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A Brief History of Fables: From Aesop to Flash Fiction
Discussing rising stars of contemporary fiction including Jonathan Lethem in addition to cherished classics including Aesop and Kafka, this groundbreaking work outlines the reemerging significance of fables in modern culture From the earliest of classical narratives to modern day e-zines, literary works have long been turned to political, didactic, and symbolic ends. Tracing the long history of a form currently enjoying a resurgence online and in the works of some of the most talented young authors in print, author and literary critic Rourke here considers the permutations of the form. From Aesop's tortoise and hare and Plato's socio-political works to Kafka's anthropomorphism and present-day authors such as Blake Butler, Joseph Young, Shane Jones, and Jonathan Lethem, this book explores an emergence from modernism and how, in its aftermath, fables—the briefest of narratives given the most expansive of significations—have gained in popularity. From readers interested in learning more about well-loved fairytales to those considering the hot topic of post-postmodernism, here is a bold take on a new face of literature everyone is sure to enjoy.
- GenresFlash FictionNonfiction
190 pages, Paperback
First published September 24, 2010
About the author
Lee Rourke
12 books55 followersLee Rourke is the author of the short-story collection Everyday, the novels The Canal (winner of the Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize 2010), Vulgar Things, and the poetry collections Varroa Destructor and Vantablack. His latest novel Glitch is published by Dead Ink Books. His debut novel The Canal is being adapted to film by Storyhouse Productions, summer 2020. He is Contributing Editor for 3:AM Magazine [www.3ammagazine.com]. He lives by the sea.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 27, 2012
“For in the beginning of Literature is the myth, and in the end as well.” Jorge Luis Borges.
In the introduction to this book it states that it is “a brief history of fables and, in particular, their literary influence in popular culture throughout the ages” and that as part of the brief histories series, Lee Rourke has set out to “briefly chart the popular Aesopic fable’s literary heritage” as he, the writer, sees it, taking as his starting point “ Aesop’s ancient oral and mimetic roots, to its myriad stylistic and symbolic influences in the burgeoning age of flash fiction and the internet”
Aesop’s life is like Homer’s, obscured by myth & rumour, what is known would make a fantastic tale of it’s own. Thought to have been born around 620 BC and rising from slave to become a courtier to the King of Babylon, famous throughout the land for his great wit as a speaker and storyteller. His fables were used as common currency, passing from individual to individual & country to country, becoming the moral and philosophical guidance of the people. This didn’t last as Aesop offended the citizens of Delphi so much that they decided to kill him, first by framing him, they then executed him by chucking him off a cliff, although this came back on them, as they were met with a series of awful calamities, that at the time were recorded as “the blood of Aesop”.
After this event a statue was erected in Athens, to honour him, sculpted by one of the foremost artists of this period (Lysippus), an event recorded by Phaedrus in verse
“The Athenians erected a large statue of Aesop, and placed him, though a slave, on a lasting pedestal, to show that the way to honour lies open indifferently to all.”
(Phaedrus, Thrace of Macedonia {trans unknown})
At the time of his death, Aesop’s fables were so thoroughly embedded in both Greek and Roman society, that his influence can be seen in the works of Plato & Socrates, in fact Lee Rourke goes on to state that we can place Aesop in a contrasting relationship to the likes of Socrates, placing Aesop in the role of the “first real public anti-hero & as an anti-philosopher par excellence” stating that where Socrates went on to preach the mantra “Know Thyself” it was Aesop who first preached the contrary philosophy of “No”, posing the question of what can we really know, or if we have any real knowledge of our own, this he did through his use of analogy (an important tool in the history of Philosophy) for example:
This tale from the “Life of Aesop” of when his master sends him to inspect the baths. “While Aesop is on his way there, he runs into a government official, who asks Aesop where he is going. Aesop says simply, “I don’t know.” This infuriates the official, who insists on knowing where Aesop is going. Aesop still refuses to answer the question, saying only, “I don’t know.” The official, completely enraged, orders that Aesop be arrested and taken to jail. At this point, Aesop explains: “You see that my answer was correct; I did not know that I was going to jail!” The government official is so startled by Aesop’s display of wisdom that he lets him go.”
In this one analogy Aesop turns around the famous motto* of “Know Thyself” and replaces it with the motto of “I don’t know!” and thus escaping the philosophical trap of supposing to understand all, replacing it with the idea that “For all our plans and purposes, do we really know where we are going…?”.
This motto is just one of the strands that “A Brief History of Fables” unpicks, as it traces the route these tales have taking us on, tracking them through their various translations (whether cultural, language or religious), from the Greek and Roman world through the cultures of Islam, Judaism & Christianity, through writers such as Phaedrus, Plutarch, Marie De France, and onto Rumi **, William Caxton, Franz Kafka , Samuel Beckett ,James Joyce & Jorge Luis Borges right up to the present day.
