The power of fable

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Le pouvoir des fables

The power of fable (French: Le pouvoir des fables ) is the fourth fable in the eighth book of the collection of fables Fables choisies, mises en vers by the French poet Jean de La Fontaine . La Fontaine shows that the fable makes it possible to educate through entertainment. La Fontaine usually humanizes the animals in his fables, but here he does the opposite by defining people using the metaphor "The animal with the frivolous heads".

He dedicated this fable to Jean-Paul de Barillon , the ambassador of France at the English court, whom he swore to prevent a military alliance between England and other states directed against France and thus to maintain peace. Although the poet covered his bold interference in diplomatic affairs with irony (if he succeeded, he promised the ambassador a reward in the form of a hundred sheep), the seriousness of his political concern was not in doubt.

In the actual fable anecdote, a speaker tries in vain to convince the thoughtless Athenians of an external threat and to get them to act. The audience only perks up when he begins to tell a fable and wants to hear its continuation. Instead, the speaker formulates a moral on the level of énonciation ( statement ) and accuses his audience of having a greater interest in these children's fables (“contes d'enfant”) than in the welfare of the state. The disciplined ultimately follow the speaker's political argument. The power of the fable is thus shown at the level of the speech acts, by distracting the listener or reader to dedicate themselves to the topics from which they should not be distracted.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Dohm (translator): Lafontaine's fables. In: Badische Landesbibliothek . P. 72 , accessed on April 3, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Philipp Stoellger: Languages ​​of Power: Gestures of empowerment and disempowerment in text and interpretation . Königshausen & Neumann, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8260-3734-4 , p. 55 ( google.de [accessed on April 3, 2020]).
  3. ↑ Peter Fröhlicher : Theory and Practice of the Analysis of French Texts: An Introduction . Gunter Narr Verlag, 2004, ISBN 978-3-8233-4977-8 , pp. 206 ff . ( google.de [accessed on April 3, 2020]).
  4. ↑ Le pouvoir des fables - Jean de la Fontaine - Commentaire. Retrieved April 3, 2020 .