In the following essay, Patterson refutes the contention that fables were meant exclusively as moral or educational tools, arguing instead that the English fables of the Middles Ages and Renaissance were intended as political commentary.
In the following excerpt, Lewis examines the ways in which British writers such as John Ogilby and Samuel Richardson either modified Aesop's fables or alluded to them in their own writing in order to reflect the political instability that occurred in the country during the late-seventeenth to mid-eighteenth centuries.
In the following essay, Wheatley asserts that Henryson's edition of Aesopian fables depends on paraphrases and interpretations, intended to educate medieval readers about social or spiritual issues.
In the following essay, Patterson maintains that in seventeenth-century England the Aesopic fable was refined into a verbal weapon. No longer limited in range to local or temporal political issues, the genre was used to dealt with larger, more universal issues such as the conflict between absolute and parliamentary power.
In the following essay, Lenaghan traces the textual history of William Caxton's 1484 English translation of Aesop's fables, discusses the popularity of the fable format during the Middle Ages. Lenaghan suggests that Caxton's treatment of the fable anticipates aspects of Renaissance humanism.
In the following essay, Hanazaki examines the function of animals, and particuarly bird characters, in eighteenth-century British Aesopic fables employed for purposes of political satire.
In the following essay, Henderson examines ways in which medieval fabulists freely modified Aesopic fables—sometimes adding elaborate morals to suit their needs—and looks critically at the rigidity of modern techniques for finding meaning in medieval works.
In the following essay, Megas presents some oral Greek parallels to certain fables of Aesop in order to show how the oral tradition preserves the original relationships between animal actors and between action and moral better than the written tradition does.
In the following essay, Runte compares the Aesopic fable with the work of French writer Jean de la Fontaine, identifying this distinction: while Aesopic fables treat the reader as a student to be instructed, La Fontaine's fables in verse treat the reader as a coparticipant in interpreting the fable's meaning.
In the following essay, published in a second imprint in 1764 and reprinted in 1965, Dodsley describes the characteristics of the fable including its ability to convey moral truth without an offensive air of moral superiority.
In the following excerpt, Blount compares the Aesopic fable to folktale and fairytale, and describes the effect that illustrating fables has on the interpretation of a fable.
In the following excerpt, Daly asserts that the morals that appearat the end of Aesopic fables are additions made by later generations which do nothing to clarify the meaning of the original tale.
In the following excerpt, reprinted in 1975, Richardson discusses the reasons for editing Aesop that motivated Roger L 'Estrange and S. Croxall and Richardson himself especially in regard to the modification of the moral.
In the following essay, Baldwin informs the reader that the moral in the fables of the Spanish Aesop under consideration is usually presented as a negative warning of punishment in a direct statement outside the story directed toward peasants more often than toward the aristocracy.
In the following excerpt, reprinted in 1964, Jacobs discusses how the text of Aesop's fables has been preserved and changed as it passed through successive translators and publishers from antiquity to his day.
In the following excerpt, Snavely discusses how Jehan de Vignay translated Aesop's fables in a fairly literal manner from Latin prose versions into Old French.
In the following excerpt, Chesterton describes each animal species in Aesop's fables as a symbol of a single fixed meaning, which enables the interaction of animal figures to convey its timeless message.
In the following essay, Cons suggests that Aesop's fable of "The Farmer and the River" descends from a neolithic saying that comments on the infrequency of finding useable stone axe-heads in a river.
