Jean de La Fontaine: Selected Fables

Title

en_US Jean de La Fontaine: Selected Fables

Description

en_US This is a hardbound book (hard cover)

en_US This book has a dust jacket (book cover)

en_US Original language: fre

en_US First edition

en_US A new translation by Christopher Betts

Creator

en_US Betts, C.J. (translator) (introduction) See all items with this value

Contributor

en_US Doré, Gustave

Date

2016-01-25T15:37:54Z

en_US 2014-06

en_US 2014

Date Available

2016-01-25T15:37:54Z

Date Issued

en_US 2014

Abstract

en_US Here is a pleasing new translation of about half of La Fontaine's fables, together with some twenty-three of Gustave Doré's translations. Betts' introduction is helpful, giving a sense of La Fontaine's popularity and success with a significant chain of patrons and patronesses. Diversité, c'est ma devise, though apparently meant by La Fontaine to refer to his love life, characterizes well his poetry. Betts rightly emphasizes that a collection of fables like La Fontaine's -- by contrast with, say, the Pancatantra's connecting story -- needs diversity and surprise. Betts does well to warn readers not to expect to find La Fontaine's opinion through reading the fables. The one subject on which La Fontaine's fables may give a clear expression of the author's beliefs is poetry itself. Betts rightly sees the first fable, GA, as expressing well the service the artist performs in society. I notice a couple of surprising omissions: Norman Spector from the prominent translators and J.J. Grandville from the most important artists. The few rhyming fables I have read here impress me. A good example of a successful translation is, I believe, GA itself. I would say of it what Betts says of La Fontaine: not a word is wasted. The notes are helpful, and there is an AI at the back of the book. I would be tempted to use this for the study of La Fontaine in my next fable course. Might Oxford add a paperback version?

Identifier

en_US 9780199650729 (cloth)

en_US 10107 (Access ID)

uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10504/76096

Language

en_US eng

Publisher

en_US Oxford University Press

en_US Oxford, UK

Subject

en_US PQ1808.A3 B48 2014 See all items with this value

en_US Jean de La Fontaine See all items with this value

en_US Title Page Scanned See all items with this value

Type

en_US Book, Whole