ble is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary

creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized (given human
qualities, such as the ability to speak human language) and that illustrates or leads to a
particular moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a
pithy maxim or saying.
A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and
forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind.
Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the King James Version of the New
Testament, "μῦθος" ("mythos") was rendered by the translators as "fable"[1] in the First Epistle to
Timothy, the Second Epistle to Timothy, the Epistle to Titus and the First Epistle of Peter.[2]
A person who writes fables is a fabulist.

Contents

 1History
o 1.1Aesopic or Aesop's fable
o 1.2Africa
o 1.3India
o 1.4Europe
o 1.5Modern era
 2Fabulists
 3Classic
 4Modern
 5Notable fable collections
 6See also
 7Notes
 8References

History[edit]
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.
Aesopic or Aesop's fable[edit]
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").[4] Epicharmus of Kos and
Phormis are reported as having been among the first to invent comic fables.[5]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[edit]
African oral culture[6] 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. 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.
Joel Chandler Harris wrote African-American fables in the Southern context of slavery under the
name of Uncle Remus. His stories of the animal characters Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Brer Bear are
modern examples of African-American story-telling, this though should not transcend critiques and
controversies as to whether or not Uncle Remus was a racist or apologist for slavery. The Disney
movie Song of the South introduced many of the stories to the public and others not familiar with the
role that storytelling played in the life of cultures and groups without training in speaking, reading,
writing, or the cultures to which they had been relocated to from world practices of capturing Africans
and other indigenous populations to provide slave labor to colonized countries.
India[edit]
India has a rich tradition of fabulous novels, mostly explainable by the fact that the culture derives
traditions and learns qualities from natural elements. Some of the gods are forms of animals with
ideal qualities. Also, hundreds of fables were composed in ancient India during the first millennium
BCE, often as stories within frame stories. Indian fables have a mixed cast of humans and animals.
The dialogues are often longer than in fables of Aesop and often witty as the animals try to outwit
one another by trickery and deceit. In Indian fables, man is not superior to the animals. The tales are
often comical. The Indian fable adhered to the universally known traditions of the fable. The best
examples of the fable in India are the Panchatantra and the Jataka tales. 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.[7] 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 folk stories from the Near East were the One
Thousand and One Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights.
Europe[edit]
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.[8] La Fontaine's model was subsequently emulated by England's John Gay (1685–
1732);[9]Poland's Ignacy Krasicki (1735–1801);[10] Italy's Lorenzo Pignotti (1739–1812)[11][verification
needed]
and Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi (1754–1827);[12][verification needed]Serbia's Dositej Obradović (1739–
1811); Spain's Félix María de Samaniego (1745–1801)[13] and Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa (1750–
1791);[14][verification needed]France's Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755–94);[15] and Russia's Ivan
Krylov (1769–1844).[16]
Modern era[edit]
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.
In the 21st century, the Neapolitan writer Sabatino Scia is the author of more than two hundred
fables that he describes as “western protest fables.” The characters are not only animals, but also
things, beings, and elements from nature. Scia's aim is the same as in the traditional fable, playing
the role of revealer of human society. In Latin America, the brothers Juan and Victor Ataucuri Garcia
have 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, beliefs of Andean and Amazonian
Peru, to write as fables. The result has been an extraordinary work rich in regional nuances. Here
we discover the relationship between man and his origin, with nature, with its history, its customs
and beliefs then become norms and values.[17]

Fabulists[edit]


Aesop, by Velázquez

Vyasa


Valmiki

Jean de La Fontaine

Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani

John Gay


Christian Fürchtegott Gellert

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Ignacy Krasicki

Dositej Obradović


Félix María de Samaniego

Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa

Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian

Ivan Krylov
 

Hans Christian Andersen

Ambrose Bierce

Joel Chandler Harris

Władysław Reymont


Felix Salten

Don Marquis

James Thurber

George Orwell
Classic[edit]
 Aesop (mid-6th century BCE), author/s 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, sometimes 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
 Nizami Ganjavi (Persian, 1141–1209)
 Walter of England (12th century), Anglo-Norman poet,
published Aesop's Fables in distichs c. 1175
 Marie de France (12th century)
 Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī (Persian, 1207–73)
 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), author of "A Book
of Wisdom and Lies"
 Bernard de Mandeville (English, 1670–1733), author of The Fable
of the Bees
 John Gay (English, 1685–1732)
 Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (German, 1715–69)
 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, 1739–1811)
 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[edit]
 Literature

Major forms

 Novel
 Poem
 Drama
 Short story
 Novella

Genres

 Comedy
 Drama
 Epic
 Erotic
 Nonsense
 Lyric
 Mythopoeia
 Romance
 Satire
 Speculative fiction
 Tragedy
 Tragicomedy

Media

 Performance
o play
 Book

Techniques

 Prose
 Poetry
 History and lists

 History
o modern
 Outline
 Glossary of terms
 Books
 Writers
 Literary awards
o poetry

Discussion

 Criticism
 Theory (critical theory)
 Sociology
 Magazines

Literature portal

 v
 t
 e

 Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910)

