more guile).

It’s not just the art and the story. The very size of the book itself is unique. It’s roughly 11 X 12 inches, essentially a rather large square. Work with enough picture books and you get a feel for the normal dimensions. But normal dimensions, you sense, wouldn’t quite encompass was Fox is trying to accomplish here. You need size to adequately tell this story. The darkness and beauty of it all demand it.

I am consumed with professional jealousy after reading the Kirkus review of this book. Their takeaway line? “Aesop noir”. It’s rather perfect, particularly when you consider that one reading of this book would fall under that classic noir storyline of a seedy soul done in by the wiles of a woman. Or vixen, rather. I don’t know that any younger kids would necessarily take to heart the moral message of the original story, but slightly older readers will jive to what Subramaniam is getting at. We need folktales in our collections that shake things up a bit. That aren’t afraid to get original with the source material. That aren’t afraid to get, quite frankly, beautiful on us. The pairing of Subramaniam and Fox is inspired and the book a lush treat. An Aesop necessity. Aesop done right.

On shelves now.

Source: Final copy sent from publisher for review.

Like This? Then Try:

• Baby Crow by John A. Rowe

• Fables by Aesop, illustrated by Jean-Francois Martin

• Trickster: Native American Tales, a Graphic Collection, edited by Matt Dembicki

Professional Reviews:

• A star from Publishers Weekly
• Kirkus

Jean de La Fontaine’s verse fables turned traditional folktales into some of the greatest, and best-loved, poetic works in the French language. His versions of stories such as ‘The Wolf in Shepherd’s Clothing’ and ‘The Lion and the Fly’ are witty and sophisticated, satirizing human nature in miniature dramas in which the outcome is unpredictable. The behaviour of both animals and humans is usually centred on deception and cooperation (or the lack of it), as they cheat and fight each other, arguing about life and death, in an astonishing variety of narrative styles. To get a flavour of the fables, here are two taken from Selected Fables by Jean de La Fontaine, translated by Christopher Betts.

The Wolf in Shepherd’s Clothing
A wolf had hunted sheep from local fields,
but found the hunt was giving lower yields.
He thought to take a leaf from Reynard’s book:
disguise himself by changing what he wore.
He donned a smock, and took a stick for crook;
the shepherd’s bagpipes too he bore.
The better to accomplish his design,
he would have wished, had he been able,
to place upon his hat this label:
‘My name is Billy and these sheep are mine.’
His alterations now complete,
he held the stick with two front feet;
then pseudo-Billy gently stepped
towards the flock, and while he crept,
upon the grass the real Billy slept.
His dog as well was sound asleep,
his bagpipes too, and almost all the sheep.
The fraudster let them slumber where they lay.
By altering his voice to suit his dress,
he meant to lure the sheep away
and take them to his stronghold in the wood,
which seemed to him essential to success.
It didn’t do him any good.
He couldn’t imitate the shepherd’s speech;
the forest echoed with his wolfish screech.
His secret was at once undone:
his howling woke them, every one,
the lad, his dog, and all his flock.
The wolf was in a sorry plight:
amidst the uproar, hampered by his smock,
he could not run away, nor could he fight.
Some detail always catches rascals out.
He who is a wolf in fact
like a wolf is bound to act:
of that there ’s not the slightest doubt.

The Fisherman and the Little Fish
A little fish will bigger grow
if Heaven lets it live; but even so
to set one free, and wait until it’s fat,
then try again: I see no sense in that;
I doubt that it will let itself be caught.
An angler at the river’s edge one day
had hooked a carp. ‘A tiddler still,’ he thought,
but then reflected, looking at his prey:
‘Well, every little helps to make a meal,
perhaps a banquet; in the creel
is where you’ll go, to start my store.’
As best it could, the fish replied:
‘What kind of meal d’you think that I’ll provide?
I’d make you half a mouthful, not much more.
I’ll grow much bigger if you throw me back;
then catch me later on; I’d fill a sack.
A full-grown carp’s a fish that you can sell;
some greedy businessman will pay you well.
But now, you’d need a hundred fish
the size that I am now, to fill a single dish.
Besides, what sort of dish? Hardly a feast.’
‘No feast? quite so,’ replied the man;
‘it’s something, though, at least.
You prate as well as parsons can,
my little friend; but though you talk a lot
this evening it’s the frying-pan for you.’
A bird in the hand, as they say, is worth two
in the bush; the first one is certain, the others are not.

