Fable

“Fable: A short tale, usually epigrammatic, with animals, men, gods, and even inanimate objects as characters. The action of a fable illustrates a moral which is usually (but not always) explicitly stated at the end. This moral often attains the force of a proverb. The fable form appears early in man’s cultural development, being a common part of the oral folk literature of primitive tribes. It appeared in Egyptian papyri of c1500 BC, and in Greece a recognizable fable was included in the works of Hesiod in the 8^th century BC. By far the most famous fables are those attributed to Aesop, a Greek slave who lived about 600 BC. In India the fable also appeared early, the great Indian collection, the Panchatantra, having been composed in the 3^rd century. Modern fables have been dominated by the genius and style of La Fontaine, the great French fabulist of the 17^th century, who wrote fables in polished and witty poetry that have been widely translated and imitated.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.