Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies
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- The Uses of the Fable in Medieval and Modern English Literature
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- 2 Development of the Fable as a Literary Genre, Its Specific Features and Its Didactic Roles
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Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies
English Language and Literature
Daniela Kleinová
The Uses of the Fable in Medieval and Modern English Literature Bachelor‘s Diploma Thesis
Supervisor: prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A.
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author‘s signature
Acknowledgement I would like to express my thanks to my supervisor prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A., for her helpful guidance and valuable advice provided to me during my work on this thesis. 1
Table of Contents
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Introduction _______________________________________________________ 2 2
Development of the Fable as a Literary Genre, Its Specific Features and Its Didactic Roles ____________________________________________________________ 4
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Chaucer’s Period __________________________________________________ 12
3.1 The Canterbury Tales ________________________________________________ 13 3.2
The Nun’s Priest’s Tale _______________________________________________ 14 4
Orwell’s Period ____________________________________________________ 18
4.1 Animal Farm _______________________________________________________ 18 5
Comparison of The Nun’s Priest’s Tale and the Animal Farm ________________ 27
6 Conclusion _______________________________________________________ 34
Works Cited __________________________________________________________ 36 Czech Résumé ________________________________________________________ 40
English Résumé _______________________________________________________ 41 Appendices ___________________________________________________________ 42
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The thesis focuses on the uses of the fable in texts by two different authors from two different periods of British literature: George Orwell‘s Animal Farm and Geoffrey Chaucer‘s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale from The Canterbury Tales. The thesis compares and contrasts the ways the authors work with the genre of the fable while illustrating the conditions of specific societies in their stories. Chaucer in his pieces of art works with numerous genres, including the fable. Similarly, although Orwell‘s Animal Farm is not a typical demonstration of the fable as its main idea criticizes political events, both stories concentrate on negative features and values of people and their misbehaviour is depicted by the performance of animals. For this purpose, in the second chapter, I would like to explore the fable as a literary genre, its historical background and its development from the first appearance until the last century by means of the two texts in particular. Regarding the significance of fables I concentrate on the work of Aesop and other well-known fabulists and outline the most important aspects of their works which might have been a possible influence on Chaucer and Orwell. In the third and the fourth chapter I concentrate on The Nun’s Priest’s Tale and the Animal Farm in detail. The main focus of the chapters is to analyse the features of the fable and examine the authors‘ strategies and motives for using the animal characters. The thesis intends to observe the way animals are portrayed in the two texts as they play the most important roles as characters there. Each of the authors uses different animals to express certain qualities of the people, but some of them are similar to each other. Accordingly, I emphasize some of the features of the fables shared with the fables by Aesop.
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The works, their characters and the outcome of the authors‘ specific uses of the fable are compared and contrasted in the fifth chapter. I focus primarily on their usage of animal and human characters, settings, usage of language and of course the historical backgrounds of the periods in which they were written.
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Specific Features and Its Didactic Roles The reasons why fables (from the Latin fabula, ―a telling‖) have always been very popular among readers are numerous. First of all, they have a lot in common with fairy tales. The plot is usually very simple and characters are very similar to those in fairy tales or folktales. One of the common features is that inanimate things and animals think and converse like rational beings, although it is not always a necessary feature in a fairy tale. The most distinctive aspect of fables is that they always lead to an interpretation of a moral lesson. Baldick in The concise Oxford dictionary of literary terms describes the fable as ―a brief tale in verse or prose that conveys a moral lesson, usually by giving human speech and manners to animals and inanimate things (Baldick, 80). It aims to imprint the minds of people with good values and virtuous qualities by telling a simple, funny story that is easy to remember. The moral might be placed either at the end of a fable or rarely at the beginning. In modern fables it is usually inserted into the story making it more difficult for readers to detect. Bussey argues that the significance of fables lies in their ability to influence people‘s minds and their behaviour: ―Fables are, in fact, admirably calculated to make lasting impressions on the minds of all persons; but especially those which are unformed and uncultivated ; and to convey to them moral instruction‖ (Bussey, 6). The presence of animals is crucial in fables and there are some typical situations which are more or less present in each of them. Some of the species occur more often than others, representing the certain qualities that work almost as stereotypes. For example a fox is portrayed in numerous fables where it usually plays a role of a negative or rather cunning character, and its main qualities are artifice and revenge. In
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the confrontation of two animal characters, whilst one of them is very little (a mouse), slow (a turtle) or ―weak‖, it very often happens that this one comes out of story as a hero, while the strong and big animal is given a moral lesson.
