Satiric Fable in English: A Critical Study of the Animal Tales of Chaucer, Spenser, Dryden and Orwell
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Authors
Lall, Rama Rani
Issue Date
1979
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Book, Whole
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Abstract
This is a comparative study of five works: Chaucer's The Nun's Priest's Tale; Spenser's Mother Hubberds Tale; Dryden's The Hind and the Panther; Gay's fables; and Orwell's Animal Farm. In the preface, the author admits that Gay does not really belong in this study, but his fables are too important to omit him. What is satiric fable? We may define the satiric fable as a humorous allegorical tale of varying length in prose or verse, having animal characters, whose actions serve as a basis for satirizing existing persons, policies or institutions. If in the tale the narrator slyly points the finger of scorn and ridicule at the world as it too often is, the world of self-interest, greed and cunning, the result is a satiric fable (4). Satiric fables, like the stories about Brer Rabbit, are to be distinguished from moral fables, like the fables of Aesop. Some will have questions to raise here about the length of some of the fables that Lall considers.
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Distributed by Humanities Press
New Statesman Publishing Company
New Statesman Publishing Company
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Identifier
7951 (Access ID)