From Ur to Uncle Remus: 5000 Years of Animal Fable Illustrations

Title

en_US From Ur to Uncle Remus: 5000 Years of Animal Fable Illustrations

Description

en_US This is a hardbound book (hard cover)

en_US This book has a dust jacket (book cover)

en_US Limited edition of 1000

en_US Clay Lancaster

Creator

en_US Lancaster, Clay See all items with this value

Date

2016-01-25T19:28:50Z

en_US 2002-07

en_US 1997

Date Available

2016-01-25T19:28:50Z

Date Issued

en_US 1997

Abstract

en_US I am still trying to find the focus in this book. It goes at a huge subject in snippets. Without that focus, I find too much that is scattered, partial, and misleading. Did the book perhaps grow out of a lecture or series of lectures? Frequently the text seems to be a commentary on the visuals. After the frontispiece, all of these appear on right-hand pages without print or image on the verso. There are fascinating glimpses at important moments in the history of art. Thus Sumerian harp figures are imbued with fable essence (11) even though there are no known texts associated with the figures. Lancaster finds fable in Greece by the eighth century BC. Be careful: the image of the fox and the crow on 23 is really from the story of Chanticleer, not the usual FC story of dropping a morsel of cheese or meat. The Jataka tales took their present form in the fifth century AD, but the first illustrations of them occurred in the second century BC. China's great contribution to fable history comes with the creation of paper in 100 AD, when prints became possible. There is a sizeable chapter (III) on Buddhism's spread of the Jatakas. For Lancaster, Buddhism developed the fable and gave it sanctity and popularity as it moved from India eastward throughout Asia. Why am I impatient with the book? There is too much here that is either erroneous or seems to invite to error. The story of the lion and the hare is about the lion plunging not at the perceived hare but rather at the perceived lion (70). Lancaster speaks on 85 as though Oudry's were the first edition of La Fontaine's fables. The only representatives of modern European fable discussed here are Oudry's La Fontaine and Bewick. Croxall did not publish his fable book in Philadelphia in 1777; he published it in England in 1722. Because of the misrepresentations, I do not know whether I can trust some of Lancaster's most engaging observations, e.g. that the first exclusively fable book published in the USA came in 1762 (100) or that the tar-baby story became the most popular of the Uncle Remus stories (111). Note the typo expressd on 70. I had hoped for more from this kindred spirit!

Identifier

en_US 091751906X

en_US 5083 (Access ID)

uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10504/80671

Language

en_US eng

Publisher

en_US University of Kentucky Librairies

en_US Lexington, KY

Subject

en_US NC961.7.F34 L36 1997 See all items with this value

en_US Secondary See all items with this value

en_US Title Page Scanned See all items with this value

Type

en_US Book, Whole