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UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Fabulist in the Fable Book Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1np9w796 Author Mann, Kristin Leilani Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles The Fabulist in the Fable Book A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Classics by Kristin Leilani Mann 2015 © Copyright by Kristin Leilani Mann 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERETATION The Fabulist in the Fable Book by Kristin Leilani Mann Doctor of Philosophy in Classics University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor Kathryn Anne Morgan, Co-Chair Professor Amy Ellen Richlin, Co-Chair Four fable books survive from Greco-Roman antiquity: (1) the Life and Fables of Aesop (1st-2nd century CE), a collection of Greek prose fables; (2) Phaedrus’s Fabulae Aesopiae (1st century CE), a collection of Latin verse fables; (3) Babrius’s Μυθίαμβοι Αἰσώπειοι (1st century CE), a collection of Greek verse fables; and (4) Avianus’s Fabulae (4th-5th century CE), a collection of Latin verse fables. The thesis of this dissertation is that in each of these fable collections, the fabulist’s presence in the fable book – his biography, his self-characterizations, and his statements of purpose – combine to form a hermeneutic frame through which the fables may be interpreted. Such a frame is necessary because the fable genre is by nature multivalent: fables may be interpreted in many different ways, depending on their context. For embedded fables (that is, fables embedded in a larger narrative or speech), the fable’s immediate context influences the fable’s interpretation. In the fable books, however, there is no literary context; the ii fables stand as isolated narratives. The fabulist himself, I argue, takes the place of this missing context, and thus provides the reader with an interpretive framework. Such a framework does not outright control the interpretation of the fables (the fables remain multivalent), but it does provide a field of plausible interpretations. Furthermore, because each fable book has a different hermeneutic frame, each text is unique, despite using much of the same material. Thus, in the Life and Fables of Aesop, the Life serves as a guide for how to use the Fables that follow, a guide that is aimed at low or powerless individuals. Phaedrus’s collection demonstrates the usefulness of fables as a form of coded speech, for slaves and for other disempowered individuals. Babrius’s collection explores the usefulness of fables in education, and teaches the readers how to think about and apply fable wisdom correctly. Finally, Avianus’s fable collection is concerned not only with the boundaries of genre – with what is and is not appropriate for the fable genre – but also with the nature of display and ornamentation itself, an important issue in late antique culture. These four fable books have not, on the whole, received much scholarly attention, and there has been little attempt to read them as coherent works of literature in their own right. By considering the overall purpose and hermeneutic frames of each of these collections, this dissertation fills an important gap in scholarship. iii The dissertation of Kristin Leilani Mann is approved. Alex C. Purves Joseph F. Nagy Kathryn Anne Morgan, Committee Co-Chair Amy Ellen Richlin, Committee Co-Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments …………………………………………………………………………….... vi Vita …………………………………………………………………………………………… viii Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………..……… 1 Chapter 1 The Life and Fables of Aesop: An Instruction Manual for the Low ………………….. 36 Chapter 2 Phaedrus: Fables as Covert Speech ………………………………………...………... 100 Chapter 3 Babrius: Fables as Education ……………………………………………….……...…179 Chapter 4 Avianus: Dressing up the Fable Genre …………………………………...………..…247 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………..………..318 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………..…...……322 v Acknowledgments I am deeply indebted to my professors at UCLA for helping me bring this project to fruition. In particular, I would like to thank the co-chairs of my dissertation committee, Kathryn Morgan and Amy Richlin, for all of their help, support, and advice during this process. They both agreed to be my co-chairs, even though this wide-ranging project on the fable collections did not fall neatly into their areas of specialization, and I am grateful for their invaluable comments and advice, the bibliography they introduced me to, and for their reading and rereading of my drafts. I would also like to thank the other members of my committee – Alex Purves and Józsi Nagy – for their feedback and for the many insightful conversations about fables that I had with them. I have also had the good fortune to receive help from non-committee members, in particular Mario Telò, who talked with me about fable bibliography and approaches, and Francesca Martelli, who introduced me to paratext theory and gave vital feedback on my introduction. I am also