Jean de La Fontaine (1621-95) followed a career as a poet after early training for the law and the Church. He came under the wing of Louis XIV’s Finance Minister, Nicolas Fouquet, and later enjoyed the patronage of the Duchess of Orléans and Mme de La Sablière. His Fables were widely admired, and he was already regarded in his lifetime as one of the greatest poets of his age. Christopher Betts was Senior Lecturer in the French Department at Warwick University. In 2009 he published an acclaimed translation of Perrault’s The Complete Fairy Tales with OUP.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only literature articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: Both images are from Gustave Doré’s engravings, which are included in the edition, and are in the public domain.

The post Selected fables about wolves and fishermen appeared first on OUPblog.

        

Related Stories

• Book vs movie: Thérèse Raquin and In Secret
• Jane Austen and the art of letter writing
• “You’ll be mine forever”: A reading of Ovid’s Amores

 

As I smack down some lamingtons over the Straya Day long weekend, I am reminded of how my first encounter with half of the Aussie Coat of Arms filled me with unaccountable terror. A bristling periscopic neck thrust its way deep into our car’s interior in search of edible morsels as I shrank deep into the rear seat. Being young and unacquainted with the ways our largest flightless bird, I convinced myself their diet must include the tender noses of young innocents. Thankfully I was wrong. And thankfully, the talented team who brought us Town Possum, Outback Possum, Yvonne Morrison and Heath McKenzie, have created a version of Aesop’s well-known fable, The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs, entertaining enough to salve my terrifying first impression of – the emu.

But are all emus as undiscerning and bold enough to lunge for any old scrap? Apparently not, for Emma’s taste requires greater stimulation than the mere leftovers the rest of her flock dines on. Her insatiable appetite leads her far from home until exhausted and starving; she gorges on what she mistakes for kernels of corn. You’d think laying a golden egg would stem your starvation somewhat but it does little to abate her hunger and she soon abandons the glimmering egg.

Enter stage right, the baddies; two rotten scoundrels, keen on stealing whatever they can get their grubby little, pink paws on. Before long, Emma is trapped by their devious plot to become the richest possums this side of the goldfields. Their crafty plan soon unravels thanks to Emma’s gluttony and a certain black beetle. Jammy Emma escapes to reunite with her flock and the realisation that greed gains nothing, and leftovers taste far better than, ‘brass, glass and gold!’ (Which I hasten to point out; is why it is paramount to keep your windows up when driving through wild life reserves featuring roving emus. Tourists confined in cars are nearly always a better option for them than running down bugs.)

This charismatic picture book portraits our oft times misunderstood emu as a hugely likeable misfit who is just after a good feed. I adore Morrison’s trade-mark lilting verse, and really relish a picture book which dares to include vibrant snappy vocabulary; vital for enabling young children to strengthen their literacy muscle. Unforced, clever and chock-full of interesting and evocative words and images, the swaying rhyme is a delight to read out loud.

McKenzie’s bold illustrations bounce off the page with as much zeal and fervour as a hungry emu bounding towards a car full of tourists with an open bag of CCs. Brilliant and fun.

I still harbour one or two reservations about emus. Hard not to when they stalk up close and stare you down with those Delphic, ember-coloured eyes. But I have absolutely no reservations in recommending The Emu That Laid the Golden Egg to anyone who loves a true-blue Aussie yarn, iconic Aussie characters and the odd blowfly or two.

Oi! Oi! Oi!

Published by Little Hare Books 2012

Let’s talk Aesop.

Specifically let’s talk Fables, a collection of Aesop’s tales by Editions Milan, illustrated by one Jean-Francois Martin.  When Cristina from The Tea Box asked me to join her in sitting in on the discussion, I wasn’t certain how interested I would be.  I knew that Fables was one of the few books to win the coveted 2011 Bologna Ragazzi  Fiction Award (Honors this year went to Hyacinthe et Rose by Francois Morel, paintings by Martin Jarrie and The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, illustrated by Laura Carlin).  Aside from that it was an unknown entity.  I just knew its name, really.  The fact it had anything to do with Aesop had eluded me entirely.

