Fables Less and Less Fabulous: English Fables and Parables of the Nineteenth Century and Their Illustrations
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Authors
Dölvers, Horst
Issue Date
1997
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Book, Whole
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Abstract
Here is a book I want to come back to. Dölvers contends that Nineteenth Century England did have and use its fables. And something happened to the fable along the way. As Catherine Golden writes in her review in Victorian Studies of Autumn, 1998-99, Evident in religious writing, philosophical texts, and children's books, the nineteenth-century fable and its cousin the parable soften the wit of Aesop and become vehicles for edifying causes. In their ambiguity, realism, and presentation of painful truths, Victorian fables complicate the playful wit and moral groundwork on which the traditional fable rests. Three leads I want to follow with Dölvers' help concern Lytton's Fables in Song, which may be much more centered on traditional fable -- and much more nuanced in its handling of it -- than I had realized. I would like secondly to watch with his help the interaction between Walter Crane and William Linton in Baby's Own Aesop. Dölvers sees strong commentary in the pictorial presentations of Crane. I have often wondered about the match of text and picture in this combination, and have been critical of Linton's texts, which seem to presume the fable. Perhaps that is some of Dölvers' message. In the Nineteenth Century, the traditional fable is presumed, and then something is made of it. Finally, this book stimulates a reader to think more about Robert Louis Stevenson's handling of fables. Like Dölvers, I have tended to dismiss Stevenson's fables. It is rare to see a scholarly book as lavishly illustrated as this book is. Pages 9-10 list the thirty-six illustrations. Nobody ever took this book out of Rutgers' Library!
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Publisher
University of Delaware Press/Associated University Presses
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Identifier
8017 (Access ID)