Are Aesop's fables allegories?
steve marchant
fables are, in fact, allegories.
Right or wrong? Please help. If I've got it right, shouldn't they strictly
be be titled "Aesop's allegories"?
Steve Hayes
Some of them may contain allegorial elements, but they are primarily fables.
A fable is a short story intended to convey a moral lesson, usually using
animals as characters.
It would be an allegory as well if, say, each animal in the story stood for
something else -- a country, perhaps, or a quality.
So, for example, you might have a fable with a lion, a bear and an egle as
charactyers, where the lion stood for Britain, the bear for Russia and the
eagle for the USA. Then it would also be an allegory.
It would also be an allegory if each of the animals stood for a quality, such
as bravery, kindness, truthfulness etc.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Jerry Friedman
wrote:
> After struggling with the meaning of "allegory", I concluded that Aesop's
> fables are, in fact, allegories.
> Right or wrong? Please help.
Wrong, I think. I agree with Steve Hayes's explanation.
> If I've got it right, shouldn't they strictly
> be be titled "Aesop's allegories"?
Not necessarily. They're certainly stories, but I see no reason to
call them "Aesop's stories".
--
Jerry Friedman
Don Phillipson
news:4a7bd25f$1...@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com...
> After struggling with the meaning of "allegory", I concluded that Aesop's
> fables are, in fact, allegories. Right or wrong?
I'd say wrong. The literary category allegory is
1. Historically Christian, i.e. dates from Christianized
Europe and is not found in classical literature.
2. Specific, i.e. alludes to identifiable people (e.g. in
1984 Napoleon = Stalin and Snowball = Trotsky.)
Aesop is pre-Christian and makes no specific allusions.
E.g. King Log and King Stork are all or any passive and
active rulers respectively: neither identifies any particular
Greek king. So far as literary classes are concerned, I
would say Aesop's fables are parables in the Biblical
sense i.e. moral tales designed to suggest right conduct
(or a general moral lesson) for all people in similar situations
(e.g. good Samaritans, sowers of seed etc.) Allegories do
not do that.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
J. J. Lodder
Some of them are more than hat:
they are accurate observation reports.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8188396.stm>
Jan
Jerry Friedman
> "steve marchant" <steve.c.march...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
>
> news:4a7bd25f$1...@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com...
>
> > After struggling with the meaning of "allegory", I concluded that Aesop's
> > fables are, in fact, allegories. Right or wrong?
>
> I'd say wrong. The literary category allegory is
> 1. Historically Christian, i.e. dates from Christianized
> Europe and is not found in classical literature.
I'd say Psalm 80, Ezekiel 17, and many other bits of the Hebrew Bible
are allegories. Also Plato's story of the cave.
(In keeping with your comments in another thread about lack of
knowledge of the Bible, I had to look around on the Web to find
those.)
> 2. Specific, i.e. alludes to identifiable people (e.g. in
> 1984 Napoleon = Stalin and Snowball = Trotsky.)
I'd say--in fact, I have said--that's the defining characteristic of
a /roman a clef/, and /Animal Farm/ is between /roman a clef/ and
allegory. Allegories often allude to abstract concepts such as Love,
Courage, and Despond.
> Aesop is pre-Christian and makes no specific allusions.
> E.g. King Log and King Stork are all or any passive and
> active rulers respectively: neither identifies any particular
> Greek king. So far as literary classes are concerned, I
> would say Aesop's fables are parables in the Biblical
> sense i.e. moral tales designed to suggest right conduct
> (or a general moral lesson) for all people in similar situations
> (e.g. good Samaritans, sowers of seed etc.) Allegories do
> not do that.
As I hinted above, I'd say /The Pilgrim's Progress/ is an allegory,
and it makes suggestions about right conduct.
--
Jerry Friedman
R H Draney
I'm always impressed by the intelligence of corvids, but the real genius in this
demonstration belongs to the person who ensured that the rook couldn't simply
tip over the vessel to get at the worm...(in Aesop's version, the bird was dying
of thirst and spilling the liquid on the ground would have meant losing it)....r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
Alan Jones
Looking at the extended definitions from many sources in Answers.com I have
to question both your assertions. But I agree that Aesop's Fables could
properly be described as secular parables.
Alan Jones
tony cooper
>J. J. Lodder filted:
>>
>>steve marchant <steve.c....@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> After struggling with the meaning of "allegory", I concluded that Aesop's
>>> fables are, in fact, allegories.
>>> Right or wrong? Please help. If I've got it right, shouldn't they strictly
>>> be be titled "Aesop's allegories"?
>>
>>Some of them are more than hat:
>>they are accurate observation reports.
>>
>><http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8188396.stm>
>
>I'm always impressed by the intelligence of corvids, but the real genius in this
>demonstration belongs to the person who ensured that the rook couldn't simply
>tip over the vessel to get at the worm...(in Aesop's version, the bird was dying
>of thirst and spilling the liquid on the ground would have meant losing it)....r
Did you happen to notice that the videos of the rook were taken by
Christopher Bird?
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida