The Ant and the Grasshopper: An Animal Fable
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Authors
Nemo
Smyth, Hilary
Issue Date
1974
Type
Book, Whole
Language
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
This English version uses the pictures one can find in Mes Fables d'Animaux by Touret in Milan. I had guessed for that larger hardbound book of six stories a date of 1975. This 24-page pamphlet uses the illustrations rather than reprints them, sometimes dividing or cropping. Smyth's text shows even more divergence. Where the French there deals with generic characters and returns regularly to the basic themes of work and rest, this story gets more particular and imaginative. Emily the ant goes about various specific tasks. Gordon the grasshopper sings directly to her, and she criticizes his song for not even rhyming. It makes Gordon tired just to see her work. The French ant constructs a ladder to help her harvest. The English ant pretends she does not even hear his plaints and invitations to her to sing. Autumn rains in the English version dampen Gordon's guitar strings, and he can no longer play in tune. Notice, of course, that the grasshopper has become a male in the English, whereas both characters in French are females. The last lines of the French have the ant remembering the earlier mockery of the grasshopper. In English, Emily retorts A fine time to complain! In neither version is it explicit that she rejects helping him, but in both she tells him to dance. This is a nice little study in intercultural transposition of a text.
Description
Citation
Publisher
Knight Books
Knight: Brockhampton Press
Knight: Brockhampton Press