The fable is written in an antithesis structure, which means that there are two opposed characters and their direct speech or a dialogue. It contains typical features which distinguish it from other, similar genres, e.g. exemplum, which is a ―short tale used as an example to illustrate a moral point, usually in a sermon or other didactic work‖ (Baldick, 76). In the medieval literature it is quite difficult to distinguish between those two, even though it is generally believed that the fable is intended for a wider readership. Other similar genres are the parable and allegory. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica 9, although a parable resembles a fable in its Middle Eastern origin and the essential qualities of brevity and definiteness, it differs in the exclusion of anthropomorphic animals or inanimate creatures and in the inherent plausibility of the story itself Similarly, the fable is allegorical in a broadest sense, but it differs from allegory in that the moral lesson it teaches is given at the end of the tale rather than being intermingled with the story (133).
According to Mocná, the narrator of a fable is impersonal, although in the case of modern fables written in humorous and ironic style he might introduce arbitrary gestures. She further points out, that the fable might be serious or comic – satirical or humorous. By means of its function, we distinguish a didactic fable, a political fable and a poetic fable. A didactic fable intends to teach a moral lesson, a political fable is usually satiric and its aim is to affect a society and a poetical fable‘s intention is to amuse (Mocná, 33). The fable is one of the oldest genres of oral literature. The Western tradition of the fable begins with Aesop and most people associate the fable exceedingly with him. 6
Aesop, who was an Ethiopian slave, is credited with a number of fables. However, his existence is not certain although his name is well-known all over the world and Aesop’s Fables have been translated into many languages. According to Bussey, the best classical authorities described Aesop to have flourished in the time of Solon and Pisistratus, about the middle of the sixth century (Bussey, 11). After the first appearance of the fable many authors started to write similar tales, borrowing certain themes from Aesop. One of the first Aesop‘s successors was a Roman fabulist, Phaedrus. He produced a collection of fables, adapting many Aesopian themes and features. His work later influenced tales of many succeeding fabulists: Not until Phaedrus were the Aesop stories meant to be read consecutively as literature. His treatment of them greatly influenced the way in which they were used by later writers, notably by the 17 th -century French poet and fabulist Jean de La Fontaine (123). Aesopian pattern is significant for its conclusive sentence at the end of the story which is in fact the moral of the fable. It is called epimythium (the term used by Burns in ―Aesop‘s Fables‖). For example, the epimythium of the fable “The Lion and the Mouse” – where the significantly stronger lion finally needs help from a little mouse is often given as: ―Even the weak and small may be of help to those much mightier than themselves‖ (Aesop). Burns states that less frequently, the Aesopian tradition features a
―provide a link between a reader and the setting of the story‖. Burns further points out that: The Aesopian fables are frequently identified by a series of letters and numbers which are meant to define the collection source as fables may vary in language or form depending on the preferences of their adaptor or compiler. For instance, 7
the well-known story of ―The Fox and the Grapes‖ is sometimes referred to as ―P 15,‖ which marks it as part of Ben Edwin Perry‘s definitive modern fable collection, Aesopica: A Series of Texts Relating to Aesop or Ascribed to Him or
Other well-known collections that utilize this methodology are volumes assembled by Babrius, Jean de la Fontaine, and Phaedrus (Burns). Although many scholars deny Aesop‘s existence and no writings by him have survived, Aesop‘s fables have been told and re-told, then written and re-written countless times and have also been widely adapted for the stage and the screen. Among the classical authors who developed the Aesopian model were also the Roman poet Horace, the Greek biographer Plutarch, and the Greek satirist Lucian. The fable flourished notably in the Middle Ages, and the most significant fabulists along with Geoffrey Chaucer were Marie de France, Martin Luther and Hans Sachs. The medieval fable gave rise to the beast epic, which is a ―usually longer tale written in pseudo-epic style‖ (Baldick, 23). The oral tradition of the fable can be found in Asian cultures as well. However, for instance in China it was not so natural for religious people to accept animals to behave like human beings in the tales. Only later have Buddhists accepted the idea: In China the full development of fable was hindered by traditions of thought that prohibited the Chinese from accepting any notion of animals behaving and thinking as human beings. Between the 4 th and 6
th century, however, Chinese Buddhists adapted fables from Buddhist India as a way to further the understanding of religious doctrines. Their compilation is known as Po-yü ching (Encyclopaedia Britannica 4, 644).
