Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that areanthropomorphised, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson, which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim orsaying.
A fable differs from aparable in that the latterexcludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind. Conversely, an animal tale specifically includes talking animals as characters.[1]
The fable is one of the most enduring forms of folk literature, spread abroad, modern researchers agree,[4] less by literary anthologies than by oral transmission. Fables can be found in the literature of almost every country.
The varying corpus denotedAesopica orAesop's Fables includes most of the best-known western fables, which are attributed to the legendaryAesop, supposed to have been a slave inancient Greece around 550 BCE. WhenBabrius set down fables from theAesopica in verse for aHellenistic Prince "Alexander", he expressly stated at the head of Book II that this type of "myth" that Aesop had introduced to the "sons of the Hellenes" had been an invention of "Syrians" from the time of "Ninos" (personifyingNineveh to Greeks) andBelos ("ruler").[5]Epicharmus of Kos and Phormis are reported as having been among the first to invent comic fables.[6] Many familiar fables of Aesop include "The Crow and the Pitcher", "The Tortoise and the Hare" and "The Lion and the Mouse".
In the first century AD,Phaedrus (died 50 AD) produced Latin translations in iambic verse of fables then circulating under the name of Aesop. While Phaedrus's Latinisations became classic (transmitted through the Middle Ages, though attributed to a certainRomulus, now considered legendary), the writing of fables in Greek did not stop; in the 2nd century AD,Babrius wrote beast fables in Greek in the manner of Aesop, which would also become influential in the Middle Ages (and sometimes transmitted as Aesop's work).[citation needed]
In ancient Greek and Roman education, the fable was the first of theprogymnasmata—training exercises in prose composition and public speaking, wherein students would be asked to learn fables, expand upon them, invent their own, and finally use them as persuasive examples in longer forensic or deliberative speeches. The need of instructors to teach, and students to learn, a wide range of fables as material for their declamations resulted in their being gathered together in collections, like those of Aesop.[citation needed]
African oral culture[7] has a rich story-telling tradition. As they have for thousands of years, people of all ages in Africa continue to interact with nature, including plants, animals and earthly structures such as rivers, plains, and mountains. Children and, to some extent, adults are mesmerized by good story-tellers when they become animated in their quest to tell a good fable.
TheAnansi oral story originates from the tribes ofGhana. "All Stories Are Anansi's" was translated by Harold Courlander and Albert Kofi Prempeh and tells the story of a god-like creature Anansi who wishes to own all stories in the world.[8] The character Anansi is often depicted as a spider and is known for its cunning nature to obtain what it wants, typically seen outwitting other animal characters.[8]
India has a rich tradition of fables, many derived from traditional stories and related to local natural elements. Indian fables often teach a particular moral.[9] In some stories the gods have animal aspects, while in others the characters are archetypal talking animals similar to those found in other cultures. Hundreds of fables were composed inancient India during thefirst millennium BCE, often asstories withinframe stories. Indian fables have a mixed cast of humans and animals. The dialogues are often longer than in fables of Aesop and often comical as the animals try to outwit one another by trickery and deceit. In Indian fables, humanity is not presented as superior to the animals. Prime examples of the fable in India are the Panchatantra and theJataka tales. These includedVishnu Sarma'sPanchatantra, theHitopadesha,Vikram and The Vampire, andSyntipas'Seven Wise Masters, which were collections of fables that were later influential throughout theOld World. Ben E. Perry (compiler of the "Perry Index" of Aesop's fables) has argued controversially that some of the BuddhistJataka tales and some of the fables in thePanchatantra may have been influenced by similarGreek andNear Eastern ones.[10] EarlierIndian epics such asVyasa'sMahabharata andValmiki'sRamayana also contained fables within the main story, often as side stories or back-story. The most famous folk stories from the Near East were theOne Thousand and One Nights, also known as theArabian Nights.
The Panchatantra is an ancient Indian assortment of fables. The earliest recorded work, ascribed to Vishnu Sharma, dates to around 300 BCE. The tales are likely much older than the compilation, having been passed down orally prior to the book's compilation. The word "Panchatantra" is a blend of the words "pancha" (which means "five" in Sanskrit) and "tantra" (which means "weave"). It implies weaving together multiple threads of narrative and moral lessons together to form a book.