This brings us to the second part of the title “Flash Fiction”, and this is where Lee Rourke, ties all his strands together by stating that “It seems to me that in flash fiction we have come full circle and, once again , in one of our most modern forms of literature, the oldest of influences looms large – enlivening it in a modern context”. He goes on to cite the work of writers such as Tania Hershman, Shane Jones, Blake Butler & Joseph Young demonstrating how their microfictions distillate the essence of Aesop & how in their linguistic & mythic properties we can trace this process back to the original fables, here’s one from Joseph Young’s collection of 86 microfictions, Easter Rabbit
Diction
“It was easy to hear the word that turned through the table. It could sound like death, or listen! or ridicule, but it caught at the throat and stuck. The other words, those at the spiked green corners of her eyes or the bittersweet planes of his mouth, were pregnant with it, its sons and daughters. They’d labor on, these people, without fruit it seemed, though in fact the table was in the blossom of it.” (Easter Rabbit, Joseph Young – Publishing Genius Press)
By focusing on the works of these present day writers he shows where & how Aesop & his fables have surfaced time & time again, from Aesop’s tortoise and hare, via Plato’s socio-political works and the later ribald medieval tales, to Kafka’s anthropomorphism, to present-day authors work, such as Blake Butler’s “Scorch Atlas”, Shane Jones’s “Light Boxes” or Joseph Young’s “Easter Rabbit”. A Brief History of Fables offers a bold take on the new face of literature. I’ll leave the last word to the Author, Lee Rourke:
“This book is in no way an instruction manual. Nor is it a work of critical theory. It is a celebration of a particular history of literary communication in all its glorious phases, a celebration of literature and one of its myriad interpolations. And finally, if that doesn’t grab you, just think of it as a signpost to another world: a wonderful, fabulous, mindbogglingly brilliant world of infinite possibilities.”
*attributed to Socrates, Pythagoras, and Thales (amongst others).
** Rumi (Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī)13th-century Persian, Muslim poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic. Rumi is a descriptive name meaning "Roman" since he lived most of his life in an area called "Rûm" (then under the control of Seljuq dynasty) because it was once ruled by the Eastern Roman Empire.
In the introduction to this book it states that it is “a brief history of fables and, in particular, their literary influence in popular culture throughout the ages” and that as part of the brief histories series, Lee Rourke has set out to “briefly chart the popular Aesopic fable’s literary heritage” as he, the writer, sees it, taking as his starting point “ Aesop’s ancient oral and mimetic roots, to its myriad stylistic and symbolic influences in the burgeoning age of flash fiction and the internet”
Aesop’s life is like Homer’s, obscured by myth & rumour, what is known would make a fantastic tale of it’s own. Thought to have been born around 620 BC and rising from slave to become a courtier to the King of Babylon, famous throughout the land for his great wit as a speaker and storyteller. His fables were used as common currency, passing from individual to individual & country to country, becoming the moral and philosophical guidance of the people. This didn’t last as Aesop offended the citizens of Delphi so much that they decided to kill him, first by framing him, they then executed him by chucking him off a cliff, although this came back on them, as they were met with a series of awful calamities, that at the time were recorded as “the blood of Aesop”.
After this event a statue was erected in Athens, to honour him, sculpted by one of the foremost artists of this period (Lysippus), an event recorded by Phaedrus in verse
“The Athenians erected a large statue of Aesop, and placed him, though a slave, on a lasting pedestal, to show that the way to honour lies open indifferently to all.”
(Phaedrus, Thrace of Macedonia {trans unknown})
At the time of his death, Aesop’s fables were so thoroughly embedded in both Greek and Roman society, that his influence can be seen in the works of Plato & Socrates, in fact Lee Rourke goes on to state that we can place Aesop in a contrasting relationship to the likes of Socrates, placing Aesop in the role of the “first real public anti-hero & as an anti-philosopher par excellence” stating that where Socrates went on to preach the mantra “Know Thyself” it was Aesop who first preached the contrary philosophy of “No”, posing the question of what can we really know, or if we have any real knowledge of our own, this he did through his use of analogy (an important tool in the history of Philosophy) for example:
This tale from the “Life of Aesop” of when his master sends him to inspect the baths. “While Aesop is on his way there, he runs into a government official, who asks Aesop where he is going. Aesop says simply, “I don’t know.” This infuriates the official, who insists on knowing where Aesop is going. Aesop still refuses to answer the question, saying only, “I don’t know.” The official, completely enraged, orders that Aesop be arrested and taken to jail. At this point, Aesop explains: “You see that my answer was correct; I did not know that I was going to jail!” The government official is so startled by Aesop’s display of wisdom that he lets him go.”