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The animal characters in Japanese fables were usually ―small but intelligent animals getting the better of large and stupid ones‖ (644). The Aesopian traditional fables were introduced by Jesuit missionaries who came to Japan in the 16 th century and ―their influence has persisted into modern times‖ (644). The fables have been very often used as tools to educate in classes. The moral which they give is something that pupils easily remember and may experience in their future lives. Lynn points out the following: True, they have been schoolboy fodder for a long time. From at least Roman times through the nineteenth century they were considered an appropriate part of the education of young males. Both Phaedrus' first century text and La Fontaine's Fables were memorized, recited, and paraphrased as part of the school curriculum (Lynn). Probably the second most significant fabulist after Aesop is the French poet, Jean de La Fontaine, who followed the Aesopian pattern in the seventeenth century. He worked with the classic themes from the Aesopian tradition and created Fables, which is a collection of 237 tales. What is specific about Fontaine‘s Fables is that the humours function of the fable is more notable than the intention to emphasize the moral of the story. La Fontaine contrived miniature comedies and dramas in which he portrays the image of the social hierarchy of his day… Fables also occasionally reflect contemporary political issues and intellectual preoccupations, but his chief and most comprehensive theme remains that of traditional fable, that means the fundamental, everyday moral experience of mankind throughout the ages (Macropaedia Britannica 7, 65).
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La Fontaine‘s unique style of writing can be seen when comparing the Aesopian fable The Hare and the Tortoise with the same story re-written in verses by La Fontaine. The tale tells a story of a hare who considers himself to be the fastest animal and agrees to run a race with a tortoise. He ridicules her and decides to take a nap midway through the course. The slow-moving tortoise finally wins the race and the hare is taught a lesson in both versions. The first extract is from the Aesopian fable and the second one is LaFontainian:
almost out of sight at once, but soon stopped and, to show his
contempt for the Tortoise, lay down to have a nap (Aesop).
She starts; she moils on, modestly and lowly,
And with a prudent wisdom hastens slowly; But he, meanwhile, the victory despises,
Thinks lightly of such prizes, Believes it for his honour
To take late start and gain on her. So, feeding, sitting at his ease,
He meditates of what you please… (La Fontaine).
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By comparing these two short extracts from both fables, we can assume that La Fontaine enriches the simple story using expressive characterization of the events. In my opinion, La Fontaine‘s version of the story is very playful therefore his usage of satire is much more efficient. His fables are very readable and this might have made the genre of the fable more attractive. Among the most significant fabulists in Slavic literature is La Fontaine‘s romantic successor, Ivan Andreyevich Krylov. He also borrowed some of the themes whether from Aesop or La Fontaine. However, what I find entrancing about adopted stories is that although the basic messages of them are identical, the animal behaviour, setting and events of the plot of each author are still matchless. Krylov produced several books of fables and ―his salty, down-to-earth parables emphasized common sense, hard work, and love of justice and made him one of the first Russian writers to reach a broad audience
(Macropaedia Britannica 7, 16).
The English author of the fables at that time was John Gay, who also produced a collection of fables influenced by the classical fabulists. According to Mocná, one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, developed an integrated theory of the fable called On the Use of Animals in Fables. She points out that in contrast to La Fontaine, Lessing preferred didactic function of the fable, writing very short, uncomplicated stories which main purpose was to emphasise the moral (Mocná, 34). During the nineteenth century there was a rise of literature for children. Among the most celebrated authors who wrote fables were Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Grahame, Rudyard Kipling, Hilaire Belloc, Joel Chandler Harris, Beatrix Potter and Hans Christian Andersen, Oscar Wilde, Antoine Saint-Exupéry, J.R.R. Tolkien and James Thurber. The last five authors mentioned did not write primarily for children, and their stories share many features with the classical fable. 11
The most distinctive aspect of the fables written for children and those written for adults is the message they carry. They either criticize some conventional human demerits or they portray serious problems in specific society, including political issues. Although the basic concept of animals behaving like humans remains unchanged the stories for adult readership are often more sophisticated and not so easy to perceive. The fable as a literary genre has gone through several modifications from its first appearance to the modern times. First of all, the shaping of the genre has been influenced by the authors who worked with it. Many significant writers began their works under the influence of the classical fabulists as Aesop and Phaedrus. Their themes have been affecting fabulists from different countries, or even continents. Although using primarily the classical Aesopian pattern, each of the fabulists has also enriched the particular fable with the individual style of writing. While some of the authors concentrate distinctly on the humorous function of the fable as it is a story that should be readable and enjoyable, others consider the moral to be the essential thus the most emphasised feature. By a close reading of the selected fables, a reader can not only identify the difference between the uses of the genre among the various authors, but also assume their peculiar motives and possible intentions to write the moral story.
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