Luther's Aesop

Title

en_US Luther's Aesop

Description

en_US Carl P.E. Springer

Creator

en_US Springer, Carl P.E.

Date

2016-01-25T20:14:37Z

en_US 2011-11

en_US 2011

Date Available

2016-01-25T20:14:37Z

Date Issued

en_US 2011

Abstract

en_US Let me start with Springer's own summary. The first chapter consists of preliminary considerations of Luther's relationship with the Greco-Roman classical tradition in general. The second examines his knowledge, use, and evaluation of Aesop's fables throughout the course of his life and work. The third chapter considers Luther's work as an editor of Aesop, paying special attention to the preface he wrote for the 1530 collection, which includes his most extensive thoughts on the person and work of Aesop and the value of his fables. The fourth offers searching (if not exhaustive) analyses of the narrative and didactic strategies Luther uses to tell and explain each of the fables included in the Coburg Collection. The final chapter studies Luther as a fabulist in his own right, examines the non-Aesopic fables he told and retold (including some of his own composition), and explores the question of his possible influence on later fable tellers and fable theorists, especially in Germany (xiii). For me and perhaps for many readers, the most important chapters here are the third and fourth, where Springer translates Luther's preface and fables, respectively, from the Coburg Collection and comments extensively on them. That second chapter includes some 86 times in Luther's writings in which he cites or otherwise uses an Aesopic fable, and Springer comments that this list is certainly incomplete (72). Early satiric fables like DLS seem to predominate, e.g., for criticizing the pope, often just with a brief allusion to the fable. Later he became increasingly interested in the fable as a teaching tool, in school and around the dinner table. He began more to tell fables in their entirety. Luther prepared his edition of Aesop's fables in neither Latin nor Greek, but in German. Luther criticizes Aristotle and Epicurus, but he does not criticize Aesop. Nor does he Christianize him. Luther hardly ever alludes to Christian teachings either in the fables or in the morals that follow them (75). The fables are worth studying for their own sakes. Luther's prime analogate for the reception of fables is the family dinner table, not the school classroom. The thirteen fables of the unfinished Coburg Collection were first published a decade after Luther's death. A special gift is to have a good English translation of Luther's fables in Chapter Four. I am not sure I have seen the collection in English. Springer's emphasis here is on Luther's narrative genius and on his particular interpretation of the thirteen fables. Luther thought Aesop second only to the Bible for moral value. Luther was acquainted with some forty-four of Aesop's fables, listed with their Perry numbers on 36-37. DS was his favorite. In a turbulent life where Luther changed his opinions, Aesop's fables were something of a constant.

Identifier

en_US 9781612480008 (pbk.)

en_US 7971 (Access ID)

uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10504/83222

Language

en_US eng

Publisher

en_US Truman State University Press

en_US Kirksville, MO

Subject

en_US BR332.5.S67 2011

en_US Aesop, Martin Luther

en_US Title Page Scanned

Type

en_US Book, Whole