Nihil sub sole novum

Narrative – Parables

Day 1 – The Lake Parables of Jesus 

Read Matthew 13.1-13.  Make a list of all the parables that Jesus tells in this chapter, giving to each a title.  Summarize each parable, and compose one sentence to express the lesson of each parable.

Day 2 – Parables of Divine Mercy 

Read Luke 15.  Again, make a list of the parables that Jesus tells in this chapter of Luke, giving to each a title.  Summarize each parable, and compose one sentence to express the lesson of each parable.

Day 3 – Fables and Parables

What do fables and parables have in common?  How do parables differ from fables?  Answer these two questions in a paragraph of three to five sentences.

Day 4 – Parable of the Broken Window

Frédéric Bastiat was a French Catholic economist of the 19th century, who is buried in the church of San Luigi dei francesi in Rome.  His essay “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen” introduces the idea of opportunity cost through the Parable of the Broken Window.  Read this essay, in French, if you know French.  Summarize the parable, and explain its lesson (and thereby explain what is meant by “opportunity cost”).

Write Your Own Fable

Day 1 – First Draft

You have done some preliminary work on your fable.  You have thought about the animals and their characteristics and about a situation in which to embed the fable.  Do you have a moral in mind?  Or a fable that you would like to retell in your own style or updated to the present day?  Write your first draft!  And give it to a parent or sibling to read and ask them to tell you what they like about it and what could be improved.

Day 2 – Second Draft

Incorporate the feedback you received from your parent or sibling into a second draft of your fable.  Then record yourself reading it with expression.  

Day 3 – Third Draft

Listen to the recording of your fable that you made.  What works well?  What might not work as well as it could?  Revise your fable accordingly.

Day 4 – Final Draft

Recopy your fable in your finest handwriting.  Illustrate it.  

More 19th Century Fables & Beyond

We now turn to the English-speaking world.

Day 1 – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson (d. 1882) was an American thinker and writer.  Retell this story in prose from the perspective of the mountain.

Emerson’s The Mountain and the Squirrel (1846)

Day 2  – Christina Rossetti

Rossetti (d. 1894) was an English writer (and sister of painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti).  Familiarize yourself with the fable of the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, from Aesop to Marie de France to Rossetti.  What is the moral of Rossetti’s poem?  Is there a moral?  Has she shifted your perspective on the country mouse?  Can you rewrite Aesop’s The Dog in the Manger in a similar way to shift the perspective onto the dog?

Aesop’s Town Mouse and Country Mouse

Marie de France’s The City Mouse and the Country Mouse

Rossetti’s City Mouse and Country Mouse

Aesop’s The Dog in the Manger

Day 3 – Robert Louis Stevenson

You have probably read from Stevenson’s (d. 1894) A Child’s Garden of Verse.  He also wrote fables.  Read Stevenson’s The Carthorses and the Saddlehorse.  First, who do you think would be of higher status among horses – a carthorse or a saddlehorse?  In the fable, how is the saddlehorse judging the status of the carthorses?  And how are the carthorses judging the status of the saddlehorse? What is the moral of this fable?  The Oxford English Dictionary defines irony as“language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect” or  “an outcome cruelly, humorously, or strangely at odds with assumptions or expectations.“  How does Stevenson deploy irony to impart the moral of his fable?

Stevenson’s The Carthorses and the Saddlehorse

* Note that kanaka is a term used to identify Pacific Islanders, here derogatorily.

Day 4 – Fables Today

What has become of the fable in the present day?  Have you read fables, other than those by Aesop, before this course?  Is there still a vibrant tradition of fable-telling?  How has it been adapted to the present day?  Think of a modern-day fable that you know.  Introduce the fable, and retell it in your own words.  Analyze how it continues the tradition of fables and how it innovates.