Reading Notes: Aesop's Fables Part A

Aesop's Fables: Deer

These fables are part of the Aesop's Fables (Jacobs) unit. Story sources: The prose fables are from The Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs (1894) and the limericks and illustrations are from The Baby's Own Aesop by W. J. Linton and illustrated by Walter Crane (1887).

What I found interesting about Aesop's fables in comparison to that of the Iliad, which I read last week, was how short and simple the stories were. Each story within the Deer stories had a clear intent and moral to the story. Sometimes, the main character would bluntly state the moral of the story or even have a moment of introspection reflecting on what went wrong. Furthermore, each story didn't require much character development to get the point across. Generic names, such as the hunter and the hart, were used to provide the characters with background information without explicitly stating that information. I would like to implement a few of these strategies into my own storytelling to make them clear and concise.

Although the Crane stories were mostly the same, they had an even more concise way of telling the story without losing the story's intent. Also, they contained a poem-like structure to them with an interesting rhyme scheme. Although the brevity of these renditions may not fit my storytelling goals, the poem-like rhyme structure was very interesting and something to consider.

Photo of Deer by Scott Bauer

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