fable
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(fā'bəl) 
n.
v., -bled, -bling, -bles. v.tr.
To recount as if true.
v.intr. Archaic
To compose fables.
n.
- A usually short narrative making an edifying or cautionary point and often employing as characters animals that speak and act like humans.
- A story about legendary persons and exploits.
- A falsehood; a lie.
v., -bled, -bling, -bles. v.tr.
To recount as if true.
v.intr. Archaic
To compose fables.
[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin fābula, from fārī, to speak.]
fabler fa'bler n.Related Videos:
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fable
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Narration intended to enforce a useful truth, especially one in which animals or inanimate objects speak and act like human beings. Unlike a folktale, it has a moral that is woven into the story and often explicitly formulated at the end. The Western fable tradition began with tales ascribed to Aesop. It flourished in the Middle Ages, reached a high point in 17th-century France in the works of Jean de La Fontaine, and found a new audience in the 19th century with the rise of children's literature. Fables also have ancient roots in the literary and religious traditions of India, China, and Japan.
For more information on fable, visit Britannica.com.
Roget's Thesaurus:
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fable
noun
- A narrative not based on fact: fiction, story. See real/imaginary.
- An entertaining and often oral account of a real or fictitious occurrence: anecdote, story, tale. Informal tall tale, yarn. See words.
- A traditional story or tale that has no proven factual basis: legend, myth. See belief/unbelief, real/imaginary, religion.
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fable, a brief tale in verse or prose that conveys a moral lesson, usually by giving human speech and manners to animals and inanimate things (see beast fable). Fables often conclude with a moral, delivered in the form of an epigram. A very old form of story related to folklore and proverbs, the fable in Europe descends from tales attributed to Aesop, a Greek slave in the 6th century BCE: his fable of the fox and the grapes has given us the phrase ‘sour grapes’. An Indian collection, the Bidpai, dates back to about 300 CE. The French fabulist La Fontaine revived the form in the 17th century with his witty verse adaptations of Greek fables. More recent examples are Kipling's Just So Stories (1902), Thurber's Fables of Our Time (1940), and Orwell's Animal Farm (1945).
adjectives: fabular, fabulous.
See also allegory, exemplum.
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Short comic tales making a moral point about human nature, usually through animal characters behaving in human ways. The great majority are first recorded in Ancient Greece or India; they became very popular in medieval Europe in both oral and literary versions, especially those about the trickster Reynard the Fox. By now, many are regarded as traditional English tales, their foreign origins forgotten.
fable, in literature, an anecdote with a moral in which the characters are animals behaving as humans. The fable was a popular literary genre in Greece, as in other countries, at all times. Quintilian observes that it appeals particularly to the simple and uneducated. It is not found in Homer, but occurs in Hesiod (see WORKS AND DAYS) and Archilochus. By the end of the fifth century BC Greek fables were generally attributed to Aesop; they were probably written in prose. A collection of ‘Tales of Aesop’ was made by Demetrius of Phalerum. The earliest surviving collection of fables is that of Babrius, probably of the second century AD, written in choliambic verse (see METRE, GREEK
Latin authors frequently refer to fables which we know from Aesop. The earliest Latin collection was that of Phaedrus, of the first century AD, written in iambic verse (see METRE, GREEK
Columbia Encyclopedia:
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fable
fable, brief allegorical narrative, in verse or prose, illustrating a moral thesis or satirizing human beings. The characters of a fable are usually animals who talk and act like people while retaining their animal traits. The oldest known fables are those in the Panchatantra, a collection of fables in Sanskrit, and those attributed to the Greek Aesop, perhaps the most famous of all fabulists. Other important writers of fables include Jean de La Fontaine, whose fables are noted for their sophistication and wit, the Russian poet Ivan Krylov, and the German dramatist and critic Gotthold Lessing, who also wrote a critical essay on the fable. In England the tradition of the fable was continued in the 17th and 18th cent. by John Dryden and John Gay. The use of the fable in the 20th cent. can be seen in James Thurber's Fables for Our Time (1940) and in George Orwell's political allegory, Animal Farm (1945). The American poet Marianne Moore wrote poems quite similar to fables in their use of animals and animal traits to comment on human experience; she also published an excellent translation of The Fables of La Fontaine (1954).
Bibliography
See H. J. Blackham, The Fable as Literature (1985) and bibliography comp. by P. Carnes (1985).
Poetry Glossary:
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Fable
A poetic story that illustrates a moral or teaches a lesson, usually in which animals or inanimate objects are represented as characters.
Word Tutor:
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fable
IN BRIEF: A very short story, usually dealing with animals, that teaches a lesson.
