The Fables Of La Fontaine: Illustrated by Gustave Doré and Other Artists

Jean de La Fontaine collected fables from a wide variety of sources, both Western and Eastern, and adapted them into French free verse. They were issued under the general title of Fables in several volumes from 1668 to 1694 and are considered classics of French literature. Humorous, nuanced and ironical, they were originally aimed at adults but then entered the educational system and were required learning for school children.

The first collection of Fables Choisies had appeared March 31, 1668, dividing 124 fables into six books over its two volumes. They were dedicated to "Monseigneur" Louis, le Grand Dauphin, the six-year-old son of Louis XIV of France and his queen consort Maria Theresa of Spain. By this time, La Fontaine was 47 and known to readers chiefly as the author of Contes, lively stories in verse, grazing and sometimes transgressing the bounds of contemporary moral standards. The Fables, in contrast, were completely in compliance with these standards.

The Fables Of La Fontaine

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When he first wrote his Fables, La Fontaine had a sophisticated audience in mind. Nevertheless, the Fables were regarded as providing an excellent education in morals for children, and the first edition was dedicated to the six-year-old Dauphin. Following La Fontaine's example, his translator Charles Denis dedicated his Select Fables (1754) to the sixteen-year-old heir to the English throne.[3] The 18th century was particularly distinguished for the number of fabulists in all languages and for the special cultivation of young people as a target audience. In the 1730s eight volumes of Nouvelles Poésies Spirituelles et Morales sur les plus beaux airs were published, the first six of which incorporated a section of fables aimed at children. These contained fables of La Fontaine rewritten to fit popular airs of the day and arranged for simple performance. The preface to this work announces that its aim is specifically to "give them an attraction to useful lessons which are suited to their age [and] an aversion to the profane songs which are often put into their mouths and which only serve to corrupt their innocence".[4]

In England the bulk of children's writing concentrated on Aesop's fables rather than La Fontaine's adaptations. The boundary lines began to be blurred in compilations that mixed Aesop's fables with those from other sources. The middle section of "Modern Fables" in Robert Dodsley's Select Fables of Esop and other fabulists (1764) contains many from La Fontaine. These are in prose but Charles Denis' earlier collection was in verse and several authors writing poems specifically for children in the early 19th century also included versions of La Fontaine. Although there had been earlier complete translations in verse at the start of that century, the most popular was Elizur Wright's The Fables of La Fontaine, first published in Boston in 1841 with prints by Grandville. This went through several editions, both in the United States and in Britain.[7] Other children's editions, in both prose and verse, were published in the 20th century.

Some account of the translator, who is still one of the living notablesof his nation, may not be out of place here. Elizur Wright, junior, isthe son of Elizur Wright, who published some papers in mathematics, butwas principally engaged in agricultural pursuits at Canaan, LitchfieldCo., Connecticut, U.S. The younger Elizur Wright was born at Canaan in1804. He graduated at Yale College in 1826, and afterwards taught in aschool at Groton. In 1829, he became Professor of Mathematics in HudsonCollege, from which post he went to New York in 1833, on being appointedsecretary to the American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1838 he removed to theliterary centre of the United States, Boston, where he edited severalpapers successively, and where he published his "La Fontaine;" whichthus, whilst, it still remains his most considerable work, was also oneof his earliest. How he was led to undertake it, he has himself narratedin the advertisement to his first edition. But previously to 1841, thedate of the first publication of the complete "Fables," he tried theeffect of a partial publication. In 1839 he published, anonymously, alittle 12mo volume, "La Fontaine; A Present for the Young." This, asappears from the title, was a book for children, and though the substanceof these few (and simpler) fables may be traced in the later and completeedition, the latter shows a considerable improvement upon the work of his"'prentice hand." The complete work was published, as we have said, in1841. It appeared in an expensive and sumptuous form, and was adornedwith the French artist Grandville's illustrations--which had firstappeared only two years previously in the Paris edition of La Fontaine'sFables, published by Fournier Ainé. The book was well received both inAmerica and England, and four other editions were speedily called for.The sixth edition, published in 1843, was a slightly expurgated one,designed for schools. The expurgation, however, almost wholly consistedof the omission bodily of five of the fables, whose places were, as Mr.Wright stated in his preface, filled by six original fables of his own.From his "Notice" affixed to this sixth edition, it seems evident that heby no means relished the task, usually a hateful one, of expurgating hisauthor. Having, however, been urged to the task by "criticisms bothfriendly and unfriendly" (as he says) he did it; and did it wisely,because sparingly. But in his prefatory words he in a measure protests.He says:--"In this age, distinguished for almost everything more thansincerity, there are some people who would seem too delicate and refinedto read their Bibles." And he concludes with the appeal,--"But theunsophisticated lovers of nature, who have not had the opportunityto acquaint themselves with the French language, I have no doubt willthank me for interpreting to them these honest and truthful fictions ofthe frank old JEAN, and will beg me to proceed no farther in the workof expurgation." The first of the substituted fables of the sixthedition--The Fly and the Game, given below--may also be viewed asa protest to the same purpose. As a specimen of Mr. Wright's powers atonce as an original poet and an original fabulist, we here print (for thefirst time in England, we believe) the substituted fables of his sixthedition. We may add, that they appeared in lieu of the following fivefables as given in Mr. Wright's complete edition--and in the presentedition:--The Bitch and her Friend, The Mountain in Labour, The YoungWidow, The Women and the Secret, and, The Husband, the Wife, andthe Thief. It should also be borne in mind that these original fableswere inserted in an edition professedly meant for schools rather than forthe general public.

