Famous Fabulists of all times

1
Famous Fabulists of all times

• Fables are the timeless expression of the
  imagination -- a continuous creative process of
  making sense of the universe." They can be
  understood as magic mirrors in which the
  reflection not just of our hopes and fears, but
  also of those people from the earliest times can
  be viewed.
• Some of these stories are unimaginably old and
  almost certainly recounted long before the birth
  of writing and the dawn of recorded history."

2
Panchatantra

• One of India's most influential contributions to
  world literature, the Panchatantra (also spelled
  Pañcatantra or Pañca-tantra) consists of five
  books of animal fables and magic tales (some 87
  stories in all) that were compiled, in their
  current form, between the third and fifth
  centuries AD. It is believed that even then the
  stories were already ancient. The tales'
  self-proclaimed purpose is to educate the sons of
  royalty.
• Although the original author's or compiler's name
  is unknown, an Arabic translation from about 750
  AD attributes the Panchatantra to a wise man
  called Bidpai, which is probably a Sanskrit word
  meaning "court scholar."
• The fables of the Panchatantra found their way to
  Europe through oral folklore channels and by way
  of Persian and Arabic translations. They
  substantially influenced medieval writers of
  fables.
• http//www.market4us.com/panchatantra/content.html
  

3
Aesop(c.620-560)

• Fable writer whose many stories are still read.
• Aesop's fables purvey a timeless folk
• wisdom which triumphs over all trials and
• tribulations.
• Aesop was originally a Phrygian slave on the
• island of Samos, but managed to earn his freedom
• through his wits. He was then to spend his life
  at
• the court of the famous king Croesus.
• After a journey to Delphi, Aesop had openly
• criticized the oracles' priesthood, saying they
  were
• the parasites of Apollo. This cost him his life,
  
• since the angry priests murdered him.
• A statue of the great fabulist was erected to his
  
• memory at Athens, the work of Lysippus, one of
• the most famous Greek sculptors.

4
Nasreddin Hodja 13th c

• Hodja Nasreddin is a legendary satirical Sufi
• figure believed to have lived in Aksehir around
  the 13th
• century under the Seljuq rule. Nasreddin was a
  populist
• philosopher remembered for his funny stories,
  tales and
• anecdotes. The oldest manuscript of Nasreddin
  was
• found in 1571.
• Many nations of the Middle East and Central Asia
  claim
• Nasreddin as their own (i.e. Turks, Afghans,
  Iranians,
• and Uzbeks, and his name is spelled differently
  in various
• culturesand often preceded or followed by titles
  
• "Hodja", "Mullah", or "Effendi).
• Today, Nasreddin stories are told in a wide
  variety of
• regions, and have been translated into many
  languages.
• He has been very popular in China for many years
  and
• still appears in variety of movies cartoons, and
  novels.
• The "International Nasreddin Hodja Festival" is
  held
• annually in Aksehir between July 510.

5
Anansi tales

• Anansi Stories are part of an ancient mythology
  that is rooted in West African folklore and
  concerns the interaction between divine and
  semi-divine beings, royalty, humans, animals,
  plants and inanimate objects.
• Anansi the trickster is one of the most important
  characters of West African and Caribbean
  folklore.
• Stories of Anansi became such a prominent and
  familiar part of Ashanti oral culture that the
  word Anansesem - "spider tales" -came to embrace
  all kinds of fables. In the Southern United
  States he has evolved into Aunt Nancy.
• These stories continue to provide a moral
  foundation for the community.

6
Giufà

• The trickster Giufà, who is described elsewhere
  as "stupid, lazy, and cunning" (can one be both
  stupid and cunning?), is featured in many Italian
  folktales. His exploits compare to those of
  Germany's Till Eulenspiegel and Turkey's
  Nasreddin Hodja, to mention but two of his many
  counterparts in other nations.

