Fables are literary works that use metaphorical stories to convey meaningful truths, with a satirical or exhortative nature.
What does fable mean? What does fable mean? Fable is a literary form that expresses morality, philosophy or lessons in the form of fantasy stories. Fables often represent humans through animals, plants, or other non-human characters, conveying profound meaning through interactions between characters and plot development.
Characteristics of the fable genre:
1. Fables are generally short in length, concise and concise in language, simple in structure but highly expressive.
2. Clearly ironic and educational. Use metaphors frequently to embody instructive themes or profound truths in simple stories. Most of the thematic ideas use one to represent another, the distant to represent the near, the ancient to represent the present, and the small to represent the big.
3. The storyline is fictional. The protagonist can be a person or an object.
4. Commonly used techniques include metaphor, exaggeration, symbolism, personification, etc.
5. Confusion means sustenance, that is, embedding the author's thoughts in a story so that people can understand a certain truth from it. It is essentially an indirect expression of analogy.
In China, allegory is destined to be a kind of writing that is weaker than and inferior to history, because allegory is related to the writing of anecdotal fables by pre-Qin philosophers. Its origin is the non-Confucian Taoist heresy. However, allegorical reading is a common reading mode among Confucian literati. In this mode, the reader is aware of the fictional nature of the story and therefore does not regard it as true history.
The real significance of these novels is in their didactic and philosophical aspects, which can bring a moral lesson to readers. Stories about strange dreams, ants, foxes, or dragons would not be considered true, even though they may appear to employ some historical rhetorical devices. Once they do not belong to the category of historical reality, then these stories can only belong to the category of fables.
For example, The Legend of the Governor of Nanke and The Story of the Pillow can be read as a Taoist fable. These two stories aim to expose the meaninglessness of the busy life pursued by Confucianism, thereby pointing out where the true Tao lies. . In the same way, Mao Yingzhuan can also be read as a Confucian fable about the relationship between a minister and the king. The story criticizes the king's unethical treatment of his old and loyal minister. To an aggressive Confucian, the allegory of Taoism and Buddhism remains unacceptable.
Aesop's fables
Most of Aesop's fables are animal stories, using animals as metaphors to teach people how to live and be a human being. A few of them are mainly about people or gods, and the form is short and concise. The metaphors are appropriate and the images are vivid. They usually end with a sentence to reveal the underlying truth. These stories are small in length but profound in meaning. They have few words but are worth recalling. They have high artistic achievements and have a great influence on future generations. They are ancient Greek folk stories. A satirical story circulating. After being processed by later generations, it became the popular Aesop's fables.
Aesop's fables have concise words, vivid stories, rich imagination, full of philosophy, and integrate ideological and artistic qualities. Among them, the farmer and the snake, the fox and the grapes, the wolf and the lamb, the tortoise and the hare, the crow drinking water, the shepherd boy and the wolf, the mosquito and the lion, the north wind and the sun, etc. have become very well-known stories around the world.