very grateful for the help I received from scholars outside of UCLA who offered new perspectives and insights. Ellen Finkelpearl not only talked with me about my project and about the wider world of animal studies, but also invited me a dinner with her and Claire Nettleton to talk about our work on animals. Dana Fields allowed me to read her not yet published work on the fable collections. James Uden listened to my talk in Boston, gave me helpful notes, and mailed me his article on Avianus, an article which proved crucial to my chapter. I am grateful to them all. I would also like to thank the Classics Department at the University of Southern California for inviting me to participate in their seminar on Leslie Kurke’s Aesopic Conversations, and to Leslie Kurke for coming and talking about her book. vi In seminars and conferences over the years, I have had the opportunity to presents parts of my dissertation as talks. As such, I would like extend my thanks to David Blank, in whose seminar I gave a talk about Babrius and Plutarch; to Boston University, whose graduate students hosted a conference at which I spoke about Aesop and Babrius, and the Society for Classical Studies, at whose conference I spoke about Phaedrus. Thanks to these opportunities, I not only clarified my arguments, but also received feedback from numerous scholars. I am grateful to the organizations who helped fund my dissertation work: UCLA graduate division, for offering me College of Letters and Science Fellowships in 2008-2009 and 2011- 2012, a Graduate Research Mentorship in 2010-2011, and a Dissertation Year Fellowship in 2014-2015. I would also like to thank the Mellon Foundation, for offering me a Mellon Fellowship in 2012. The Dissertation Year Fellowship came about as a result of my winning the Distinguished Teaching Award, which would not have been possible without Bob Gurval and Sarah Morris, who nominated me and then assembled my portfolio, nor without Kathryn Morgan, Mario Telò, and many of my past students, who wrote letters of support. I also extend warm thanks to my family and friends – to Grace Gillies, for letting me talk through my chapters on multiple occasions and for always offering her support and advice; to Alex Lessie, for insightful conversations about our projects; to Paul Waite, for making sure that I kept a sense of humor through it all; and to Mik Larsen, for his feedback on my writing sample, for long conversations about fables, and for the healthy competition that allowed my work to stay on track. Finally, I would like to thank my family, for their love and encouragement during my graduate school career, and especially my partner, Mandy, for all of her support and love. vii VITA 2008 B.A. (summa cum laude), Classics and English Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois 2008-2009 College of Letters and Science Fellowship University of California, Los Angeles 2009-2010 Teaching Assistant Department of Classics University of California, Los Angeles 2010 M.A., Classics University of California, Los Angeles 2010-2011 Graduate Research Mentorship University of California, Los Angeles 2011-2012 College of Letters and Science Fellowship University of California, Los Angeles 2012 Mellon Fellowship University of California, Los Angeles 2013-2014 Teaching Assistant Department of Classics University of California, Los Angeles 2014 UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award for Teaching Assistants UCLA Classics Department Distinguished Teaching Award 2014-2015 Dissertation Year Fellowship University of California, Los Angeles PRESENTATIONS Mann, Kristin (March, 2010) View and Display in Herodotus. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest / Classical Association of the Canadian West. viii ——— (March, 2012) How Could It Be Pure? Bird Violence in Aeschylus’ Suppliants. Paper presented at the annual meeting of Classical Association of the Middle West and South. ——— (March, 2013) The Separation of Human and Animal in Aesop and Babrius. Paper presented at Homo Animalis: Man and Animal in the Ancient World, Boston University. ——— (January, 2015). Dual Audience in Phaedrus. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Classical Studies. ix Introduction This dissertation, The Fabulist in the Fable Book, focuses on the four fable collections that have survived from Greco-Roman antiquity: (1) the Life and Fables of Aesop (1st-2nd century CE), a collection of Greek prose fables; (2) Phaedrus’s Fabulae Aesopiae (1st century CE), a collection of Latin verse fables; (3) Babrius’s Μυθίαμβοι Αἰσώπειοι (1st century CE), a collection of Greek verse fables; and (4) Avianus’s Fabulae (4th-5th century CE), a collection of Latin verse fables. I argue that in each collection, the author’s biography serves as a framing narrative that guides the interpretation of the fables. Essentially, each fabulist emphasizes the part of his identity that explains for what purpose he is writing fables, and this gives the reader a hermeneutic frame through which to interpret the text.
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