7
Hitar Petar or Itar Pejo

• Hitar Petar or Itar Pejo is a character of
  Bulgarian folklore which first appeared in the
  16th17th century, when Bulgaria was still under
  Ottoman rule.Tales on his deeds are present in
  the folklore of all regions inhabited by
  Bulgarians.
• Hitar Petar is a poor village farmer but
  possesses remarkable slyness and wit. He is often
  presented as the "typical Bulgarian" and the
  perpetual antagonist of either the rich nobles,
  clerics and money lenders or the "typical
  Ottoman"  Nasreddin, whom he always manages to
  outwit.
• He is similar to other characters of European
  and Oriental folklore, more notable Nasreddin of
  Islamic folklore, the German Till Eulenspiegel
  the Hungarian Lúdas Matyi and the Jewish Hershel
  Ostropoler.

8
Till Eulenspiegel

• Till Eulenspiegel a north German peasant clown of
  the 14th c. who was immortalized in books
  describing his practical jokes on clerics and
  townsfolk. The first Till chapbook (c.1500) was
  probably in Saxon, but the story it told spread
  all over Europe and North Britain. Till is the
  hero of a tone poem by Richard Strauss and of
  many novels, poems, and stories.

9
Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695)
Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695)

• French poet whose FABLES rank among the
  masterpieces of world literature. His FABLES,
  usually called 'La Fontaine Fables', were
  published over the last 25 years of his life. The
  first volume 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. 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.
• They were widely translated and imitated during
  the 17th and 18th centuries all over Europe

10
The brothers Grimm

• German folklorists and philologists Jacob Ludwig
  Carl Grimm and Wilhelm Carl Grimm spent most of
  their lives in literary research as librarians
  and professors at the Universities of Göttingen
  and Berlin.
• They published Children's and Household Tales in
  1812, a collection which became known as "Grimm's
  Fairy Tales" with over two hundred folk tales.
  Although their intention was to preserve such
  material as part of German cultural and literary
  history, and their collection was first published
  with scholarly notes and no illustration, the
  tales soon came into the possession of young
  readers.
• Some of their tales can be found here
• http//www.infoplease.com/t/lit/grimm-fairy-tales/
  
• http//www.pitt.edu/dash/grimm.html
• http//www.cs.cmu.edu/spok/grimmtmp/

11
Ivan (Andreyevich) Krylov (1769-1844)

• Russian writer of fables in the tradition of
  Aesop and La Fontaine.
• Krylov satirized social and individual faults in
  the guise of beasts, producing 203 fables in nine
  books. They are still an integral part of Russian
  primary and secondary education.
• His statue, built in 1855, is situated in the
  Summer Gardens.

12
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

• Russian author, essayist and philosopher. He had
  an abiding
• interest in children and children's literature.
  He started a school
• for peasant children on his family's estate,
  and later founded
• another, experimental school with the motto,
  "Come when you
• like, leave when you like."
• Fascinated by the innocence with which the
  children of
• his schools told stories, Tolstoy began writing
  about his own
• childhood. After completing WAR AND PEACE, he
• incorporated these stories in a series of easy
  readers. Known as
• THE ABC BOOK (Azbuka) and THE NEW ABC BOOK
• (Novaia Azbuka), these marvelous readers were
  widely
• adopted in Russia and were still in use in the
  Soviet era.
• The tales and fables in this illustrated volume
  come mainly
• from these two well-loved primers. Part 1
  consists of stories
• about Tolstoy's own childhood, all told with
  beautiful
• simplicity. Part 2 contains Tolstoy's free
  adaptations of fables
• from Aesop and from Hindu tradition. Part 3 is
  devoted solely
• to his longest and most famous children's work,
  the fairy tale
• "Ivan the Fool and His Two Brothers." Tthese
  small gems

13
George Orwell

• Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 21 January
  1950), better known by the pen name George
  Orwell, was an English author and journalist.
• Noted as a novelist, as a critic and as a
  political and cultural commentator, Orwell is
  among the most widely admired English-language
  essayists of the 20th century. He is best known
  for two novels written and published towards the
  end of his life Animal Farm and Nineteen
  Eighty-Four.