Fables Less and Less Fabulous: English Fables and Parables of the Nineteenth Century and Their Illustrations

Title

en_US Fables Less and Less Fabulous: English Fables and Parables of the Nineteenth Century and Their Illustrations

Description

en_US This is a hardbound book (hard cover)

en_US Horst Dölvers

Creator

en_US Dölvers, Horst

Contributor

en_US Various

Date

2016-01-25T20:14:52Z

en_US 2011-01

en_US 1997

Date Available

2016-01-25T20:14:52Z

Date Issued

en_US 1997

Abstract

en_US Here is a book I want to come back to. Dölvers contends that Nineteenth Century England did have and use its fables. And something happened to the fable along the way. As Catherine Golden writes in her review in Victorian Studies of Autumn, 1998-99, Evident in religious writing, philosophical texts, and children's books, the nineteenth-century fable and its cousin the parable soften the wit of Aesop and become vehicles for edifying causes. In their ambiguity, realism, and presentation of painful truths, Victorian fables complicate the playful wit and moral groundwork on which the traditional fable rests. Three leads I want to follow with Dölvers' help concern Lytton's Fables in Song, which may be much more centered on traditional fable -- and much more nuanced in its handling of it -- than I had realized. I would like secondly to watch with his help the interaction between Walter Crane and William Linton in Baby's Own Aesop. Dölvers sees strong commentary in the pictorial presentations of Crane. I have often wondered about the match of text and picture in this combination, and have been critical of Linton's texts, which seem to presume the fable. Perhaps that is some of Dölvers' message. In the Nineteenth Century, the traditional fable is presumed, and then something is made of it. Finally, this book stimulates a reader to think more about Robert Louis Stevenson's handling of fables. Like Dölvers, I have tended to dismiss Stevenson's fables. It is rare to see a scholarly book as lavishly illustrated as this book is. Pages 9-10 list the thirty-six illustrations. Nobody ever took this book out of Rutgers' Library!

Identifier

en_US 9780874135848 (alk. paper)

en_US 8017 (Access ID)

uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10504/83266

Language

en_US eng

Publisher

en_US University of Delaware Press/Associated University Presses

en_US Newark

Subject

en_US PR468.F32 D64 1997

en_US Secondary

en_US Title Page Scanned

Type

en_US Book, Whole