The old fable of the hare and the tortoise is just as good now, and just as true, as when it was first written.
— C.A. Stoddard.
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Random House Word Menu:
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categories related to 'fable'
- Schools, Styles, and Forms - fable: narration demonstrating a useful truth, esp. in which animals speak as humans; legendary, supernatural tale
- Myths, Legends, and Fables - fable: story with fantastic events and creatures having allegorical meaning; legend
See crossword solutions for the clue
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For other uses, see Fable (disambiguation). For a comparison of fable with other kinds of stories, see Traditional story.
Fable is a literary genre. A fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized (given human qualities such as verbal communication), and that illustrates or leads to an interpretation of a moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly in a pithy maxim.
A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech and other powers of humankind.
Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the King James Version of the New Testament, "μύθος" ("mythos") was rendered by the translators as "fable"[1] in First and Second Timothy, in Titus and in First Peter.[2]
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Contents
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History
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.
Ante-Aesopic fable
Several parallel animal fables in Sumerian and Akkadian are among those that Erich Ebeling introduced to modern Western readers;[4] there are comparable fables from Egypt's Middle Kingdom,[5] and Hebrew fables such as the "king of trees" in Book of Judges 9:8-15 and "the thistle and the cedar tree" in II Kings 14:9.[6] The most recent study on the ante-Aesopic fables or the fables in ancient Near Eastern languages by Akimoto discovers the rich fable traditions in ancient Mesopotamia and Anatolia; for example, the Ninurta-uballitsu Assyrian fable collection which is the oldest known fable collection with the compiler's autograph and the completion date 883 BCE, the Hurrian-Hittite bilingual fable collections are embedded in a long myth and the storyteller tells after each fable his/her own moral.[7]
Aesopic or Aesop's fable
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").[8] Epicharmus of Kos and Phormis are reported as having been among the first to invent comic fables.[9] 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
African oral culture[10] 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, breathtaking 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.
India
Hundreds of fables were composed in ancient India during the first millennium BC, often as stories within frame stories. 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.[11] 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 fables from the Middle East were the One Thousand and One Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights.
Europe
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.[12] La Fontaine's model was subsequently emulated by England's John Gay (1685–1732);[13] Poland's Ignacy Krasicki (1735–1801);[14] Italy's Lorenzo Pignotti (1739–1812)[15][verification needed] and Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi (1754–1827);[16][verification needed] Serbia's Dositej Obradović (1742–1811); Spain's Félix María de Samaniego (1745–1801)[17] and Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa (1750–1791);[18][verification needed] France's Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755–94);[19] and Russia's Ivan Krylov (1769–1844).[20]
Modern era
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.
Classic fabulists
- Aesop (mid-6th century BCE), author 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, somethimes 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.
- Walter of England c.1175
- Marie de France (12th century).
- 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).
- Bernard de Mandeville (English, 1670–1733), author of The Fable of the Bees.
- John Gay (English, 1685–1732).
- 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, 1742–1811).
- 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 fabulists
- Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910).
- Rafael Pombo (1833–1912) Colombian fabulist, poet and writer.
- Nico Maniquis (1834–1912).
- Ambrose Bierce (1842 – ?1914).
- 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).
- José Saramago (1922–2010).
- Randall Kenan (born 1963).
- 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
- Stephen Stapley (born 1953), author of Fables of Fabulous Animals
- Aaron Weiss (born 1979), lead singer of mewithoutYou
Notable fables
- The Jataka Tales
- Aesop's Fables by Aesop
- Panchatantra by Vishnu Sarma
- Baital Pachisi (also known as Vikram and The Vampire)
- Hitopadesha
- Seven Wise Masters by Syntipas
- One Thousand and One Nights (also known as Arabian Nights, ca. 800–900)
- The Fable of the Bees (1714) by Bernard de Mandeville
- Fables and Parables (1779) by Ignacy Krasicki
- The Emperor's New Clothes (1837) by Hans Christian Andersen
- Bunt (Revolt, 1922) by Władysław Reymont
- Fables for Our Time (1940) and Further Fables for Our Time (1956) by James Thurber
- Animal Farm (1945) by George Orwell
- 99 Fables (1960) by William March
- Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)
- The Thief of Always (1992) by Clive Barker
- The Princess and the Tin Box by James Thurber
- The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari (1998) by Robin Sharma
See also
- Allegory
- Anthropomorphism
- Apologia
- Apologue
- Fabel
- Fables (comics)
- Fairy tale
- Fantastique
- Ghost story
- Parable
- Proverb
- Wisdom
Notes
- ^ 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).
