Jean de La Fontaine: Complete Fables

I don't know that it was really necessary to read the comprehensive version of this. Not only are many of the fables mere retellings of Ovid or Aesop, they pale in comparison to the originals, largely by vice of explication. De La Fontaine's work is not entirely free from entertainment value, however. He declares his intent to write "a drama in a hundred acts . . . Whose setting is the universe. Gods, men / Beasts play their parts, time and again, / And Jove as well" (V, 1). He falls just short of this lofty goal, but forgives himself when he writes, "I present a model flawed, / At least have I opened a path untrod / For others to perfect" (XI, 10).

And others have indeed played a part in the perfection of his work. I do not mean by any stretch to indicate that De La Fontaine's work is perfected, but translator Norman Shapiro's very nearly is. Verse translations are tricky, but Shapiro not only manages to create a rhyming version that feels natural, but also seems to capture the tone of the French: playful and winking. The translation is well suited to Fonatine's instruction: "Rather than plumb [these fables] through / unto their depth, best we but pluck the flowers" (VI, epilogue).