A fable is a story that teaches wisdom. What is a fable? History of the fable genre and its role in literature

Year of writing: 1811

Genre: fable

Main characters: donkey, goat, bear, monkey, nightingale

Plot

Wild animals who love music decided to create a quartet and amaze the entire society with their art. They got hold of musical instruments and sheet music and settled down in the meadow to immediately start playing. But, of course, nothing worked out for them. Then they decided that they needed to change seats and then the music would sound beautiful.

They tried to switch places several times, but nothing worked for them, they did not know how to use instruments and had no ear for music.

The Nightingale listened to them for a long time, but then said that there was no need to suffer in vain, because they did not have the necessary skills or abilities, so let them do something else.

Conclusion (my opinion)

Some people believe that there are professions that you don't need to learn, but this is not true. You need to study long and patiently for any business, then you will achieve success. And the stupid animals in the fable thought that their musical successes depended on the place in which they sat.

He became famous for his unusual literary style. His fables, where instead of people the participants are representatives of animals and insects, symbolizing certain human qualities and behaviors, always have a meaning, a message. “The moral of this fable is this” - became the catchphrase of the fabulist.

List of Krylov's fables

Why we love Krylov's fables

Krylov's fables are familiar to every person, they are taught at school, read at leisure, read by adults and children. The works of this author are suitable for any category of readers. He himself washed away the fables to show this and teach something through not boring moralizing, but interesting fairy tales. Krylov’s main characters are usually animals, the author uses their example to show various situations and the way out of them. Fables teach you to be kind, honest, and friendly. Using the example of animal conversations, the essence of human qualities is revealed and vices are shown.

Let's take the most popular fables for example. "The Crow and the Fox" shows the narcissism of the bird, the way it shows and behaves, and the way the fox flatters it. This makes us remember situations from life, because now there are a lot of people who are capable of anything in order to get what they want, of course, going towards your goal is commendable, but if it does not harm others. So the fox in the fable did everything to get his treasured piece of cheese. This fable teaches you to be attentive to what they say to you and to the person who tells you this, not to trust and not to be distracted by strangers.

The fable “Quartet” shows us the Donkey, the Goat, the Bear and the Monkey who decided to create a quartet, all of them have neither skills nor hearing. Everyone perceived this fable differently, some thought that it ridiculed meetings of literary societies, while others saw it as This is an example of state councils. But in the end, we can say that this work teaches a basic understanding that work requires knowledge and skills.

“The Pig under the Oak” In it, the author reveals to the reader such qualities as ignorance, laziness, selfishness and ingratitude. These traits are revealed through the image of the Pig, for whom the main thing in life is to eat and sleep, and she doesn’t even care where the acorns come from.

The main advantage of Krylov’s fables is that their perception by a person is very easy, the lines are written in simple language, so they are easy to remember. Fables are liked by many people and are still relevant today because they are instructive in nature, teaching honesty, work and helping the weak.

The beauty of Krylov's fables.

Ivan Andreevich Krylov is the most famous fabulist in the whole world. Children become acquainted with his instructive and wise works in early childhood. Quite a few generations have grown up and been educated on Krylov’s fables.

A little from the biography of Krylov.

The Krylov family lived in Tver. The father is not a rich man, an army captain. As a child, the young poet learned to write and read from his father, then studied French. Krylov studied little, but read a lot and listened to common people's stories. And thanks to his self-development, he was one of the most educated people of his century. After the death of his father, as a teenager he and his family went to St. Petersburg, where he entered the service.
After the army, he actively began his literary activity. The playwright first made translations and wrote tragedies, but later his soul became addicted to the satirical genre of literature.

In 1844, the writer died of pneumonia; as a last gift to his friends and family, Krylov left a collection of fables. On the cover of each copy was engraved: “An offering in memory of Ivan Andreevich, at his request.”

About Krylov's fables.

As mentioned above, Ivan Andreevich Krylov tried himself in various literary genres before settling on fables. He gave his works “for judgment” to friends, among whom were Dmitriev and Lobanov. When Krylov brought Dmitriev a translation from French of La Fontaine’s fables, he exclaimed: “This is your true family; at last you have found him.”

Throughout his life, Ivan Andreevich published 236 fables. The poet also wrote satirical magazines. In all his humorous works, Krylov exposed the shortcomings of the Russian people, ridiculed the vices of man, and most importantly, he taught people moral and moral qualities.

Each fable by Krylov has its own structure; most often there are two parts: the moral (at the beginning or end of the work) and the fable itself. Ivan Andreevich mainly showed and ridiculed the problems of society through the prism of the example of the animal world. The main characters of the fables are all kinds of little animals, birds and insects. The fabulist described life situations in which characters behaved inappropriately, then Krylov taught morals to his readers, showing how to get out of these situations.

