Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Daniela Kleinová The Uses of the Fable in Medieval and Modern English Literature Bachelor‘s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A. 2012 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author‘s signature Acknowledgement I would like to express my thanks to my supervisor prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A., for her helpful guidance and valuable advice provided to me during my work on this thesis. Table of Contents 1 Introduction _______________________________________________________ 2 2 Development of the Fable as a Literary Genre, Its Specific Features and Its Didactic Roles ____________________________________________________________ 4 3 Chaucer’s Period __________________________________________________ 12 3.1 The Canterbury Tales ________________________________________________ 13 3.2 The Nun’s Priest’s Tale _______________________________________________ 14 4 Orwell’s Period ____________________________________________________ 18 4.1 Animal Farm _______________________________________________________ 18 5 Comparison of The Nun’s Priest’s Tale and the Animal Farm ________________ 27 6 Conclusion _______________________________________________________ 34 Works Cited __________________________________________________________ 36 Czech Résumé ________________________________________________________ 40 English Résumé _______________________________________________________ 41 Appendices ___________________________________________________________ 42 1 1 Introduction The thesis focuses on the uses of the fable in texts by two different authors from two different periods of British literature: George Orwell‘s Animal Farm and Geoffrey Chaucer‘s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale from The Canterbury Tales. The thesis compares and contrasts the ways the authors work with the genre of the fable while illustrating the conditions of specific societies in their stories. Chaucer in his pieces of art works with numerous genres, including the fable. Similarly, although Orwell‘s Animal Farm is not a typical demonstration of the fable as its main idea criticizes political events, both stories concentrate on negative features and values of people and their misbehaviour is depicted by the performance of animals. For this purpose, in the second chapter, I would like to explore the fable as a literary genre, its historical background and its development from the first appearance until the last century by means of the two texts in particular. Regarding the significance of fables I concentrate on the work of Aesop and other well-known fabulists and outline the most important aspects of their works which might have been a possible influence on Chaucer and Orwell. In the third and the fourth chapter I concentrate on The Nun’s Priest’s Tale and the Animal Farm in detail. The main focus of the chapters is to analyse the features of the fable and examine the authors‘ strategies and motives for using the animal characters. The thesis intends to observe the way animals are portrayed in the two texts as they play the most important roles as characters there. Each of the authors uses different animals to express certain qualities of the people, but some of them are similar to each other. Accordingly, I emphasize some of the features of the fables shared with the fables by Aesop. 2 The works, their characters and the outcome of the authors‘ specific uses of the fable are compared and contrasted in the fifth chapter. I focus primarily on their usage of animal and human characters, settings, usage of language and of course the historical backgrounds of the periods in which they were written. 3 2 Development of the Fable as a Literary Genre, Its Specific Features and Its Didactic Roles The reasons why fables (from the Latin fabula, ―a telling‖) have always been very popular among readers are numerous. First of all, they have a lot in common with fairy tales. The plot is usually very simple and characters are very similar to those in fairy tales or folktales. One of the common features is that inanimate things and animals think and converse like rational beings, although it is not always a necessary feature in a fairy tale. The most distinctive aspect of fables is that they always lead to an interpretation of a moral lesson. Baldick in The concise Oxford dictionary of literary terms describes the fable as ―a brief tale in verse or prose that conveys a moral lesson, usually by giving human speech and manners to animals and inanimate things (Baldick, 80). It aims to imprint the minds of people with good values and virtuous qualities by telling a simple, funny story that is easy to remember. The moral might be placed either at the end of a fable or rarely at the beginning. In modern fables it is usually inserted into the story making it more difficult for readers to detect. Bussey argues that the significance of fables lies in their ability to influence people‘s minds and their behaviour: ―Fables are, in fact, admirably calculated to make lasting impressions on the minds of all persons; but especially those which are unformed and uncultivated ; and to convey to them moral instruction‖ (Bussey, 6). The presence of animals is crucial in fables and there are some typical situations which are more or less present in each of them. Some of the species occur more often than others, representing the certain qualities that work almost as stereotypes. For example a fox is portrayed in numerous fables where it usually plays a role of a negative or rather cunning character, and its main qualities are artifice and revenge. In 4 the confrontation of two animal characters, whilst one of them is very little (a mouse), slow (a turtle) or ―weak‖, it very often happens that this one comes out of story as a hero, while the strong and big animal is given a moral lesson. The fable is written in an antithesis structure, which means that there are two opposed characters and their direct speech or a dialogue. It contains typical features which distinguish it from other, similar genres, e.g. exemplum, which is a ―short tale used as an example to illustrate a moral point, usually in a sermon or other didactic work‖ (Baldick, 76). In the medieval literature it is quite difficult to distinguish between those two, even though it is generally believed that the fable is intended for a wider readership. Other similar genres are the parable and allegory. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica 9, although a parable resembles a fable in its Middle Eastern origin and the essential qualities of brevity and definiteness, it differs in the exclusion of anthropomorphic animals or inanimate creatures and in the inherent plausibility of the story itself Similarly, the fable is allegorical in a broadest sense, but it differs from allegory in that the moral lesson it teaches is given at the end of the tale rather than being intermingled with the story (133). According to Mocná, the narrator of a fable is impersonal, although in the case of modern fables written in humorous and ironic style he might introduce arbitrary gestures. She further points out, that the fable might be serious or comic – satirical or humorous. By means of its function, we distinguish a didactic fable, a political fable and a poetic fable. A didactic fable intends to teach a moral lesson, a political fable is usually satiric and its aim is to affect a society and a poetical fable‘s intention is to amuse (Mocná, 33). The fable is one of the oldest genres of oral literature. The Western tradition of the fable begins with Aesop and most people associate the fable exceedingly with him. 5 Aesop, who was an Ethiopian slave, is credited with a number of fables. However, his existence is not certain although his name is well-known all over the world and Aesop’s Fables have been translated into many languages. According to Bussey, the best classical authorities described Aesop to have flourished in the time of Solon and Pisistratus, about the middle of the sixth century (Bussey, 11). After the first appearance of the fable many authors started to write similar tales, borrowing certain themes from Aesop. One of the first Aesop‘s successors was a Roman fabulist, Phaedrus. He produced a collection of fables, adapting many Aesopian themes and features. His work later influenced tales of many succeeding fabulists: Not until Phaedrus were the Aesop stories meant to be read consecutively as literature. His treatment of them greatly influenced the way in which they were used by later writers, notably by the 17th-century French poet and fabulist Jean de La Fontaine (123). Aesopian pattern is significant for its conclusive sentence at the end of the story which is in fact the moral of the fable. It is called epimythium (the term used by Burns in ―Aesop‘s Fables‖). For example, the epimythium of the fable “The Lion and the Mouse” – where the significantly stronger lion finally needs help from a little mouse is often given as: ―Even the weak and small may be of help to those much mightier than themselves‖ (Aesop). Burns states that less frequently, the Aesopian tradition features a promythium, which is a brief statement preceding the story. Both expressions intend to ―provide a link between a reader and the setting of the story‖. Burns further points out that: The Aesopian fables are frequently identified by a series of letters and numbers which are meant to define the collection source as fables may vary in language or form depending on the preferences of their adaptor or compiler. For instance, 6 the well-known story of ―The Fox and the Grapes‖ is sometimes referred to as ―P 15,‖ which marks it as part of Ben Edwin Perry‘s definitive modern fable collection, Aesopica: A Series of Texts Relating to Aesop or Ascribed to Him or Closely Associated with the Literary Tradition which Bears His Name.