When the first Fables choisies, mises en vers par Monsieur de La Fontaine [Selected Fables, set to verse by M. de La Fontaine] were released in 1668, the poet was forty-seven years old. From then on, he would continue to experiment with a poetic form which he turned towards a wider audience. La Fontaine made his fables a humble but crucial vantage point on human nature and the society of his time, in the manner of La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)’s Maximes and La Bruyère (1645-1696)’s Caractères. He thus expanded the genre’s potential, as his style benefited from his practice of many other literary forms: tale, epic, idyll, novel, and dramatic genres. Indeed, the
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Citation: Bohnert, Céline. "The Fables of La Fontaine". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 February 2023 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=39762, accessed 21 November 2024.]
