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Title
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en_US
The Fables of La Fontaine
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Description
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en_US
This is a hardbound book (hard cover)
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en_US
Original language: fre
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en_US
Translated by C.J. Moore
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Creator
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en_US
La Fontaine, Jean de
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Contributor
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en_US
Rochut, Jean-Noël
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Date
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2016-01-25T19:55:35Z
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en_US
2009-01
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en_US
2006
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Date Available
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2016-01-25T19:55:35Z
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Date Issued
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en_US
2006
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Abstract
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en_US
Here is a serious La Fontaine edition of selected fables comprising some 112 fables on 218 pages. Moore's introduction offers more than introductions usually do about both La Fontaine and this translation. La Fontaine produced terse verse, notedly elegant, compressed, and wittily didactic. Moore looks seriously at the translations of Elizur Wright in 1841 and Walter Thornbury around 1868. He finds both tending to be very literary and thus inappropriate for today, especially as they follow their own meter and verse forms. Curiously, Moore does not mention Marianne Moore's 1954 translation or the recent spate of translations including James Michie (1979), Norman Spector (1988), or Norman Shapiro (1985, 1998, and 2000). In fact, Shapiro has now done a complete La Fontaine that appeared one year after this present volume of Moore's. The intent of this volume is to offer a La Fontaine as simple as possible for a readership unacquainted with the seventeenth-century background. While a number of selections of fables have been translated in recent years, many in limited editions, I am not aware of any other single volume in modern English, with colour illustrations, on the scale of the present book for a general market, and hope this will prove a new opportunity for children and adults alike to become familiar with these delightful works… (17). FC (32) is, I would say, a good specimen of success, as is 2P on 38. The illustration for TT (53) is particularly good. Less happy might be the first lines of TH: Running is not the way to win a race./He wins who starts from the best place. La Fontaine's point is rather that starting is the important thing: il faut partir a point. The illustrations seem to me enjoyable but not inspired; facing illustrations often give a before and after from the same fable. The best of the illustrations are specific, like the two for The Oyster and the Claimants (114-115); unfortunately, a number of illustrations are generic, like the background for The Boy and the Schoolmaster (118-119). Similar backgrounds are repeated, e.g. 136-7, 146-7, 172-3, and 196-7. There is a T of C at the front and an AI at the back.
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Identifier
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en_US
9780863155710
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en_US
6649 (Access ID)
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Language
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en_US
eng
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Publisher
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en_US
Floris Books
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en_US
Edinburgh
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Subject
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en_US
PQ1811.E3 M66 2006
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Type
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en_US
Book, Whole