Printed image ofthe fable of the blacksmith and the dog from the sixteenth century[11]
Fables had a further long tradition through theMiddle Ages and became part of European high literature. The Roman writerAvianus (active around 400 AD) wrote Latin fables mostly based onBabrius, using very little material from Aesop. Fables attributed to Aesop circulated widely in collections bearing the title ofRomulus (as though an author named Romulus had translated and rewritten them, though today most scholars regard this Romulus to be a legendary figure). Many of these Latin version were in fact Phaedrus's 1st-century versified Latinisations. Collections titledRomulus inspired a flurry of medieval authors to newly translate (sometimes into local vernaculars), versify and rewrite fables. Among them,Adémar de Chabannes (11th century),Alexander Neckam (12th century,Novus Aesopus and shorterNovus Avianus),Gualterus Anglicus (12th century) and Marie de France (12th-13th century) wrote fables adapted from models generally understood to be Aesop, Avianus or the so-called "Romulus".[citation needed]
In the later Middle Ages, Aesop's fables were newly gathered and edited with a prefatory biography of Aesop. This biography, usually simply titledLife of Aesop (Vita Aesopi), is more invented than factual, and itself a sort of moralistic fable; known in several versions, thisAesop Romance, as scholars term it today, enjoyed nearly as much fame as the fables themselves by the end of the fifteenth century. The most common version of this tale-like biography is attributed to the Byzantine scholarMaximus Planudes (1260–1310), who also gathered and edited fables for posterity. In the Renaissance, Aesopic fables were hugely popular. They were published in luxurious illuminated manuscripts, such as the so-called "Medici Aesop" made around 1480 in Florence based on the corpus established by Planudes, probably for theson ofLorenzo de' Medici (now kept in the New York Public Library). Early on, Aesopic fables were also disseminated in print, usually with Planudes'sLife of Aesop as a preface. The German humanistHeinrich Steinhöwel published a bilingual (Latin and German) edition of the fables in Ulm in 1476. This publication gave rise to many re-editions of the sole German prose translation (known as theEsopus orEsopus teutsch). It became one the great bestsellers of the last decades of the fifteenth century. Several authors adapted or versified fables from this corpus, such as the German poet and playwright Burkard Waldis, whose versifiedEsopus of 1548 was influential. Even the artist and polymathLeonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) composed some fables in his native Florentine dialect.[citation needed]
In contemporary periods, while the fable has been trivialized in children's books, it has also been fully adapted to modern adult literature.
During the 1880s, Irish-American journalist and folkloristJoel Chandler Harris wrote African-American fables in the Southern context of slavery under the name of Uncle Remus. His stories (including the animal characters Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear) are modern examples of story-telling that have been praised by scholars like Louis D. Rubin Jr.[21] Harris’ work has also received criticism, however; according to Rubin, Harris seemed to perpetuate segregationist ideology, as well as glamorize the background and role of slaves in his stories.[22]
In the 21st century, the Neapolitan writer and painter Sabatino Scia is the author of over a hundred fables.[23] The characters are not only animals, but also things, beings, and elements from nature—all playing the role of revealer of human society. In addition to these writings, Scia also uses painting as a medium for his fables: his collection “Не забувати ніколи. Never forget," for example, is a commentary onHolodomor.[24] In Latin America, the brothers Juan and Victor Ataucuri Garcia have also contributed to the resurgence of the fable. But they do so with a novel idea: use the fable as a means of dissemination of traditional literature of that place. In the book "Fábulas Peruanas," published in 2003, they have collected myths, legends, and beliefs of Andean and Amazonian Peru, to write as fables.[25]
African-American and award-winning authorOctavia E. Butler, though having published work since 1971, has made a resurgence in popular media nearly twenty years after her death in 2006. With what The MacArthur Foundation describes as “transcendent fables,” her stories address social issues such as climate change and racial inequality in a way that’s still relevant to many of her readers.[26]
^For example, inFirst Timothy, "neither give heed to fables...", and "refuse profane and old wives' fables..." (1 Tim 1:4 and 4:4, respectively).
^Strong's 3454. μύθος muthos moo’-thos; perhaps from the same as 3453 (through the idea of tuition); a tale, i.e.fiction ("myth"):—fable. "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty." (2nd Peter 1:16)
^Enzyklopädie des Märchens (1977), see "Fabel", "Äsopica" etc.
^abThe Norton Anthology World Literature (4th ed.). 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company. 2018. pp. 902–905.ISBN978-0-393-60285-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
^Kermode, Mark (30 July 2013)."The Devil's Backbone: The Past Is Never Dead . . ".The Criterion Collection. Retrieved25 June 2016.For those with a weakness for the beautiful monsters of modern cinema, del Toro has earned himself a reputation as the finest living exponent of fabulist film.
