Von Löwen und Lausbuben: Fabeln und Firlefanz
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Authors
Etzel, Theodor
Issue Date
1909
Type
Book, Whole
Language
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Abstract
This volume has some 144 pages and is divided into two sections according to its title. Its black cover pictures a smiling lion and four rascals. There are some curiosities to note about this book. Before its last two pages of standard advertising, it has five pages of published comment on Etzel's three other fable works. How nice that I now have all three in the collection! Those pages are preceded by a remark on the two groups of LaFontaine imitations in the book: three fables (56-61) and three Schwänke (droll stories, 68-81). Of the two major sections, Firlefanz presents tomfoolery: eighteen short pieces, mostly in verse. The fable section includes at its end the three imitations of La Fontaine and three Makamen, old Arabian improvisations. The La Fontaine fables, rendered here in verse, are MM, 2P, and Die weltflüchtige Ratte. A cursory reading suggests that they are very faithful to La Fontaine's text and theme. The fables are like those we know from Etzel's other works, a comment on individual and social human weaknesses. Some are prose and some in verse. Many are wonderfully short and pointed, like Hündin und Henne (15). This bitch of a dog shamelessly lures a dozen strange dogs behind her! So says the hen. This shameless hen shares with a dozen other hens the favor of one single rooster! So says the female dog. Or again in Die Uhr, the clock is in the midst of complaining about lazy men, who lie down and sleep while she works tirelessly through the night, but her complaint stops suddenly because the man forgot to wind her (21). I build my own house, boasted the snail. I use people for that purpose, answered the mouse. Good fun! Surprisingly not in Bodemann.
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Citation
Publisher
Georg Müller