- ^ 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) - ^ Enzyklopädie des Märchens (1977), see "Fabel", "Äsopica" etc.
- ^ Ebeling, Die Babylonishe Fabel und ihre Bedeutung für die Literaturgeschichte (1931).
- ^ E. Brunner-Traut, Altägyptische Tiergeschichte und Fabel (1970)
- ^ Both noted by Walter Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Early Archaic Greek Culture (1992), p 121 note 4.
- ^ Kazya Akimoto, Ante-Aesopica: Fable Traditions of Ancient Near East (Vanderbilt University 2010: ProQuest)
- ^ Burkert 1992:121
- ^ P. W. Buckham, p. 245
- ^ Atim Oton (October 25, 2011). "Reaching African Children Through Fables and Animation". Huffingtonpost.com. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/atim-oton/arits-fables-kids-series_b_1001656.html. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
- ^ Ben E. Perry, "Introduction", p. xix, in Babrius and Phaedrus (1965)
- ^ Translations of his 12 books of fables are available online at oaks.nvg.org
- ^ His two collections of 1727 and 1738 are available in one volume on Google Books at books.google.co.uk
- ^ His Bajki przypowiesci (Fables & Parables, 1779) are available online at ug.edu.pl
- ^ "His ''Favole e Novelle'' (1785) is available on Google Books". Books.google.co.uk. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6CSQZlaZjE0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=pignotti+++favola&source=bl&ots=n8Mlm8LQld&sig=ubnkrD47WARSbDJKUXgNCj7_Vgo&hl=en&ei=8DhNTP-rOt3NjAeEtLDYDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
- ^ "His ''Favole'' (1788) is available on Google Books". Books.google.co.uk. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rKoTAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=pignotti+++favola&source=gbs_similarbooks_s&cad=1#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
- ^ 9 books of fables are available online in Spanish at amediavoz.com
- ^ "His ''Fabulas Literarias'' are available on Google Books". Books.google.co.uk. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Zr0DAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Tom%C3%A1s+de+Iriarte+y+Oropesa+fabulas&source=bl&ots=WbHNxf22GV&sig=zrfOpn4x0K8bAykQBwrXmq_zHfQ&hl=en&ei=mElNTMGZO5mW4gbNyLCaDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
- ^ His five books of fables are available online in French at shanaweb.net
- ^ 5 books of fables are available online in Russian at friends-partners.org
References
- Buckham, Philip Wentworth (1827). Theatre of the Greeks. http://books.google.com/books?id=IjAZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+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.
External links
- Fairy tales and fables traditions and reality through imagination
- Fables from around the world
- The Dragon-Tyrant
- A collection of Fables and Teaching-Stories from All Cultures and Traditions
- Fables - Collection and guide to fables for children
- Imaginexus A collection of interconnected stories that anyone can edit
- Parable of the Week Modern fables, parables and maxims
- Fables of Fabulous Animals, E-book
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This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Translations:
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Fable
Dansk (Danish)
n. - fabel, løgnehistorie, handling
v. tr. - fortælle opdigtede historier, fortælle løgnehistorier
v. intr. - fortælle fabler
Nederlands (Dutch)
fantaseren, fabeltje, fabel, plot
Français (French)
n. - (Littérat) fable, légende, apologue, histoire (moraliste), histoire (un mensonge), conte de fée
v. tr. - raconter/dire des fables, parler/décrire à la manière d'une fable
v. intr. - inventer, fabuler, (fig) raconter des histoires
Deutsch (German)
n. - Fabel, Märchen
v. - (er)dichten, fabulieren, erfinden
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - μύθος, θρύλος
Italiano (Italian)
storia, favola
Português (Portuguese)
n. - fábula (f)
Русский (Russian)
басня, ложь, излюбленная тема, предание
Español (Spanish)
n. - cuento chino, fábula, leyenda
v. tr. - inventar, contar falsamente
v. intr. - contar fábulas, fingir, mentir
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - fabel, saga, osanning, handling
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
寓言, 谎言, 神话, 煞有介事地讲述, 虚构, 作寓言
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 寓言, 謊言, 神話
v. tr. - 煞有介事地講述
v. intr. - 虛構, 作寓言
한국어 (Korean)
n. - 우화 , 전설, 꾸민 이야기
v. tr. - 꾸며내다
v. intr. - 우화를 짓다
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 寓話, 伝説, 作り話
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) خرافه , حكايه على لسان الحيوان
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - משל, אגדה, בדותה
v. tr. - תיאר תיאור בדוי
v. intr. - סיפר או כתב בדותות
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