Imagining Aesop: the Medieval Fable and the History of the Book
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MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Greta Lynn Smith Candidate for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ______________________________________ Dr. Cynthia Klestinec, Director ______________________________________ Dr. Katharine Gillespie, Reader ______________________________________ Dr. Patrick Murphy, Reader ______________________________________ Dr. Tory Pearman, Reader ______________________________________ Dr. Stephen Nimis, Graduate School Representative ABSTRACT IMAGINING AESOP: THE MEDIEVAL FABLE AND THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK by Greta L Smith Fable collections circulated widely throughout the Middle Ages. A popular classical form, the fable plays a significant role in medieval language education, storytelling, and social and political commentary. These collections were so popular that there are over 200 extant manuscripts and later became some of the first works put into print by British printer William Caxton. While other scholars have noted the widespread popularity of the fables, this dissertation addresses the implications of this popularity. Fables seem to have played an integral part in medieval language and literacy education, and later became a significant part of medieval literature. Ultimately, the fable played an integral role in the development of imaginative literature in the medieval period. This dissertation focuses on the transition between and overlap of the fable genre and the development of literacy education and medieval literature. It intervenes in the field of medieval literature and the history of the book. Focusing on the ways that various authors and translators use the fables differently, this dissertation explores how fable editions can enhance our knowledge of the reading practices of their time. Each of these topics can shed light on the other—a better understanding of the way that fables are working can help us better understand the history of the book, while understanding the history and rise of the book can also help us understand the significance of the fable genre. As the fables becomes a part of literary tradition, and later a part of print culture, the content and nature of fable collections shifts. In the Middle Ages, fables move from the classical model of detached short narratives with a pithy moral, collected together only because of their similar genre, into collections that offer a narrative structure with coherent characters across fables, and eventually into collections that are carefully organized to convey a series of messages, building from each individual fable to the next. Aesop is connected to the collections in name only until the rise of print, when the life of Aesop is reintroduced as a preface to the collections, and fable literature, rather than being held together with a narrative structure returns once again to short, disconnected narratives, with two-line morals. By examining different interpretations of the fable genre throughout the Middle Ages, I will look at how medieval readers experienced the fable as part of a developing culture of reading and the book. IMAGINING AESOP: THE MEDIEVAL FABLE AND THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English by Greta L Smith The Graduate School Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2016 Dissertation Director: Dr. Cynthia Klestinec © Greta Lynn Smith 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: 1 The History of the Book, Reading Practices, and Reception Chapter 1: 20 Commentary, Marginalia, and Circulation: The Curricular Aesop Chapter 2: 47 Characterization, Citizenship, and Collectivity: The Fables of Marie de France Chapter 3: 86 Law and Tyranny: The Fables of John Lydgate Chapter 4: 131 Social Commentary and Critique: Robert Henryson’s Morall Fabilli Chapter 5: 184 Moving Back to the Classical: William Caxton’s The Fables of Aesop, and other print versions Conclusion: 203 The Fable and Medieval Readers Bibliography 206 iii ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: “The Fable of the Rat and of the Frogge” 186 Figure 2: "The Fable of the Dogge and of the Sheep " 188 Figure 3: “The Fable of the Egle Whiche Bare a Nutte in his Becke,” 195 Figure 4: “The Fable of the Oxe and of the Frogge 200 iv DEDICATION To Tom and Tori, for their never ending patience and support, and distractions and laughs when I needed them most. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many thanks to my chair, Dr. Cindy Klestinec, for her encouragement and careful editing, and the development of my writing skills that goes far beyond this dissertation. And to the rest of my committee, for their continued support and belief in the project, and in particular to Dr. Patrick Murphy for pointing out to me that medieval fables seemed like an interesting and understudied project, and letting me run with his idea. To my Dad, for never letting me give up, for insisting I can do this, and never letting me accomplish less than my best, and my Mom, for being the strongest woman I have ever met. Your model of strength gave me the strength I needed to finish. For my Miami friends, in particular Alyssa, who started and finished this journey with me; so many thanks for the late night consolations and editing help. Also Kasey and Megan, for making the whole grad school experience more enjoyable. Thanks to my many running friends for letting me burn off my stress, and talk to you about fables for miles, even though I sounded crazy. And last, thanks to my writing buddy, George the Cat, for sitting on my lap, and my computer, from the prospectus to the final draft. vi Introduction: The History of the Book, Reading Practices, and Reception In 1692, John Locke published the Federalist Papers, which included a treatise entitled Some Thoughts Concerning Education. In this work, Locke discusses all of the methods through which a child ought to be educated, including the various texts he/she ought to study. When discussing which books should be used to teach reading, he notes a child should begin with “some easy pleasant book, suited to his capacity.” This book should not be dull, but rather “the entertainment that he finds might draw him on, and reward his pains in reading, and yet not such as should fill his head with perfectly useless trumpery.” The perfect text for this, Locke argues, is Aesop’s fables, which he believes are “stories apt to delight and entertain a child, may yet afford useful reflections to a grown man.” Locke goes on to note that Aesop’s fables are also the perfect work through which a child could learn Latin, encouraging that a child should read the same fable “over and over again, till he perfectly understands the Latin; and then go on to another fable, till he be also perfect in that.”1 Most interesting, however, is Locke’s classification of the fable texts: “The Fables of Aesop, the only book almost that I know fit for children, may afford them matter for this exercise of writing English.”2 Simultaneous to Locke’s proclamations on the usefulness of the fable genre in educating children, the perception of children began to shift as well. Rather than the medieval perception, which allowed children to be exposed to much the same literature as adults, children of the eighteenth century were viewed as more innocent, in need of protection from their parents.3 Locke’s work seems to have influenced later authors such as Hans Christian Anderson to use fables in ways that we 1 John Locke (John W Yolton, and Jean S. Yolton. Some Thoughts Concerning Education. Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1989. Print. p. 91) also encourages that a child might write the English translation for each of Aesop’s fables, as literal as It might be, and through this method determine the meaning of each individual Latin word. 2 Locke’s encouragement for his readers to rewrite the fable in English (106) is certainly part of a long medieval tradition—he is simply lowering the age group that is completing this exercise. 3 Seth Lerer discusses the constructs of childhood, and the expressions and rise of childhood throughout the Middle Ages, and into the modern era at great length in his book Children’s Literature : a Reader’s History, from Aesop to Harry Potter (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Print). 1 are all too familiar with today—as simple moral texts, designed to teach a child reader right from wrong. This was a far cry from how fables had been read; earlier in the 1600s, collections such as Bernard Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees, covered sophisticated economic concepts. Before Locke’s work, fables seem to cover a much wider set of concerns, rather than being limited by beliefs on what a child should or should not be exposed to: collections such as Jean de la Fontaine’s, whose initial pre1692 fables are rather immoral and clearly aimed at a more sophisticated audience.4 A later translation of Fontaine’s work in 1754 has been significantly tamed, and truly intended to be read by children. This trend continues well into the twenty first century, as fables are now published almost entirely as children’s literature. Although we, like Locke, have come to associate the fable with children, the fable had different functions in earlier times. The modern perception of the fable places it strongly in the category of children’s literature, yet this is very far removed from the fable’s ancient and medieval roots. Even the purported author of the fable, Aesop, was a figure not suitable for children; in the Life of Aesop he is celebrated as a thief, and repeatedly tells rather crude jokes. In the Middle Ages the fable was used primarily for grammar and Latin language education, and certainly targeted exclusively at older students and adults.