Anthropomorphic cat guarding geese, Egypt, c. 1120 BCE

Aesop, by Velázquez

Jean de La Fontaine

Bernard de Mandeville

John Gay

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Ignacy Krasicki

Dositej Obradović

Félix María de Samaniego

Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa

Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian

Ivan Krylov

Władysław Reymont

Felix Salten

James Thurber

George Orwell

Fable is a literary genre. A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized (given human qualities such as verbal communication), and that illustrates or leads to an interpretation of a moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly in a pithy maxim.

A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech and other powers of humankind.

Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the King James Version of the New Testament, "μύθος" ("mythos") was rendered by the translators as "fable"^[1] in First and Second Timothy, in Titus and in First Peter.^[2]

History[link]

The fable is one of the most enduring forms of folk literature, spread abroad, modern researchers agree,^[3] less by literary anthologies than by oral transmission. Fables can be found in the literature of almost every country.

Ante-Aesopic fable[link]

Several parallel animal fables in Sumerian and Akkadian are among those that Erich Ebeling introduced to modern Western readers;^[4] there are comparable fables from Egypt's Middle Kingdom,^[5] and Hebrew fables such as the "king of trees" in Book of Judges 9:8-15 and "the thistle and the cedar tree" in II Kings 14:9.^[6] The most recent study on the ante-Aesopic fables or the fables in ancient Near Eastern languages by Akimoto discovers the rich fable traditions in ancient Mesopotamia and Anatolia; for example, the Ninurta-uballitsu Assyrian fable collection which is the oldest known fable collection with the compiler's autograph and the completion date 883 BCE, the Hurrian-Hittite bilingual fable collections are embedded in a long myth and the storyteller tells after each fable his/her own moral.^[7]

Aesopic or Aesop's fable[link]

The varying corpus denoted Aesopica or Aesop's Fables includes most of the best-known western fables, which are attributed to the legendary Aesop, supposed to have been a slave in ancient Greece around 550 BCE. When Babrius set down fables from the Aesopica in verse for a Hellenistic 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" (personifying Nineveh to Greeks) and Belos ("ruler").^[8] Epicharmus of Kos and Phormis are reported as having been among the first to invent comic fables.^[9] Many familiar fables of Aesop include "The Crow and the Pitcher", "The Tortoise and the Hare" and "The Lion and the Mouse". In ancient Greek and Roman education, the fable was the first of the progymnasmata--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.

Africa[link]

African oral culture^[10] 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, breathtaking animals and earthly structures such as rivers, plains and mountains. Grandparents enjoy enormous respect in African societies and fill the new role of story-telling during retirement years. Children and, to some extent, adults are mesmerized by good story-tellers when they become animated in their quest to tell a good fable.

India[link]

Hundreds of fables were composed in ancient India during the first millennium BC, often as stories within frame stories. These included Vishnu Sarma's Panchatantra, the Hitopadesha, Vikram and The Vampire, and Syntipas' Seven Wise Masters, which were collections of fables that were later influential throughout the Old World. Ben E. Perry (compiler of the "Perry Index" of Aesop's fables)has argued controversially that some of the Buddhist Jataka tales and some of the fables in the Panchatantra may have been influenced by similar Greek and Near Eastern ones.^[11] Earlier Indian epics such as Vyasa's Mahabharata and Valmiki's Ramayana also contained fables within the main story, often as side stories or back-story. The most famous fables from the Middle East were the One Thousand and One Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights.

Europe[link]

Fables had a further long tradition through the Middle Ages, and became part of European high literature. During the 17th century, the French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695) saw the soul of the fable in the moral — a rule of behavior. Starting with the Aesopian pattern, La Fontaine set out to satirize the court, the church, the rising bourgeoisie, indeed the entire human scene of his time.^[12] La Fontaine's model was subsequently emulated by England's John Gay (1685–1732);^[13] Poland's Ignacy Krasicki (1735–1801);^[14] Italy's Lorenzo Pignotti (1739–1812)^{[15][verification needed]} and Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi (1754–1827);^{[16][verification needed]} Serbia's Dositej Obradović (1742–1811); Spain's Félix María de Samaniego (1745–1801)^[17] and Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa (1750–1791);^{[18][verification needed]} France's Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755–94);^[19] and Russia's Ivan Krylov (1769–1844).^[20]

Modern era[link]

In modern times, while the fable has been trivialized in children's books, it has also been fully adapted to modern adult literature. Felix Salten's Bambi (1923) is a Bildungsroman — a story of a protagonist's coming-of-age — cast in the form of a fable. James Thurber used the ancient fable style in his books Fables for Our Time (1940) and Further Fables for Our Time (1956), and in his stories "The Princess and the Tin Box" in The Beast in Me and Other Animals (1948) and "The Last Clock: A Fable for the Time, Such As It Is, of Man" in Lanterns and Lances (1961). Władysław Reymont's The Revolt (1922), a metaphor for the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, described a revolt by animals that take over their farm in order to introduce "equality." George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) similarly satirized Stalinist Communism in particular, and totalitarianism in general, in the guise of animal fable.