In this particular discussion you had a panel consisting of Antonio Faeti, Chairman of the Jury, along with the editorial director Sophie Chanourdi, Mr. Martin the illustrator,  and the moderator Marcella Terrusi of the University of Bologna.  There was also Super Translator Woman, a human being capable of taking notes on what everyone said and then translating them into English and French respectively.  And let me tell you, these weren’t one sentence answers either.  Some explanations or discussions went on for thousands of words.  This translator was next unto a god at this talk.

First let’s talk a little about the book.  In spite of the fact that an Aesop fable recently won a Caldecott Award, I’ve always felt that they’re difficult beasts to illustrate.  Like nursery rhymes, an Aesop fable’s length is its strength when working in an oral medium, and its weakness when viewed on the written page.  Too short to justify full picture books per fable (unless you rewrite them or do away with the words entirely) the collections are also difficult to put down.  Often I’ll see the same layout time and time again, where an illustrator places the fable on one page and an illustration of that fable on the other.  In graduate school, library science students studying children’s literature will be given a list of core titles from the canon.  Aesop is usually on there (my own personal favorite versions being the Arnold Lobel and the Barbara McClintock).

What’s remarkable about Martin’s version is that it solves a lot of the difficulties I’ve perceived in the editions of the past.  True, the book also follows the format of having the text on one page and the story on the other, but thanks to a clever design team that layout is broken up nicely.

This is a version of Aesop where anthropomorphism is taken to an extreme.  The animals here look as if they’ve stepped out of propaganda posters from the 1930s.  They are displayed in a bold palette of br

It seems morality isn’t popular any longer. A simple check of TV listings and movie trailers will garner more than enough evidence of that reality–at least on the surface.

One has to look at a variety of factors to come to any kind of concrete conclusion. Generalism sloshes when you work with it.

Case in point: print media appears to actively discourage morality stories for children. Many writer’s guidelines will tell the writer to abstain from sending in preachy stories, refrain from making an obvious moral point, stick to fun subjects and voice.

I don’t have an argument with the guidelines. I’m curious, though, as to how children are supposed to learn to differentiate between right and wrong. What if the child doesn’t partake of spiritual teachings? What if the child resides in a chaotic household and doesn’t get an opportunity to learn good teachings?

Aesop’s Fables taught most lessons about right and wrong, good citizenship vs. bad, and all the rest. Some of those fables were universal in nature, without definitive origin.

Take the story of The Grasshopper and the Ant, for instance. That fable is one of the oldest winter stories told by the Native American Kootenai tribe–same story, same lesson, ancient origins. And in case you’re wondering, according to the Kootenai storyteller who told me the story, it has always been within the cadre of stories of the people.

The Tales of Emperor Akbar and his advisor Birbal use much the same premises and moral dilemmas. These legendary figures continue today in tales for instructing children’s behavior. They are delightful, not preachy, and are kept lively for readers of all ages. A writer friend of mine specializes is these wonderful tales of the Mughal Emperor done as contemporary retellings.

I do believe the teachings are out there. I read them every day among the stories contributed by writers to children’s magazines, whether in print or online. At least this genre hasn’t eliminated the moral from the story. It must be subtle and fun, or subtle and emotionally touching now. That’s the difference.

Yet, I wonder if that will continue to work as these next years roll by. The world is becoming a very visually violent place and children learn a great deal by watching what goes on around them. Can the teachings of positive behavior compete on a daily basis with the images of steal it, knock-‘em down, shoot-’em-up violence on media sources?

Will subtlety prevail in capturing a child’s conscience in a growing media-smothering environment? That’s my question for today.

I know that only time will give an answer to this. In the meantime, what would you suggest children be exposed to more often to see good behavior to balance the bad? If you’ve got a suggestion, I’d like to hear it. I know that the Disney people do all they can and have great success at it. Can we do more on a regular basis? Or do you not think it’s a problem?

Give me your opinions. Step right up and leave a comment at the bottom. Tell me what you think.

Until then, a bientot,

Claudsy