In this one analogy Aesop turns around the famous motto* of “Know Thyself” and replaces it with the motto of “I don’t know!” and thus escaping the philosophical trap of supposing to understand all, replacing it with the idea that “For all our plans and purposes, do we really know where we are going…?”.
This motto is just one of the strands that “A Brief History of Fables” unpicks, as it traces the route these tales have taking us on, tracking them through their various translations (whether cultural, language or religious), from the Greek and Roman world through the cultures of Islam, Judaism & Christianity, through writers such as Phaedrus, Plutarch, Marie De France, and onto Rumi **, William Caxton, Franz Kafka , Samuel Beckett ,James Joyce & Jorge Luis Borges right up to the present day.
This brings us to the second part of the title “Flash Fiction”, and this is where Lee Rourke, ties all his strands together by stating that “It seems to me that in flash fiction we have come full circle and, once again , in one of our most modern forms of literature, the oldest of influences looms large – enlivening it in a modern context”. He goes on to cite the work of writers such as Tania Hershman, Shane Jones, Blake Butler & Joseph Young demonstrating how their microfictions distillate the essence of Aesop & how in their linguistic & mythic properties we can trace this process back to the original fables, here’s one from Joseph Young’s collection of 86 microfictions, Easter Rabbit
Diction
“It was easy to hear the word that turned through the table. It could sound like death, or listen! or ridicule, but it caught at the throat and stuck. The other words, those at the spiked green corners of her eyes or the bittersweet planes of his mouth, were pregnant with it, its sons and daughters. They’d labor on, these people, without fruit it seemed, though in fact the table was in the blossom of it.” (Easter Rabbit, Joseph Young – Publishing Genius Press)
By focusing on the works of these present day writers he shows where & how Aesop & his fables have surfaced time & time again, from Aesop’s tortoise and hare, via Plato’s socio-political works and the later ribald medieval tales, to Kafka’s anthropomorphism, to present-day authors work, such as Blake Butler’s “Scorch Atlas”, Shane Jones’s “Light Boxes” or Joseph Young’s “Easter Rabbit”. A Brief History of Fables offers a bold take on the new face of literature. I’ll leave the last word to the Author, Lee Rourke:
“This book is in no way an instruction manual. Nor is it a work of critical theory. It is a celebration of a particular history of literary communication in all its glorious phases, a celebration of literature and one of its myriad interpolations. And finally, if that doesn’t grab you, just think of it as a signpost to another world: a wonderful, fabulous, mindbogglingly brilliant world of infinite possibilities.”
*attributed to Socrates, Pythagoras, and Thales (amongst others).
** Rumi (Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī)13th-century Persian, Muslim poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic. Rumi is a descriptive name meaning "Roman" since he lived most of his life in an area called "Rûm" (then under the control of Seljuq dynasty) because it was once ruled by the Eastern Roman Empire.
September 1, 2019
Interesting in how it draws so many connections to Aesop throughout literary history. Some of them seem tenuous, or lost in the sort of rhapsodic descriptions/appreciations of particular authors. Some paragraphs were so lush or filled with academese as to be impenetrable.
July 29, 2017
Food for thought.
June 25, 2014
Once Rourke leaves older fables (Aesop, Rumi, Caxton) and discusses more modern examples, everything becomes metafiction; stories become primarily about themselves or the nature of stories. If the older fables had been primarily about themselves, they never would have survived as folklore, as popular culture. Metafiction is interesting to a degree, but it cannot sustain literature, and it has limited appeal to broad audiences. Fables may include the nature of storytelling and language among their many topics, but they also are about the world that surrounds their human creators; audiences use them to make sense of their world, but metafiction tends to hide inside itself rather than engage the world of lived experience. It would have been helpful to consider more contemporary examples beyond metafiction.
And frequently the discussion of particular stories makes them seem too precious. Rourke praises their cleverness or inventiveness or insightfulness beyond the evidence that is presented.
And frequently the discussion of particular stories makes them seem too precious. Rourke praises their cleverness or inventiveness or insightfulness beyond the evidence that is presented.
November 29, 2011
How could I not love this book? It's perfectly done. I have some small quibbles about the contemporary writers he choose to focus on, and I was surprised to see no Richard Brautigan or Aimee Bender, but small concerns. If you're even remotely interested in this topic, this book is a must-read.
November 29, 2011
How could I not love this book! It was perfectly done. I have some small quibbles aboutnthe contemporary writers he focused on and surprised that there was no Richard Brautigan or Aimee Bender, but small complaints. If you have even a remote interest in this subject, you have to read this book.
January 11, 2012
Found out about some fabulous contemporary authors, is the best part. Re-realised Aesop's influence on my own thinking, too.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews