English Fables
Fables continued into the Early Modern Era to provide compelling sources for retelling for contemporary readers.
Day 1 – Roger L’Estrange
Robert L’Estrange published a collection of fables by Aesop and by others, which he translated into English, including those by Laurentius Abstemius, an Italian, who published his fables in Latin in the Hecatomythium in 1495. You may read the Latin, a literal Latin translation into English, and L’Estrange’s more “idiomatic” translation here. L’Estrange also added a reflection.
Robert L’Estrange’s Translation of Laurentius Abstemius’s A Country Man and a River
Write a reflection in the style of L’Estrange for one of the fables of Aesop that you have read.
Day 2 – John Gay
John Gay, English poet and dramatist, wrote Fifty-One Fables in Verse for the youngest son of King George II of England, age six at the time (1727).
On the writing of fables, John Gay wrote in a letter to Jonathan Swift (author of Gulliver’s Travels),
You seemed not to approve of my writing more fables. Those I am now writing, have a prefatory discourse before each of them, by way of epistle, and the morals of most of them are of the political kind, which makes them run into a greater length than those I have already published. I have already finished fifteen or sixteen ; four or five more would make a volume of the same size as the first. Though this is a kind of writing that appears very easy, I find it is the most difficult of any that I ever undertook. After I have invented one fable, and finished it, I despair of finding out another; but I have a moral or two more, which I wish to write upon. (Source)
In response, Swift wrote
But you have quite misunderstood me ; for there is no writing I esteem more than fables, nor anything so difficult to succeed in, which, however, you have done excellently well, and I have often admired your happiness in such a kind of performance, which I have frequently endeavoured at in vain. I remember I acted as you seem to hint; I found a moral first, and then studied for a fable, but could do nothing that pleased me, and so left off that scheme forever. I remember one, which was to represent what scoundrels rise in armies by a long war, wherein I supposed the lion was engaged ; and having lost all his animals of worth, at last Sergeant Hog came to be brigadier, and Corporal Ass a colonel, etc. (Source)
Swift and Gay both began with the moral that they wanted to impart. Read John Gay’s and Aesop’s fables about the Hare with Many Friends. Reflect on this fable. What is Aesop’s lesson? What is John Gay’s? How might this fable have a meaning in the present-day, to a reader such as yourself? Write a paragraph on the moral of the fable of the Hare with Many Friends. Support your answers to the first two questions with direct references to each writer’s fable; each answer will likely need more than one answer. As you answer the third question, offer specific examples of how the fable can be relevant today.
Aesop’s The Hare with Many Friends
John Gay’s The Hare and Many Friends (alternately)
Day 3 – Thomas Day
In The History of Sandford and Merton (three volumes from 1783 to 1789), a best-selling children’s book, Thomas Day collected fables and other moralizing tales within the story of two boys, Tommy Merton and Harry Sandford.
Thomas Day’s Androcles and the Lion (alternately, alternately)
How does Thomas Day continue the tradition of fables, and how does he further innovate in his telling of fables? As you answer these two questions, provide support from the text in the form of a direct reference to the text for each way that he continues tradition or innovates.
Day 4 – Essays on Fables
By the 18th century, fables had not lost their relevance, nor did writers feel as though they could not improve upon them to update them for their present-day. And fables also become a topic about which these same authors wrote essays. As you think about the fable that you will write, which fables have you most enjoyed? And least enjoyed? What do you think makes a good fable? Write a paragraph about three characteristics of a good fable. For each characteristic, give an example from one of the fables that you have read.
Nihil sub sole novum 