Classic Fables

Author: (French) La Fontaine
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-02-09
Features: The famous French painter Grandville created a large number of illustrations for La Fontaine's fables. Grandville's style is unconventional, with a critical and thought-provoking mind, which complements La Fontaine's literary style. These illustrations are delicate in execution, interpret the essence of the fables in a different way through appropriate exaggeration, and the lively and interesting comic style also makes each small story more relaxed and vivid. This allows readers to see the diversity of life in a relaxed manner and understand the truth of the world in a lively way. What are fables? The wolf who wants to eat the little sheep, the fox who wants to trick the crow's cheese, and its brother who says grapes are sour when he can't reach them—who hasn't heard their stories? Fables are these small stories full of wisdom. If Aesop is the pioneer of the fable genre, La Fontaine brought it to a new realm. Most of La Fontaine's fables are drawn from ancient Greek, Roman, and Indian fables, as well as folk tales from the Middle Ages and the 17th century. However, he revitalized them by giving them new meanings. With sharp and biting wit, La Fontaine satirizes people through animals and the world through people. Based on decades of profound observation of nature and social reality, he constructed a world composed of humans and animals, directing a "Comedy of the Universe" with the cosmos as the backdrop and all living creatures as the main characters. It can almost be said to be the prototype and precursor of Balzac's "Human Comedy."