In literature, fable is a term applied originally to every imaginative tale, but confined in modern use to short stories, either in prose or verse, in which animals and sometimes inanimate things are feigned to act and speak with human interests and passions for the purpose of inculcating a moral lesson in a pleasant and pointed manner. The fable consists properly of two parts - the symbolical representation and the application, or the instruction intended to be deduced from it, which latter is called the moral of the tale, and must be apparent in the fable itself. The oldest fables are supposed to be the oriental; among these the Indian fables of Pilpay or Bidpai, and the fables of the Arabian Lokman, are celebrated. Amongst the Greeks, AEsop is the master of a simple but very effective style of fable. The fables of Phaedrus are a second-rate Latin version of those of AEsop. In modern times Gellert and Lessing among the Germans, Gay among the English, the Spanish Yriarte, and the Russian Ivan Kriloff, are celebrated. The first place, however, amongst modern fabulists belongs to the French writerLa Fontaine. Research Fable
Aesop was a Greek writer of fables. Aesop is said to have been a contemporary of Croesus and Solon, and thus probably lived about the middle of the sixth century BC. But so little is known of his life that his existence has been called in question. He is said to have been originally a slave, and to have received his freedom from a Samian master, Iadmon. He then visited the court of Croesus, and is also said to have visited Pisistratus at Athens. Finally he was sent by Croesus to Delphi to distribute a sum of money to each of the citizens. For some reason he refused to distribute the money, whereupon the Delphians, enraged, threw him from a precipice, and killed him. No works of Aesop are extant, and it is doubtful whether he wrote any. Bentley inclined to the supposition that his fables were delivered orally and perpetuated by repetition. Such fables are spoken of both by Aristophanes and Plato. Phaedrus turned into Latinverse the Aeopian fables current in his day, with additions of his own. In modern times several collections bearing to be Aesop's fables have been published. Research Aesop
Robert Henryson was a Scottish poet. He was born about 1425 and died about 1506. He spent most of his life at Dunfermline, where he was schoolmaster. The Testament of Oresseid, his most important work, is a continuation of Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide, though with individual merit;
and he was probably the author of the early Scottish pastoral, Kobin and Makyne. Amongst his other works were a Tale of Orpheus, The Moral fables of AEsop in Scottish metre, and an allegorical ballad, The Bludy Serk. Research Robert Henryson
William Caxton was the first English printer. He was born in 1422 at Kent and died in 1491. He served an apprenticeship to Robert Large, a London mercer. On the death of his master William Caxton went into business for himself at Bruges. He was appointed about 1463 governor at Bruges to the London Association of Merchant Adventurers. About 1471 he entered the service of Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV.
He now learned the newly-discovered art of printing, probably at Cologne; and his Recuyell of the Histories of Troy, the translation of a popular mediaeval romance, was printed about 1474, probably at Bruges, and is the earliest specimen of typography in the English language. His Game and Playe of the Chesse, Bruges, 1475, is the second English book printed. In 1476 he returned to England, and in 1477 printed at Westminster The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, the first book printed in England. In fourteen years he printed nearly 80 separate books, nearly all of folio size, some of which passed through two editions, and a few through three.
He translated twenty-one books, mainly romances, from the French, and one (Reynard the Fox) from the Dutch, helping materially to fix the literary language. He was patronized by Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII; and he was on intimate terms with Earl Rivers, the Earl of Worcester, and others of the nobility, the two noblemen named having even translated works for his press. Besides the works named above he printed Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Troylus and Creside, Book of Fame, and translation of Boethius; Gower's Confessio Amantis; works by Lydgate; Malory's King Arthur; the Golden Legend ; The Fables of AEsop; erc.
His books have no title-pages, but are frequently provided with prologues and colophons. His types are in the Gothic character, and copied so closely from the handwriting of his time, that many of his books have been mistaken for manuscript. In some no punctuation is used; in others the full point and colon only; commas are represented by a long or short upright line.
*William Channing
William Ellery Channing was an American theologian and writer. He was born in 1780 at Massachusetts and died in 1842. Educated at Harvard from 1798 until 1800 he was a private instructor in Richmond, studied theology at Cambridge and was settled over the Federal Street Church in Boston in 1803, where he became the leader of the Unitarian movement then stirring New England, and active in all the philanthropic enterprises of the time. Research William Caxton
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