This is the beauty of Krylov’s fables, he taught people about life, he explained the norms of morality and etiquette using the example of fairy tales.

Fable is one of the most popular and oldest literary genres, the same age as myths. Why is it called an eternal genre? What is a fable in literature? Fiction has its roots in the most distant past. Man has always had a rich imagination and curiosity. When some of our ancestors tried to understand the world, its structure and origin from a scientific point of view, others were interested in the spiritual side - human relationships, norms of behavior and morality.

All this was reflected in verbal art and folklore. In folk art there are many works that are moralizing in nature. These are proverbs, parables, fables, fairy tales. Let's try to define a fable and figure out how it differs from other genres.

What is a fable? Definition

A fable is a short moral story in prose or poetic form that contains a clearly stated instructive conclusion, or moral, at the beginning or end. The narration is told in an allegorical form, so the characters in the fable are animals, things, and plants. Fables ridicule human vices, stupidity and misbehavior.

The characters in fairy tales are also animals, but they do not always have human character traits. Fairy tales cover a large period of time, while fables describe only one event, an episode, so they are much shorter than fairy tales.

History of the fable genre and its role in literature

The role of fables in the literature of all nations can hardly be overestimated. The birthplace of this genre is considered to be Ancient Greece, where the most famous bansi in prose were written by Aesop (VI-V centuries BC). Mentions and references to his fables are found in the works of Herodotus, Democritus, and Aristophanes. The fable went through the stages of parable, educational and popular literature for the illiterate public before becoming a literary genre proper.

Its penetration into Europe occurred much later, during the Renaissance, and was associated with the spread of the Greek language. Russian literature became acquainted with the fable around the same time, in the 15th - 16th centuries. Many Russian writers imitated Aesop and translated the works of La Fontaine and other fabulists, but Ivan Andreevich Krylov (1760-1844) achieved real mastery in this genre.

He surpassed his Russian and foreign predecessors. Thanks to Krylov, a fusion of literary and colloquial speech took place, which significantly enriched the latter. The features of the bright Russian character are embodied in his instructive works. I. A. Krylov’s fables have been translated more than once into all languages ​​of the world, because the wisdom of the people, expressed in his works, is instructive and relevant to this day.

A fable has come to us from the depths of centuries.
And if you need advice,
Open the volume with the inscription “Krylov”,
Re-read these bansi again.

In Russian poetry, fable free verse is developed, conveying the intonations of a relaxed and crafty tale.

Philologists of the 19th century were long occupied with the debate about the priority of the Greek or Indian fable. Now it can be considered almost certain that the common source of the material of the Greek and Indian fables was the Sumerian-Babylonian fable.

Antiquity

Greek literature

Before the fable became an independent literary genre, it went through the stage of instructive example or parable in its development, and then folklore. Only two specimens from the oldest stage have survived. These are the famous αινος of the Odysseus (Od. XIV, 457-506) and the two parables exchanged between Teucer and Menelaus in Sophocles' Ayante (vv. 1142-1158).

We find the established form of the oral fable, corresponding to the second period of development of the genre, for the first time in Greek literature in Hesiod. This is the famous parable (αινος) about the nightingale and the hawk (“Works and Days”, 202-212), addressed to cruel and unjust rulers. In Hesiod's parable we already encounter all the signs of the fable genre: animal characters, action outside of time and space, sententious morality in the mouth of a hawk.

Greek poetry VII-VI centuries. BC e. known only in scanty fragments; Some of these passages in individual images echo later known fable plots. This allows us to assert that the main fable plots of the classical repertoire had already developed by this time in folk art. In one of his poems, Archilochus (rep. 88-95 B) mentions a “parable” about how an eagle offended a fox and was punished for it by the gods; in another poem (ref. 81-83 B) he tells a “parable” about a fox and a monkey. Aristotle credits Stesichorus with speaking to the citizens of Himera with the fable of the horse and the stag in relation to the threat of the tyranny of Phalaris (Rhetoric, II, 20, 1393b). The “Carian parable” about the fisherman and the octopus, according to Diogenian, was used by Simonides of Keos and Timocreon. The fable form also appears quite clearly in the anonymous scolia about the snake and cancer, cited by Athenaeus (XV, 695a).

