Fables and Fabulists: Ancient and Modern

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Newbigging Thomas. Fables and Fabulists: Ancient and Modern

CHAPTER I. DEFINITION OF FABLE

CHAPTER II. CHARACTERISTICS OF FABLES

CHAPTER III. THE MORAL AND APPLICATION OF FABLES

CHAPTER IV. FABULISTS AS CENSORS

CHAPTER V. LESSONS TAUGHT BY FABLES

CHAPTER VI. ÆSOP

CHAPTER VII. STORIES RELATED OF ÆSOP

CHAPTER VIII. THE ÆSOPIAN FABLES

CHAPTER IX. PHÆDRUS AND BABRIUS

CHAPTER X. THE FABLE IN HISTORY AND MYTH

CHAPTER XI. HINDOO, ARABIAN, AND PERSIAN FABLES. – PILPAY, LOCMAN. – THE 'GESTA ROMANORUM.'

CHAPTER XII. MODERN FABULISTS: LA FONTAINE, GAY

CHAPTER XIII. MODERN FABULISTS: DODSLEY, NORTHCOTE

CHAPTER XIV. MODERN FABULISTS: LESSING, YRIARTE, KRILOF

CHAPTER XV. OTHER AND OCCASIONAL FABULISTS

CHAPTER XVI. CONCLUSION

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There is an archness about the best fables that creates interest and awakens curiosity; and it is the quality of such that, whilst simple enough as stories to be understood and enjoyed by the young, they are at the same time calculated to interest, amuse, instruct and admonish those more advanced in years.

A fable should carry its moral without the telling; nevertheless the application is often worth supplying, because it puts, or should put, the lesson taught by the fable in a terse and impressive form. Above and beyond all, a fable should possess the quality of simplicity, and whilst easy to be understood, it should have force and appropriateness.

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The epic and the novel (fables of a kind), like some paintings, cover a wide canvas, and the details are not always easily grasped and remembered; but the true fable is a story in miniature which we take in at a glance, and stow away for after use in a small corner of our memory.

We have the 'successful villain' in the fable as sometimes on the stage; and it may be a question whether the tendency of this is not rather to encourage dissimulation in certain ill-constituted minds, than to inculcate virtue. One of Northcote's fables, The Elephant and the Fox, will exemplify what we mean.

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