Aesop's Fables in the context of "Aesop"

⭐ In the context of Aesop, *The Aesop Romance* is primarily considered what type of literary work?

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⭐ Core Definition: Aesop's Fables

Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of varied and unclear origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources and continue to be reinterpreted in different verbal registers and in popular as well as artistic media.

The fables were part of oral tradition and were not collected until about three centuries after Aesop's death. By that time, a variety of other stories, jokes and proverbs were being ascribed to him, although some of that material was from sources earlier than him or came from beyond the Greek cultural sphere. The process of inclusion has continued until the present, with some of the fables unrecorded before the Late Middle Ages and others arriving from outside Europe. The process is continuous and new stories are still being added to the Aesop corpus, even when they are demonstrably more recent work and sometimes from known authors.

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👉 Aesop's Fables in the context of Aesop

Aesop (/ˈsɒp/ EE-sop; Ancient Greek: Αἴσωπος, Aísōpos; c. 620–564 BCE; formerly rendered as Æsop) was a Greek fabulist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as Aesop's Fables. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day. Many of the tales associated with him are characterized by anthropomorphic animal characters.

Scattered details of Aesop's life can be found in ancient sources, including Aristotle, Herodotus, and Plutarch. An ancient literary work called The Aesop Romance tells an episodic, probably highly fictional version of his life, including the traditional description of him as a strikingly ugly slave (δοῦλος) who by his cleverness acquires freedom and becomes an adviser to kings and city-states. Older spellings of his name have included Esop(e) and Isope. Depictions of Aesop in popular culture over the last 2,500 years have included many works of art and his appearance as a character in numerous books, films, plays, and television programs.

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Aesop's Fables in the context of Joseph Jacobs

Joseph Jacobs (29 August 1854 – 30 January 1916) was an Australian-born folklorist, literary critic and historian who became a notable collector and publisher of English folklore.

Born in Sydney to a Jewish family, his work went on to popularise some of the world's best known versions of English fairy tales including "Jack and the Beanstalk", "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", "The Three Little Pigs", "Jack the Giant Killer" and "The History of Tom Thumb". He published his English fairy tale collections English Fairy Tales in 1890 and More English Fairy Tales in 1893. He published European, Jewish, Celtic, and Indian fairy tales, which made him one of the most popular English-language fairy tale writers. Jacobs was also an editor for journals and books on the subject of folklore which included editing the Fables of Bidpai and the Fables of Aesop, as well as articles on the migration of Jewish folklore. He also edited editions of The Thousand and One Nights. He went on to join The Folklore Society in England and became an editor of the society journal Folklore. Joseph Jacobs also contributed to The Jewish Encyclopedia.

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Aesop's Fables in the context of Wolf in sheep's clothing

A wolf in sheep's clothing is an idiom from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount as narrated in the Gospel of Matthew. It warns against individuals who play a deceptive role. The gospel regards such individuals (particularly false teachers) as dangerous.

Fables based on the idiom, dated no earlier than the 12th century CE, have been falsely credited to ancient Greek storyteller Aesop (620–564 BCE). The confusion arises from the similarity of themes in Aesop's Fables concerning wolves that are mistakenly trusted, with the moral that human nature eventually shows through any disguise.

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Aesop's Fables in the context of The Belly and the Members

The Belly and the Members is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 130 in the Perry Index. It has been interpreted in varying political contexts over the centuries.

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Aesop's Fables in the context of The Boy Who Cried Wolf

"The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 210 in the Perry Index. From it is derived the English idiom "to cry wolf", defined as "to give a false alarm" in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and glossed by the Oxford English Dictionary as meaning to make false claims, with the result that subsequent true claims are disbelieved.

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Aesop's Fables in the context of Emblem book

An emblem book is a book collecting emblems (allegorical illustrations) with accompanying explanatory text, typically morals or poems. This category of books was popular in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Emblem books are collections of sets of three elements: an icon or image, a motto, and text explaining the connection between the image and motto. The text ranged in length from a few lines of verse to pages of prose. Emblem books descended from medieval bestiaries that explained the importance of animals, proverbs, and fables. In fact, writers often drew inspiration from Greek and Roman sources such as Aesop's Fables and Plutarch's Lives.

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Aesop's Fables in the context of Children's fantasy

Children's fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy literature intended for young readers. It may also refer to fantasy read by children, regardless of the intended audience.

The genre has roots in folk tales such as Aesop's Fables that were not originally intended for children: before the Victorian era, fairytales were perceived as immoral and ill-suited for children's minds. A market for children's fantasy was established in Britain in the 19th century, leading to works such as Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Edith Nesbit's Five Children series; the genre also developed in America, exemplified by L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Of the authors of this period, Nesbit is commonly cited as the creator of modern children's fantasy.

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Aesop's Fables in the context of Puss Gets the Boot

Puss Gets the Boot is a 1940 American animated short film and the first short in what would become the Tom and Jerry cartoon series, though neither are yet referred to by these names. It was directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, and produced by Rudolf Ising. It is based on the Aesop's Fable, The Cat and the Mice. As was the practice of MGM shorts at the time, only Rudolf Ising is credited. It was released to theaters on February 10, 1940, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

In this short, the cat is named Jasper, and appears to be a scruffy, battle-hardened street cat, more malicious than the character that Tom would develop into over time. The unnamed mouse (referred to as Pee-Wee in an official MGM magazine), is similar to who would become the Jerry character, albeit slightly thinner. The basic premise is one that would become familiar to audiences; in The Art of Hanna-Barbera, Ted Sennett sums it up as "cat stalks and chases mouse in a frenzy of mayhem and slapstick violence". Though the studio executives were unimpressed, audiences loved the film and it was nominated for an Academy Award. This short ultimately lost to The Milky Way, another MGM short about three kittens who lost their mittens and were forced to go to bed without their dinner of milk.

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Aesop's Fables in the context of Milo Winter

Milo Winter (August 7, 1888 – August 15, 1956) was an American book illustrator. He created editions of Aesop's Fables, Arabian Nights, Alice in Wonderland, A Christmas Carol, Gulliver's Travels, Tanglewood Tales (1913), and others.

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