 Rafael Pombo (1833 – 1912), Colombian fabulist, poet, writer
 Ambrose Bierce (1842 – ?1914)
 Joel Chandler Harris (1848 – 1908)
 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)
 Nankichi Niimi (1913 – 1943), Japanese author and poet
 Pierre Gamarra (1919 – 2009)
 Richard Adams (born 1920), author of Watership Down
 José Saramago (1922 – 2010)
  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
 Randall Kenan (born 1963)
 Guillermo del Toro[18] (born 1964), Mexican filmmaker
 Pendleton Ward (born 1982), American animator, creator
of Adventure Time

Notable fable collections[edit]

 Jataka tales
 Aesop's Fables by Aesop
 Panchatantra by Vishnu Sarma
 Baital Pachisi (also known as Vikram and The Vampire)
 Hitopadesha
 A Book of Wisdom and Lies by Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani
 Seven Wise Masters by Syntipas
 One Thousand and One Nights (also known as Arabian Nights, ca.
800–900)
 Fables (1668–94) by Jean de La Fontaine
 Fables and Parables (1779) by Ignacy Krasicki
 Fairy Tales (1837) by Hans Christian Andersen
 Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1881) by Joel Chandler
Harris
 Fantastic Fables (1899) by Ambrose Bierce
 Fables for Our Time (1940) by James Thurber
 99 Fables (1960) by William March
 Collected Fables (2000) by Ambrose Bierce, edited by S. T. Joshi
 Kalila and Dimna, Vol 1: Fables of Friendship and Betrayal (2008)
by Ramsay Wood
 Kalila and Dimna, Vol 2: Fables of Conflict and Intrigue (2011)
by Ramsay Wood

See also[edit]

 Novels portal

 Children's literature portal

See also: Category:Fabulists.

 Allegory
 Anthropomorphism
 Apologia
  Apologue
 "The Blind Man and the Lame"
 Fabel
 Fables
 Fairy tale
 Fantastique
 Ghost story
 Parable
 Proverb
 Wisdom
 "The Wolf and the Lamb"

Notes[edit]
1. ^ For example, in First Timothy, "neither give heed to fables...", and
"refuse profane and old wives' fables..." (1 Tim 1:4 and 4:4,
respectively).
2. ^ 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)
3. ^ Enzyklopädie des Märchens (1977), see "Fabel", "Äsopica" etc.
4. ^ Burkert 1992:121
5. ^ P. W. Buckham, p. 245
6. ^ Atim Oton (October 25, 2011). "Reaching African Children Through
Fables and Animation". Huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
7. ^ Ben E. Perry, "Introduction", p. xix, in Babrius and Phaedrus (1965)
8. ^ Translations of his 12 books of fables are available online
at oaks.nvg.org
9. ^ His two collections of 1727 and 1738 are available in one volume on
Google Books at books.google.co.uk
10. ^ His Bajki przypowiesci (Fables & Parables, 1779) are available
online at ug.edu.pl
11. ^ His ''Favole e Novelle'' (1785) is available on Google Books.
Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
12. ^ His ''Favole'' (1788) is available on Google Books.
Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
13. ^ 9 books of fables are available online in Spanish at amediavoz.com
14. ^ His ''Fabulas Literarias'' are available on Google Books.
Books.google.co.uk. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
15. ^ His five books of fables are available online in French
at shanaweb.netArchived 2010-06-12 at the Wayback Machine
16. ^ 5 books of fables are available online in Russian at friends-
partners.org
17. ^ Juan y Víctor Ataucuri García, "Fábulas Peruanas", Gaviota Azul
Editores, Lima, 2003 ISBN 9972-2561-0-3.
18. ^ Kermode, Mark (30 July 2013). "The Devil's Backbone: The Past Is
Never Dead . ." The Criterion Collection. The Criterion Collection.
Retrieved 25 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.
 References[edit]
Wikisource has the text of
the 1911 Encyclopædia
Britannica article Fable.

 Buckham, Philip Wentworth (1827). 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.
 Read fables by Aesop and La Fontaine

show

Folklore genres, types, and subtypes

show

Narrative

BNE: XX525475

GND: 4016112-2

LCCN: sh85046739

NDL: 00562664
Categories:
 Fables
 Folklore
 Literary techniques
 Persuasion techniques
 Short story types
 Traditional stories
Navigation menu
 Not logged in
 Talk
 Contributions
  Create account
 Log in
 Article
 Talk
 Read
 Edit
 View history
Search
Go

 Main page
 Contents
 Featured content
 Current events
 Random article
 Donate to Wikipedia
 Wikipedia store
Interaction
 Help
 About Wikipedia
 Community portal
 Recent changes
 Contact page
Tools
 What links here
 Related changes
 Upload file
 Special pages
 Permanent link
 Page information
 Wikidata item
 Cite this page
In other projects
 Wikimedia Commons
Print/export
 Create a book
 Download as PDF
 Printable version
Languages
 ‫العربية‬
 Cebuano
 Español
 हिन्दी
 Bahasa Indonesia
 Русский
 Tagalog
 ‫اردو‬
 中文
75 more
Edit links
 This page was last edited on 13 June 2019, at 07:28 (UTC).
 Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional
terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit
organization.