La Fontaine, the story teller

French poet, whose FABLES rank among the masterpieces of world literature. In his own time La Fontaine was considered a vagabond, dreamer, and lover of pleasure. A rustic character, he never was a real courtier and drifted happily from one patron to another. Because of the universal nature of his fables, La Fontaine's poems about industrious ants, brave lions, and carefree grasshoppers are still widely read.

Jean de La Fontaine was born in Château-Thierry, Champagne, in central France, the son of a government official. In his youth he read such writers as François Rabelais (1494?-1553), François de Malherbe (1555-1628), and Honoré d'Urfé (1568-1625). He went to Paris to study medicine and theology, but was drawn to the whirls of social life. It was not until the end of his life that he became interested in religion: religious rituals bored him. La Fontaine was qualified as a lawyer but he returned home in 1647 and assisted his father, a superintendent of forests. He held a number of government posts, but they did not pay much money. In 1647 he married Marie Héricart, an heiress, but the marriage was unhappy and they separated in 1658. La Fontaine had decided to become a famous writer. La Fontaine spent his time in literary circles with Molière (1622-1673) and others. In 1658 he left his family and moved to Paris, where he lived his most productive years, devoting himself to writing.

His FABLES CHOISIES MISES EN VERS, usually called 'La Fontaine Fables', were published over the last 25 years of his life. The first volume appeared when the author was 47. The book includes some 240 poems and timeless stories of countryfolk, heroes from Greek mythology, and familiar beasts from the fables of Aesop, from which La Fontaine unhesitatingly borrowed his material. The last of his tales were published posthumously. Each tale has a moral - an instruction how to behave correctly or how life should be lived. In the second volume La Fontaine based his tales on stories from Asia and other places.

La Fontaine's fables were marked by his love of rural life and belief in ethical hedonism. They were widely translated and imitated during the 17th and 18th centuries all over Europe, and beyond. Read nowadays mainly by children - or by teachers for their classes - their original amoral attitude has been forgotten.

In Fables choisier, mises en vers (Selected Fables, Set in Verse, 1668, 1678-16679, 1694) La Fontaine viewed life and society ironically. By means of animal symbols and witty dialogues, written in colloquial turns of speech, he examined different social types, ambitions, vices and virtues. "Sometimes I oppose, by a double image / Vice and virtue, foolishness and good sense, / The Lambs to the violent / wolves, / The Fly to the Ant: making of this work / An ample comedy in a hundred different acts / Of which the scene is the / universe." However, La Fontaine's fables are not only meant for moral lessons, but also show the pleasure of telling and mastery of a great variety of tones. Animal figures gave La Fontaine enough freedom to distance himself from contemporary, inflammable issues. Several of the fables were based on the Decameron, Cent nouvelles nouvelles, and the Middle Ages and renaissance tales.