Human nature, when fresh from the hand of God, was full of poetry. Itssociality could not be pent within the bounds of the actual. To the lowerinhabitants of air, earth, and water,--and even to those elementsthemselves, in all their parts and forms,--it gave speech and reason. Theskies it peopled with beings, on the noblest model of which it could haveany conception--to wit, its own. The intercourse of these beings, thuscreated and endowed,--from the deity kindled into immortality by theimagination, to the clod personified for the moment,--gratified one ofits strongest propensities; for man may well enough be defined as thehistorical animal. The faculty which, in after ages, was to chronicle therealities developed by time, had at first no employment but to place onrecord the productions of the imagination. Hence, fable blossomed andripened in the remotest antiquity. We see it mingling itself with theprimeval history of all nations. It is not improbable that many of thenarratives which have been preserved for us, by the bark or parchment ofthe first rude histories, as serious matters of fact, were originallyapologues, or parables, invented to give power and wings to morallessons, and afterwards modified, in their passage from mouth to mouth,by the well-known magic of credulity. The most ancient poets graced theirproductions with apologues. Hesiod's fable of the Hawk and theNightingale is an instance. The fable or parable was anciently, as it iseven now, a favourite weapon of the most successful orators. When Jothamwould show the Shechemites the folly of their ingratitude, he uttered thefable of the Fig-Tree, the Olive, the Vine, and the Bramble. When theprophet Nathan would oblige David to pass a sentence of condemnation uponhimself in the matter of Uriah, he brought before him the apologue of therich man who, having many sheep, took away that of the poor man who hadbut one. When Joash, the king of Israel, would rebuke the vanity ofAmaziah, the king of Judah, he referred him to the fable of the Thistleand the Cedar. Our blessed Saviour, the best of all teachers, wasremarkable for his constant use of parables, which are but fables--wespeak it with reverence--adapted to the gravity of the subjects on whichhe discoursed. And, in profane history, we read that Stesichorus put theHimerians on their guard against the tyranny of Phalaris by the fable ofthe Horse and the Stag. Cyrus, for the instruction of kings, told thestory of the fisher obliged to use his nets to take the fish that turneda deaf ear to the sound of his flute. Menenius Agrippa, wishing to bringback the mutinous Roman people from Mount Sacer, ended his harangue withthe fable of the Belly and the Members. A Ligurian, in order to dissuadeKing Comanus from yielding to the Phocians a portion of his territory asthe site of Marseilles, introduced into his discourse the story of thebitch that borrowed a kennel in which to bring forth her young, but, whenthey were sufficiently grown, refused to give it up.

In all these instances, we see that fable was a mere auxiliary ofdiscourse--an implement of the orator. Such, probably, was the origin ofthe apologues which now form the bulk of the most popular collections.Aesop, who lived about six hundred years before Christ, so far as we canreach the reality of his life, was an orator who wielded the apologuewith remarkable skill. From a servile condition, he rose, by the force ofhis genius, to be the counsellor of kings and states. His wisdom was indemand far and wide, and on the most important occasions. The pithyapologues which fell from his lips, which, like the rules of arithmetic,solved the difficult problems of human conduct constantly presented tohim, were remembered when the speeches that contained them wereforgotten. He seems to have written nothing himself; but it was not longbefore the gems which he scattered began to be gathered up incollections, as a distinct species of literature. The great and goodSocrates employed himself, while in prison, in turning the fables ofAesop into verse. Though but a few fragments of his composition have comedown to us, he may, perhaps, be regarded as the father of fable,considered as a distinct art. Induced by his example, many Greek poetsand philosophers tried their hands in it. Archilocus, Alcaeus, Aristotle,Plato, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Lucian, have left us specimens.Collections of fables bearing the name of Aesop became current in theGreek language. It was not, however, till the year 1447 that the largecollection which now bears his name was put forth in Greek prose byPlanudes, a monk of Constantinople. This man turned the life of Aesopitself into a fable; and La Fontaine did it the honour to translate it asa preface to his own collection. Though burdened with insufferablepuerilities, it is not without the moral that a rude and deformedexterior may conceal both wit and worth. 2ff7e9595c