Mes Fables de La Fontaine

Abstract

I have long delayed cataloguing this little book, and now I have the chance to do it -- and the stimulus of having acquired a new edition. I cannot read all of these plagiarisms and pastiches, but I have enjoyed some. The book starts out with a letter from the cicada to La Fontaine. Now she is making fables! And, it appears, she has some things to say to the master…. There is a closing AI, and the book has some 147 pages. The fables are divided into two books, the first having sixty-seven numbered fables and the second sixty-four, also numbered. The very first fable tells of the cicada's winter-time fable writing and of her making a fortune. Now her fables fourmillent (swarm, with strong etymological and sound ties to ants) among all the animals. The book starts in fact with eight parodies and developments of GA. I cannot say that I understand any of them perfectly. I can see that Morellet delights in playing with the concepts of a La Fontaine fable, even as it becomes something else. Morellet, like so many Frenchmen, knows his fables so well that the allusions from other fables come hot and heavy. Part of the charm of this little book is that it is not only signed by the author. It is published by him too! These are indeed his fables of La Fontaine.