Classic fabulists[link]

• Aesop (mid-6th century BCE), author of Aesop's Fables.
• Vishnu Sarma (ca. 200 BCE), author of the anthropomorphic political treatise and fable collection, the Panchatantra.
• Bidpai (ca. 200 BCE), author of Sanskrit (Hindu) and Pali (Buddhist) animal fables in verse and prose, somethimes derived from Jataka tales.
• Syntipas (ca. 100 BCE), Indian philosopher, reputed author of a collection of tales known in Europe as The Story of the Seven Wise Masters.
• Gaius Julius Hyginus (Hyginus, Latin author, native of Spain or Alexandria, ca. 64 BCE - 17 CE), author of Fabulae.
• Phaedrus (15 BCE – 50 CE), Roman fabulist, by birth a Macedonian.
• Walter of England c.1175
• Marie de France (12th century).
• Vardan Aygektsi (died 1250), Armenian priest and Fabulist
• Berechiah ha-Nakdan (Berechiah the Punctuator, or Grammarian, 13th century), author of Jewish fables adapted from Aesop's Fables.
• Robert Henryson (Scottish, 15th century), author of The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian.
• Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452–1519).
• Biernat of Lublin (Polish, 1465? – after 1529).
• Jean de La Fontaine (French, 1621 – 95).
• Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani (Georgian, 1658–1725).
• Bernard de Mandeville (English, 1670–1733), author of The Fable of the Bees.
• John Gay (English, 1685–1732).
• Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (German, 1729–81).
• Ignacy Krasicki (Polish, 1735 – 1801), author of Fables and Parables (1779) and New Fables (published 1802).
• Dositej Obradović (Serbian, 1742–1811).
• Félix María de Samaniego (Spanish, 1745–1801), best known for "The Ant and the Cicade."
• Tomás de Iriarte (Spanish, 1750 – 91).
• Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian, (French, 1755 – 94), author of Fables (published 1802).
• Ivan Krylov (Russian, 1769–1844).
• Hans Christian Andersen (Danish, 1805–75).

Modern fabulists[link]

• Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910).
• Rafael Pombo (1833–1912) Colombian fabulist, poet and writer.
• Nico Maniquis (1834–1912).
• Ambrose Bierce (1842 – ?1914).
• Sholem Aleichem (1859–1916).
• George Ade (1866–1944), Fables in Slang, etc.
• Władysław Reymont (1868–1925).
• Felix Salten (1869–1945).
• Don Marquis (1878–1937), author of the fables of archy and mehitabel.
• Franz Kafka (1883–1924).
• Damon Runyon (1884–1946).
• James Thurber (1894–1961), Fables for Our Time and Further Fables for Our Time.
• George Orwell (1903 – 50).
• Dr. Seuss (1904 – 91).
• Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904 – 91).
• José Saramago (1922–2010).
• Randall Kenan (born 1963).
• Italo Calvino (1923 – 85), Cosmicomics etc.
• Arnold Lobel (1933 – 87), author of Fables, winner 1981 Caldecott Medal.
• Ramsay Wood (born 1943), author of Kalila and Dimna: Fables of Friendship and Betrayal.
• Bill Willingham (born 1956), author of Fables graphic novels.
• David Sedaris (born 1956), author of Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk
• Stephen Stapley (born 1953), author of Fables of Fabulous Animals
• Aaron Weiss (born 1979), lead singer of mewithoutYou

Notable fables[link]

• The Jataka Tales
  • Henny Penny
• Aesop's Fables by Aesop
  • The Boy Who Cried Wolf
  • The Cock and the Jewel
  • The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs
• Panchatantra by Vishnu Sarma
• Baital Pachisi (also known as Vikram and The Vampire)
• Hitopadesha
• Seven Wise Masters by Syntipas
• One Thousand and One Nights (also known as Arabian Nights, ca. 800–900)
• The Fable of the Bees (1714) by Bernard de Mandeville
• Fables and Parables (1779) by Ignacy Krasicki
• The Emperor's New Clothes (1837) by Hans Christian Andersen
• Bunt (Revolt, 1922) by Władysław Reymont
• Fables for Our Time (1940) and Further Fables for Our Time (1956) by James Thurber
• Animal Farm (1945) by George Orwell
• 99 Fables (1960) by William March
• Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)
• The Thief of Always (1992) by Clive Barker
• The Princess and the Tin Box by James Thurber
• The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari (1998) by Robin Sharma

See also[link]

• Allegory
• Anthropomorphism
• Apologia
• Apologue
• Fabel
• Fables (comics)
• Fairy tale
• Fantastique
• Ghost story
• Parable
• Proverb
• Wisdom

Notes[link]

References[link]

Novels portal

• Buckham, Philip Wentworth (1827). Theatre of the Greeks. http://books.google.com/books?id=IjAZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Theatre+of+the+Greeks. 
• King James Bible; New Testament (authorised).
• DLR [David Lee Rubin]. "Fable in Verse", The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.

External links[link]

• Fairy tales and fables traditions and reality through imagination
• Fables from around the world
• The Dragon-Tyrant
• A collection of Fables and Teaching-Stories from All Cultures and Traditions
• Fables - Collection and guide to fables for children
• Imaginexus A collection of interconnected stories that anyone can edit
• Parable of the Week Modern fables, parables and maxims
• Fables of Fabulous Animals, E-book