medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Kerry and Nancy,
This is an extremely complicated area made worse by terminological
ambiguities.
To begin with, it's generally understood that "Aesop" is a fiction and
that there are numerous ancient, medieval, and early modern collections
of fables that have circulated under this name in one form or another.
To reduce the confusion created by the popular practice of calling all
of these "Aesop's fables", fable scholars now usually reserve the
name "Aesop" for a collection of fewer than 100 Greek-language prose
fables that circulated anciently and medievally under this name and
call the other collections by other, equally conventional names (some
of these, e.g. "Romulus", are also fictions). Laura Gibbs' website,
AESOPICA.NET
http://www.mythfolklore.net/aesopica/
to which Nancy has already alluded, gives texts of many of these
collections.
A convenient term for both "Aesop" and other, similar collections
is "Aesopica". One frequently encounters the locution "Aesopic fable
(s)" as well. Though different scholars define that term differently,
a common acceptation is that of "fables in, or similar to, those in the
collection known as 'Aesop'" (the definitional problems tend to arise
over the issue of _how_ these are similar). As there are "Aesopic
fables" (however defined) which do not exist in collections of
Aesopica, this term is a very useful one.
Most of the Aesopica transmitted in ancient Greek collections appear to
have entered Europe from SW Asia. Some may have originated within
Europe. These statements assume that "Europe" includes Greece.
If "Europe" does not include Greece (and many "western" medievalists
seem to be of that persuasion), then most of the Aesopica transmitted
in ancient Greek collections will have entered Europe _from_ Greece.
The ancient Latin collections of Aesopica are a mixed bag: some of
these fables are clearly Near Eastern or Greek in origin; others may
have originated in parts of Europe other than Greece. The best single
introduction to the ancient Greek and Latin collections is that of Ben
Edwin Perry in his Loeb Classical Library edition of Babrius and
Phaedrus:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/contents/L436_toc.html
The situation is even more complex in the case of Aesopic fables whose
first European attestation is medieval. In some cases the origin could
be European; in others, it is Near Eastern, entering "western" Europe
either from Greek or from Arabic cultural traditions. Just identifying
the collections is a difficult task for a beginner. Perry helps a
little, but only that. For the Latin ones (and some in other languages
as well), Leon Hervieux' _Les fabulistes latins_ (Paris; 1883-99;
repr., NY: Burt Franklin, various dates) though obviously dated remains
indispensable. Recent editions of individual collections often have
more broadly useful front matter.
Well, that's a start. Good luck!
Best,
John Dillon
On Tuesday, July 5, 2005, at 12:30 pm, Kerry Inman wrote:
> I believe they entered by more than one route, and one route was
> the Sephardim
> of Al Andalus of whom Moises/Pedro/Petrus is an excellent example.
> This route
> seems to have skipped the continent altogether, and had nothing to
> do with the
> crusades but rather the reconquest of Portugal and Spain.
>
> --V. K. Inman
>
> Quoting Nancy Spies <[log in to unmask]>:
>
> > medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion
> and culture
> >
> > V.K., apparently the Aesop's fables entered Europe through Italy
> ... see the
> > text at the bottom of this web page
> > _http://gopher.elib.com:8070/0/Library/Gutenberg/aesop11.txt_
> > (http://gopher.elib.com:8070/0/Library/Gutenberg/aesop11.txt)
> . But I will
> > only tentatively say this as I'm sure that John Dillon,
> > our font of all knowledge esoteric, will have wonderful
> specifics to add for
> > you.
> >
> > Nancy
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