Fables of La Fontaine

Author: La Fontaine
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2004-03-01
Features: This collection of poems primarily draws its material from Aesop's Fables, possessing high literary value and didactic significance. It holds an important position in the history of French literature and enjoys great recognition in the history of world cultural education. La Fontaine transformed the prose form of fables into poetry, endowing them with a sense of rhythm and rhyme, making them easier to recite and memorize, thereby enhancing their artistic expressiveness and facilitating their dissemination. He created a free "variable-length line" poetic form, unbound by rigid rules, with diverse variations in lines, syllables, and rhyme, making the poems catchy and easy to read. The poems blend narrative with commentary, vivid and lively, making them suitable for readers of all levels to recite, perform, and appreciate. In this collection, La Fontaine created approximately 496 characters, including 125 animals, 123 humans, and 85 mythological figures, forming a fictional vast world while also composing The Human Comedy of La Fontaine's era. It was praised by the French literary critic Théophile Gautier as "France's Homer." This book selects and includes over 200 of La Fontaine's fable poems such as The Cicada and the Ant, Retaliating Against Gossip, The Miller, His Son, and the Donkey, The Lion in Love, and The Repercussions of Lies.