Showing papers on "Fable published in 2021"
TL;DR: This article used period fable books and zoopoetic theory to explore how these works address both the allegorical realm of fable and a tangible living world that was increasingly coming under investigation from natural history and related modes of inquiry.
Abstract: Now better known as a hunting painter, the Antwerp animal specialist Joannes Fyt (1611–1661) also produced several depictions of Aesopic fables. A notable feature of Fyt’s fables is their attentiveness to the appearances and behaviors of animals and how they inhabit their environment. Focusing on two paintings by Fyt featuring poultry birds, this essay uses period fable books, a key discussion of fable by Erasmus, and zoopoetic theory to explore how these works address both the allegorical realm of fable and a tangible living world that was increasingly coming under investigation from natural history and related modes of inquiry.
6 citations
TL;DR: This article examined a body fable by the Greek fabulist Babrius (Babrius, Fab. 134) that has been overlooked in research so far, which shows a remarkable similarity to 1 Corinthians 12 through the use of central terms such as σῶμα and μέλος or personified speaking body parts such as an eye and head.
Abstract: Body metaphors and body fables were frequently used in ancient discourse for social communities and politics. This article will examine a body fable by the Greek fabulist Babrius (Babrius, Fab . 134) that has been overlooked in research so far. It shows a remarkable similarity to 1 Corinthians 12 through the use of central terms such as σῶμα and μέλος or personified speaking body parts such as an eye and head. Even if no literary direct dependence is claimed, the text, which was written at about the same time as 1 Corinthians, sheds light on Paul’s understanding of the body fable. It becomes apparent, however, that the rhetorical function is fundamentally different in the two texts. Whilst the body fable in Babrius reinforces hierarchical structures, Paul emphasises the equality of the various body parts. The discussion about the ‘implicit ethics’ of these two texts is hermeneutically embedded in the current Corona crisis and the management of the crisis in different forms of organisation and state. Contribution: The contribution makes the overlooked Babrius Fable 134, a body fable in political context, known in New Testament scholarship. A comparison with 1 Corinthians 12 points out that despite close analogies in plot and vocabulary, the message regarding the social structure diverges radically: While Babrius propagates a reinforcement of hierarchical leadership, 1 Corinthians 12 pleads for a community based on equivalence.
4 citations
01 Jan 2021
TL;DR: This article read the play Volpone (1606) of Ben Jonson and argued that it can be read as having a role to play in understanding not just human perceptions of animals, but also human perception of being human.
Abstract: John Simons, Jacques Derrida, and others argue that beast fables such as those ascribed to Aesop, being based on centuries of convention rather than on an understanding of specific species, have little to tell us about human–animal relations, and for this reason can be evacuated from literary animal studies. This chapter will challenge this perspective by turning to one of the English Renaissance’s most well-known beast fables: Ben Jonson’s play Volpone (1606). It will read it alongside contemporary work by Erasmus, John Donne, Robert Burton, and John Davies, among others, and argue that all these writers make visible a conception of humans that means that the beast fable can be read as having a role to play in understanding not just human perceptions of animals, but also human perceptions of being human. Through a reading of Jonson’s play, this chapter aims to make a case for the need to rethink the place and meaning of beast fables both in the past and today. To underline this, it turns briefly at the end of the chapter to look beyond the early modern period to posthumanist ideas as a way of thinking through how the historical analysis might also impact upon contemporary literary studies that attend to what Cary Wolfe has called “the question of the animal”.
29 Jul 2021
TL;DR: In this article, a new dramatic paradigm is proposed, in which intra-subjective confrontations develop within the psyche of the central character, instead of interpersonal conflicts meant to push the action forward.
Abstract: Francois de Curelis considered a representative of “problem plays”, though his theatre has fallen into oblivion. However, despite the author’s attachment to the classical tradition, he was criticized for scuttling the very fundamental dramatic art. In fact, when studying Orage mystique (Mystical Storm), it is clear that he disregards the regulatory principles of the fable, principles inherited from Aristotelian conceptions. If the first act of the drama seems to comply with the formal constraints of a “well-made play”, in the second, the writer breaks the course of the linear action to focus not on the dynamics of events, but on psychic life of the protagonist. In this way, Curel proposes a new dramatic paradigm, in which intra-subjective confrontations develop within the psyche of the central character, instead of interpersonal conflicts meant to push the action forward.
TL;DR: Aesop's Fables is an enduring collection of short stories with morals that is credited to Aesop, a slave who lived in early Ancient Greece about 2600 years ago as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Aesop's Fables is an enduring collection of short stories with morals that is credited to Aesop, a slave who lived in early Ancient Greece about 2600 years ago. Undoubtedly many later ancient Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras, Socrates, Aristotle and Archimedes were told Aesop's fables in their youth. In a race described in ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’, one of the most famous of Aesop's fables, a tortoise, running in a steady constant manner, beats a hare that is racing irregularly. The lesson of the fable is often interpreted as ‘slow but steady wins the race’ or ‘consistent, effective effort leads to success’ (see [1]) and is applicable to many human activities. The fable illustrates the general problem of working toward an objective when the rate of work is either constant or varies randomly.