Greek literature of the classical period is already based on a well-established tradition of oral fables. Herodotus introduced the fable into historiography: in him Cyrus teaches the Ionians who submitted too late with the “fable” (logos) about the fisherman-flutist (I, 141). Aeschylus used the fable in tragedy: a passage has been preserved setting out the “glorious Libyan fable” (logos) about an eagle struck by an arrow with eagle feathers. In Aristophanes, Pistheter, in a conversation with the birds, brilliantly argues with Aesop’s fables about the lark who buried his father in his own head (“Birds”, 471-476) and about the fox offended by the eagle (“Birds”, 651-653), and Trigaeus refers to the fable in an explanation of his flight on a dung beetle (“World”, 129-130), and the entire final part of the comedy “Wasps” is built on playing out inappropriately used fables by Philocleon.

Middle Ages

The general cultural decline of the “dark ages” equally plunged both Avian and Romulus into oblivion, from where they were recovered by a new revival of medieval culture in the 12th century. Since this time, we find in medieval Latin literature no less than 12 revisions of Romulus and no less than 8 revisions of Avianus.

• Apparently, around the 11th century there arose an edition known as "Nilantov Romulus"(named after the philologist I.F. Nilant, who first published this collection in the city) of 50 fables; In some places the Christianization of morals is noticeable.
• Probably, at the beginning of the 12th century, “Nilantov Romulus” was translated into English and supplemented with numerous subjects of modern European origin - fairy tales, legends, fabliaux, etc. - the authorship of the resulting collection was attributed to the famous King Alfred. This "English Romulus" not preserved.
• However, in the last third of the 12th century it was translated in verse into French by the Anglo-Norman poetess Mary of France (under the title "Isopet") and in this form became widely known; and from the collection of Mary of France two reverse translations were made into Latin.
  • This is, firstly, the so-called "Extended Romulus", a collection of 136 fables (79 fables from Romulus, 57 developing new plots), presented in great detail, in a rough fairy-tale style; the collection served as the basis for two German translations.
  • Secondly, this is the so-called "Robert's Romulus"(named after the original publisher, Mr.), a collection of 22 fables, presented concisely, without any fairy-tale influence and with pretensions to grace.

Two more poetic transcriptions were made in the second half of the 12th century. Both arrangements are made in elegiac distich, but are different in style.

• The first of them contains 60 fables: the presentation is very rhetorically lush, replete with antitheses, annominations, parallelisms, etc. This collection enjoyed enormous popularity until the Renaissance (more than 70 manuscripts, 39 editions in the 15th century alone) and was translated more than once into French, German and Italian languages ​​(among these translations is the famous “Isopet of Lyons”). The author was not named; from the year when Isaac Nevelet included this collection in his publication “Mythologia Aesopica”, the designation was assigned to it Anonymus Neveleti.
• The second collection of poetic adaptations of Romulus was compiled somewhat later; its author is Alexander Neckam. His collection is entitled "New Aesop" and consists of 42 fables. Neckam writes more simply and stays closer to the original. At first, Neckam's collection was a success, but it was soon completely eclipsed by Anonymus Neveleti, and it remained in obscurity until the 19th century.

Fables were extracted from “Romulus” and inserted into “The Historical Mirror” by Vincent of Beauvais (13th century) - the first part of a huge medieval encyclopedia in 82 books. Here (IV, 2-3) the author, having reached the “first year of the reign of Cyrus” in his presentation, reports that in this year the fabulist Aesop died in Delphi, and on this occasion he sets out 29 fables in 8 chapters. These fables, the author says, can be successfully used when composing sermons.

In some manuscripts, the fables of Romulus are joined by the so-called fabulae extravagantes - fables of unknown origin, presented in a very popular language, detailed and colorful, and approaching the type of an animal fairy tale.

• Of Avian's two prose paraphrases, one is without a title, the other is designated as Apologi Aviani.
• Three poetic paraphrases are entitled "New Avian", executed in elegiac distichs and dating back to the 12th century. The author of one of the paraphrases calls himself vates Astensis(“poet from Asti,” a city in Lombardy). Another one belongs again to Alexander Neckam.

Renaissance

During the Renaissance, the spreading knowledge of the Greek language gave European readers access to the original source - Aesop's Greek fables. Since the year when the Italian humanist Accursius published the first printed edition of Aesop's fables, the development of the modern European fable begins.

Animal fable

Animal fables are fables in which animals (wolf, owl, fox) act like humans. The fox is characterized by cunning, the owl - wisdom. The goose is considered stupid, the lion is considered courageous, the snake is treacherous. The qualities of fairy-tale animals are interchangeable. Fairytale animals represent certain characteristic traits of people.

The moralized natural history of ancient animal fables eventually took shape in collections known under the title “Physiologist”.

• Gasparov M. L. An ancient literary fable. - M., 1972.
• Grintser P. A. On the question of the relationship between ancient Indian and ancient Greek fables. - Grintser P. A. Selected works: In 2 volumes - M.: RGGU, 2008. - T. T. 1. Ancient Indian literature. - P. 345-352.

