Fables and Fabulists: Ancient and ModernNewbigging, Thomas
History
Fables and Fabulists: Ancient and Modern
Newbigging, Thomas
Didactic literature -- History and criticism; Fables -- History and criticism
'The
Fables of Flora,' by Dr. Langhorne. Gaspey wrote a number of original
fables, as did also Dr. Aitken and Walter Brown. Cowper, the poet,
penned some elegant fables with which most readers are familiar. There
are 'Fables for Children, Young and Old, in Humorous Verse,' by W. E.
Staite (1830); Sheridan Wilson was the author of a volume entitled 'The
Bath Fables' (1850); finally, there is Frere's Fables for 'Five Years
Old.' Æsop's fables have been parodied and caricatured, with varying
success, by different writers, notably by an American author, under
the pseudonym of 'G. Washington Æsop.'
Of lady fabulists, the most notable is Maria de France, who lived in
the first half of the thirteenth century, and made a collection of one
hundred and six fables in French, which, she alleges, were translated
from the English of King Alfred.[68] There are several more modern
collections by members of the fair sex. One is entitled 'The Enchanted
Plants, Fables in Verse;' London, 1800. The name of the author is not
given, but evidently a lady. Mrs. Trimmer has her version of Æsop. A
volume of original fables was published by Mary Maria Colling, a writer
of humble rank, under the patronage of the once celebrated Mrs. Bray
(daughter of Thomas Stothard, R.A.), and Southey, the Poet Laureate. A
volume of fables, also original, by Mrs. Prosser, and 'Æsop's Fables in
Words of One Syllable,' by Mary Godolphin.
Besides the fabulists already named, there are, among the ancients,
Avian, Ademar, Rufus, Romulus, Alfonso and Poggio. Among the French,
Nivernois, and the Abbé Fénelon (1651-1715), author of 'Dialogues of
the Dead' and 'Telemachus.' Notwithstanding his reputation in his
own country as a fabulist, it must be allowed that his fables are
much too lengthy and prolix. The characters he gives to his animals
are unnatural, and their manners and speech pointless and tame.
Florian, an imitator of Yriarte, and a friend of Voltaire, by whose
advice he cultivated the literature of Spain; Boursalt, Boisard,
Ginguene, Jauffret, Le Grand and Armoult. Amongst the Germans are,
Gellert (1746), Nicolai, Hagedorn, Pfeffel and Lichtner. The Italian
fabulists are numerous: Tommaso Crudeli (1703-1743), Gian-Carlo
Passeroni (1713-1803), Giambattisti Roberti (1719-1786), Luigi Grillo
(1725-1790), Lorenzo Pignotti (1739-1812), who with an elegant diction
combines splendid descriptive powers; Clemente Bondi (1742-1821),
Aurelio de Giorgi Bertola (1753-1798), Luigi Clasio (1754-1825),
Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi (1754-1827), Gaetano Perego (1814-1868) and
Gaetano Polidori. Among Spanish fabulists, besides Yriarte, there is
Samaniego (1745-1801). Of Russian writers of fables we have already
spoken of Krilof, and there are besides, Chemnitzer, Dmitriev, Glinka,
Lomonosov (1711-1765), Goncharov and Alexander Sumarakov (1718-1777).
Of English writers not already referred to, the following may be named
as having tried their hand at the composition of fables: Addison, Sir
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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