Description
This exclusive Signet Classic edition contains 203 of Aesop’s most enduring and popular fables, translated into readable, modern American English and beautifully illustrated with classic woodcuts by the great French artist J. J. Grandville.
It is both amazing and wonderful that so much of the richness of our language and our moral education still owes a huge debt to a Greek slave who was executed more than two thousand years ago. Yet “sour grapes,” “crying ‘wolf,’” “actions speak louder than words,” “honesty is the best policy,” and literally hundreds of other metaphors, axioms, and ideas that are now woven into the very fabric of Western culture all came from Aesop’s Fables. An extraordinary storyteller who used cunning foxes, surly dogs, clever mice, fearsome lions, and foolish humans to describe the reality of a harsh world, Aesop created narratives that are appealing, funny, politically astute, and profoundly true. And Aesop’s truth—often summed up in the pithy “moral of the story”—retains an awesome power to affect us, reaching us through both our intellects and our hearts.
Including:
“The Fox and the Grapes”
“The Ants and the Grasshopper”
“The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse”
…and 200 Other Famous Fables
Edited and with an Afterword by Jack Zipes
With an Introduction by Sam Pickering
About the Author
620 BC - 564 BCTradition considers Greek fabulistAesopas the author ofAesop's Fables, including "The Tortoise and the Hare" and "The Fox and the Grapes."This credited ancient man told numerous now collectively known stories. None of his writings, if they ever existed, survive; despite his uncertain existence, people gathered and credited numerous tales across the centuries in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day. Generally human characteristics of animals and inanimate objects that speak and solve problems characterize many of the tales.One can find scattered details of his life in ancient sources, includingAristotle,Herodotus, andPlutarch. An ancient literary work, calledThe Aesop Romancetells an episodic, probably highly fictional version of his life, including the traditional description of him as a strikingly ugly slave (δοῦλος), whose cleverness acquires him freedom as an adviser to kings and city-states. Older spellings of his name included Esop(e) and Isope. A later tradition, dating from the Middle Ages, depicts Aesop as a black Ethiopian. Depictions of Aesop in popular culture over the last two and a half millennia included several works of art and his appearance as a character in numerous books, films, plays, and television programs.Abandoning the perennial image of Aesop as an ugly slave, the movieNight in Paradise(1946) cast Turhan Bey in the role, depicting Aesop as an advisor toCroesus, king; Aesop falls in love with a Persian princess, the intended bride of the king, whomMerle Oberonplays.Lamont Johnsonalso plays Aesop theHelene HanffteleplayAesop and Rhodope(1953), broadcast on hallmark hall of fame.Brazilian dramatistGuilherme FigueiredopublishedA raposa e as uvas("The Fox and the Grapes"), a play in three acts about the life of Aesop, in 1953; in many countries, people performed this play, including a videotaped production in China in 2000 under the titleHu li yu pu taoor狐狸与葡萄.Beginning in 1959, animated shorts under the titleAesop and Sonrecurred as a segment in the television seriesRocky and His FriendsandThe Bullwinkle Show, its successor. People abandoned the image of Aesop as ugly slave;Charles Rugglesvoiced Aesop, a Greek citizen, who recounted for the edification of his son, Aesop Jr., who then delivered the moral in the form of an atrocious pun. In 1998,Robert Keeshanvoiced him, who amounted to little more than a cameo in the episode "Hercules and the Kids" in the animated television seriesHercules.In 1971,Bill Cosbyplayed him in the television productionAesop's Fables.British playwrightPeter Tersonfirst produced the musicalAesop's Fablesin 1983. In 2010,Mhlekahi Mosieaas Aesop staged the play at the Fugard theatre in Cape Town, South Africa.
0
0