Links

• // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional ones). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.

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A fable is a short story, most often in verse, mainly of a satirical nature. The fable is an allegorical genre, therefore moral and social problems are hidden behind the story about fictional characters (most often animals).

The emergence of the fable as a genre dates back to the 5th century BC, and its creator is considered to be the slave Aesop (VI–V centuries BC), who was unable to express his thoughts differently. This allegorical form of expressing one’s thoughts was later called “Aesopian language.” Only around the 2nd century BC. e. fables began to be written down, including Aesop's fables. In ancient times, a famous fabulist was the ancient Roman poet Horace (65–8 BC).

In the literature of the 17th–18th centuries, ancient subjects were processed.

In the 17th century, the French writer La Fontaine (1621–1695) again revived the fable genre. Many of Jean de La Fontaine's fables are based on the plot of Aesop's fables. But the French fabulist, using the plot of an ancient fable, creates a new fable. Unlike ancient authors, he reflects, describes, comprehends what is happening in the world, and does not strictly instruct the reader. Lafontaine focuses more on the feelings of his characters than on moralizing and satire.

In Germany in the 18th century, the poet Lessing (1729–1781) turned to the fable genre. Like Aesop, he writes fables in prose. For the French poet La Fontaine, the fable was a graceful short story, richly ornamented, a “poetic toy.” It was, in the words of one of Lessing's fables, a hunting bow, so covered with beautiful carvings that it lost its original purpose, becoming a drawing-room decoration. Lessing declares literary war on La Fontaine: “The narrative in a fable,” he writes, “... must be compressed to the utmost possible; deprived of all decorations and figures, it must be content with clarity alone” (“Abhandlungen uber die Fabel” - Discourses on a Fable , 1759).

In Russian literature, the foundations of the national fable tradition were laid by A.P. Sumarokov (1717–1777). His poetic motto was the words: “Until I fade into decrepitude or death, I will not stop writing against vices...”. The pinnacle in the development of the genre were the fables of I.A. Krylov (1769–1844), which absorbed the experience of two and a half millennia. In addition, there are ironic, parody fables by Kozma Prutkov (A.K. Tolstoy and the Zhemchuzhnikov brothers), revolutionary fables by Demyan Bedny. The Soviet poet Sergei Mikhalkov, whom young readers know as the author of "Uncle Styopa", revived the fable genre and found his own interesting style of modern fable.

One of the features of fables is allegory: a certain social phenomenon is shown through conventional images. Thus, behind the image of Leo, traits of despotism, cruelty, and injustice are often discerned. Fox is a synonym for cunning, lies and deceit.

It is worth highlighting such features of the fable:
a) morality;
b) allegorical (allegorical) meaning;
c) the typicality of the situation being described;
d) characters;
d) ridicule of human vices and shortcomings.

V.A. Zhukovsky in the article “On the fable and fables of Krylov” indicated four main features of the fable.
First feature of the fable - character traits, the way in which one animal differs from another: “Animals represent a person in it, but a person only in certain respects, with certain properties, and each animal, having with itself its own integral permanent character, is, so to speak, ready and clear for everyone the image of both a person and the character that belongs to him. You force a wolf to act - I see a bloodthirsty predator; bring a fox onto the stage - I see a flatterer or a deceiver..." Thus, the Donkey personifies stupidity, the Pig - ignorance, the Elephant - clumsiness, and the Dragonfly - frivolity. According to Zhukovsky, the task of a fable is to help the reader, using a simple example, understand a complex everyday situation
Second The peculiarity of the fable, writes Zhukovsky, is that “transferring the reader’s imagination into new dreamy world, you give him the pleasure of comparing the fictional with the existing (of which the former serves as a likeness), and the pleasure of comparison makes morality itself attractive." That is, the reader can find himself in an unfamiliar situation and live it together with the heroes.
Third feature of the fable - moral lesson, a moral that condemns a character's negative quality. "There is a fable moral lesson which you give to man with the help of animals and inanimate things; presenting to him as an example creatures that are different from him in nature and completely alien to him, you spare his pride“, you force him to judge impartially, and he insensitively pronounces a strict sentence on himself,” writes Zhukovsky.
Fourth peculiarity - instead of people in the fable, objects and animals act. “On the stage on which we are accustomed to seeing man acting, you bring, by the power of poetry, such creations that are essentially removed from it by nature, a miraculousness that is just as pleasant for us as in an epic poem the action of supernatural forces, spirits, sylphs, gnomes and the like. The strikingness of the miraculous is in some way communicated to the morality that is hidden beneath it by the poet; and the reader, in order to reach this morality, agrees to accept the miraculousness itself as natural."