Die Fabel: Theorie, Geschichte und Rezeption einer Gattung
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Authors
Hasubek, Peter
Issue Date
1982
Type
Book, Whole
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Abstract
This book brings together fifteen specific fable studies under a project description well laid out in Peter Hasubek's introduction. To give a sense of the book, I will offer some notes on that introduction. Fable has resisted definition and clear differentiation. It has a certain elasticity. People coming to this genre will be surprised at how hard it has been. It is easier if one picks out a fabulist, like Lessing, but even then there are differences within his carefully studied sense of fable. So the challenge for research is less to come up with a definition and more to differentiate historically different fable types and to clarify the structural result and intentional demand of fable in relation to related genres. So fable theory here is more an investigation of the various fable theories authors have had in the past. What needs study is the texts of fables of the 17th and 19th centuries. These two cannot keep up in quantity or quality with the 16th and 18th centuries, for sure. In the 17th fable had an important function in the spread and representation of Christian religious doctrinal content; in the 19th as a continuation of the trivializing tendencies of the Enlightenment of the 18th century as moral content especially in the schools. The 20th century also needs this kind of study. Also needing study is the impact of foreign fabulists on German fabulists. Post-war criticism tended to look down on fable. The last fifteen years have seen increased interest in the narrative structure of fable. There has been a tendency to highlight one purpose of a fable, e.g., its social-critical intention. Leibfried's four Stilzüge may need to be extended (belehrender, kritisierender, satirischer, fabuloser). How about the entertaining, pleasing aspect? Fable is much more than social criticism! So this book will also represent a kind of fable research that has an eye on the reception of fables. Recent history has limited the place of that reception to schools. More texts of old-time fables need to be accessible! The task of this book then is in some neglected issues to offer through individual articles impulses for further involvement with fable. The area of interest is the 16th through the 20th century. Lessing has been consciously left out because he has been so thoroughly studied. But many of the specific studies here end up relating to Lessing.
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Publisher
Erich Schmidt Verlag