Fable
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Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphise
Anthropomorphic cat guarding geese, Egypt, c. 1120 BCE
Printed image of the fable of the blacksmith and the dog from the sixteenth century
Jean de La Fontaine
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Jean de La Fontaine was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across
Fable
…artist and polymath Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) composed some fables in his native Florentine dialect. During the 17th century, the French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695) saw the soul of the fable in the moral—a rule of behavior. Starting with the Aesopian pattern, La Fontaine set out to satirise the court…
Jean de La Fontaine, Fables choisies, 1755–59 at Waddesdon Manor
Facsimile of one of the very few manuscripts by Jean de La Fontaine
Grave of Jean de La Fontaine, Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris
An illustration of "Les Médecins" (Fable V.12) by Gustave Doré, 1866