The Acorn and the Pumpkin, in French Le gland et la citrouille, is one of La Fontaine's Fables, published in his second volume (IX.4) in 1679. In English especially, new versions of the story were written to support the teleological argument for creation favoured by English thinkers from the end of the 17th century onwards.
The fable is one of the few by La Fontaine without a certain origin, although it is generally acknowledged that it owes something to a piece of street farce by Tabarin earlier in the 17th century. Beginning with the statement that "God's creation is well made", it recounts how a country bumpkin questions intelligent design in the creation by supposing that it would be better if oaks bore pumpkins and feeble vines supported acorns. He falls asleep beneath the tree and is awakened by the fall of an acorn, taking the comparative lack of injury he suffers as sufficient evidence of divine providence. [1] It has been surmised, however, that the ironical author's real target is the weakness of such moral reasoning. [2] This appears to be substantiated by the fact that the argument employed is based on a joke in a farce that was not meant to be taken seriously. In the East, the same joke recommended itself to the compilers of similarly ambivalent stories about Nasreddin Hodja. [3]
In England, however, the fable was taken much more seriously as support for the teleological argument being put forward by theologians and philosophers at about that time. Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, was the first to adapt the fable as a polemic against atheism, giving her poem the new title "The Atheist and the Acorn". [4] In place of La Fontaine's introductory reassurance that "God's creation is well made", the poem begins with the opposite proposition, "Methinks this world is oddly made, And every thing’s amiss," as uttered by "a dull presuming atheist". A combative stance replaces genial irony and the piece ends with the grotesque image of a smashed skull letting out its false suppositions. [5]
In his version of La Fontaine in the Select Fables of 1754, Charles Denis returns to the title "The acorn and the pumpkin" and a more lightly nuanced spirit. "Whatever is, is right" is its opening proposition, and the repentant "bumpkin" is finally brought to "give Providence its due". [6] In the same year of 1754, Robert Dodsley included a prose version in the modern fables section of his Select fables of Esop and other fabulists. [7] The piece preserves Anne Finch's title of "The atheist and the acorn" but is otherwise made a light hearted anecdote. It is "one of those refined reasoners, otherwise called Minute Philosophers," who speculates at his ease beneath an oak tree. But he finds, with the circumstance of the falling acorn, "how small a trifle may overturn the systems of mighty philosophers!"
By the end of the 18th century the story was again returned to the sphere of popular theology by Hannah More. She made her poem "The two gardeners" a completely new treatment of the subject and published it as one of her Cheap Repository Tracts in 1797. [8] Two gardeners debate the wisdom of creation and the free thinker becomes convinced that "God is wiser far than me" at the thought of the harm that a shower of "pompions" might have done to his head. Charles Linley the younger (1834–69) was later to rewrite the story of "The acorn and the pumpkin" for children in his Old Saws Newly Set (London 1864), [9] with the same moral purpose. His conclusion is, "With rev'rent glance Creation scan, And learn thy littleness, O Man!" The same solemnity underlies the unascribed prose retelling at the head of the section on creation in yet another work of popular theology, Anecdotes and Examples illustrating the Catholic catechism, published in New York in 1904. [10] The anecdote illustrates the proposition with which it begins, that "The wisdom of God is displayed in creation."
Less programmatic translations of the fable show the various strategies employed by fellow poets to give a sense of La Fontaine's graceful wit. The French is written in an approximation of irregularly rhyming vers libre [11] of which only Norman R. Shapiro tries to give an idea, although at the expense of often paraphrasing the sense and lacking his original's lightness of touch. [12] Paraphrase without the excuse of reproducing the original style is also the approach of the very first translation of the poem into English by Bernard de Mandeville in 1704. [13] This is written in octosyllabic couplets whose aim is to characterise the "Self conceited Country Bumkin” of the fable. La Fontaine's starting point is deferred by his interpreter to the six-line moral drawn at the end, beginning
William Trowbridge Larned's version for children is written in four regularly rhymed six-lined stanzas in dactylic metre and tries to give a sense of La Fontaine's light heartedness. Its resulting colloquiality makes the protagonist a little too rustic, replacing as it does the original's simple exclamation “Oh! Oh!” with “Gosh!” and having him refer to himself as “Clever me". [14] Marianne Moore too makes of her adult version more of a recreation than an exact translation. An admirer of her work places this fable among her more successful interpretations, which he judges as “worth putting up as running mates or rivals of the original...that delight without halting to instruct explicitly”. [15]
Jean-Baptiste Oudry's classic illustration of La Fontaine's fable, dating originally from the 1730s, showed the peasant lying face upward asleep beneath an oak. [16] It was this interpretation that was later followed in the 18th century Portuguese tiles illustrating the fables that line the cloisters of the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora in Lisbon. [17] In his line engraving for a 1931 English edition of the fables, Stephen Frederick Gooden preferred to show the rustic philosopher pondering the acorn that has just fallen on his head as he lies beside a pumpkin. [18] On the other hand, in his 1881 watercolour, the French Realist painter, Jules Bastien-Lepage, has a blue-clad peasant peering at a large pumpkin in a wheelbarrow.
Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources and continue to be reinterpreted in different verbal registers and in popular as well as artistic media.
The Belly and the Members is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 130 in the Perry Index. It has been interpreted in varying political contexts over the centuries.
The Frog and the Ox appears among Aesop's Fables and is numbered 376 in the Perry Index. The story concerns a frog that tries to inflate itself to the size of an ox, but bursts in the attempt. It has usually been applied to socio-economic relations.
The Ant and the Grasshopper, alternatively titled The Grasshopper and the Ant, is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 373 in the Perry Index. The fable describes how a hungry grasshopper begs for food from an ant when winter comes and is refused. The situation sums up moral lessons about the virtues of hard work and planning for the future.
The lion's share is an idiomatic expression which now refers to the major share of something. The phrase derives from the plot of a number of fables ascribed to Aesop and is used here as their generic title. There are two main types of story, which exist in several different versions. Other fables exist in the East that feature division of prey in such a way that the divider gains the greater part - or even the whole. In English the phrase used in the sense of nearly all only appeared at the end of the 18th century; the French equivalent, le partage du lion, is recorded from the start of that century, following La Fontaine's version of the fable.
The Monkey and the Cat is best known as a fable adapted by Jean de La Fontaine under the title Le Singe et le Chat that appeared in the second collection of his Fables in 1679 (IX.17). Although there is no evidence that the story existed before the 15th century, it began to appear in collections of Aesop's Fables from the 17th century but is not included in the Perry Index.
"The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse" is one of Aesop's Fables. It is number 352 in the Perry Index and type 112 in Aarne–Thompson's folk tale index. Like several other elements in Aesop's fables, 'town mouse and country mouse' has become an English idiom.
The Dog and Its Reflection is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 133 in the Perry Index. The Greek language original was retold in Latin and in this way was spread across Europe, teaching the lesson to be contented with what one has and not to relinquish substance for shadow. There also exist Indian variants of the story. The morals at the end of the fable have provided both English and French with proverbs and the story has been applied to a variety of social situations.
Belling the Cat is a fable also known under the titles The Bell and the Cat and The Mice in Council. In the story, a group of mice agree to attach a bell to a cat's neck to warn of its approach in the future, but they fail to find a volunteer to perform the job. The term has become an idiom describing a group agreeing to perform an impossibly difficult task.
The Fox and the Crow is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 124 in the Perry Index. There are early Latin and Greek versions and the fable may even have been portrayed on an ancient Greek vase. The story is used as a warning against listening to flattery.
The Cock and the Jewel is a fable attributed to Aesop and is numbered 503 in the Perry Index. As a trope in literature, the fable is reminiscent of stories used in Zen such as the kōan. It presents, in effect, a riddle on relative values and is capable of different interpretations, depending on the point of view from which it is regarded.
The Milkmaid and Her Pail is a folktale of Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 1430 about interrupted daydreams of wealth and fame. Ancient tales of this type exist in the East but Western variants are not found before the Middle Ages. It was only in the 18th century that the story about the daydreaming milkmaid began to be attributed to Aesop, although it was included in none of the main collections and does not appear in the Perry Index. In more recent times, the fable has been variously treated by artists and set by musicians.
The Lion, the Bear and the Fox is one of Aesop's Fables that is numbered 147 in the Perry Index. There are similar story types of both eastern and western origin in which two disputants lose the object of their dispute to a third.
The Mouse Turned into a Maid is an ancient fable of Indian origin that travelled westwards to Europe during the Middle Ages and also exists in the Far East. The story is Aarne-Thompson type 2031C in his list of cumulative tales, another example of which is The Husband of the Rat's Daughter. It concerns a search for a partner through a succession of more powerful forces, resolved only by choosing an equal.
The Mountain in Labour is one of Aesop's Fables and appears as number 520 in the Perry Index. The story became proverbial in Classical times and was applied to a variety of situations. It refers to speech acts which promise much but deliver little, especially in literary and political contexts. In more modern times the satirical intention behind the fable was given greater emphasis following Jean de la Fontaine's interpretation of it. Illustrations to the text underlined its ironical application particularly and went on to influence cartoons referring to the fable elsewhere in Europe and America.
The Satyr and the Traveller is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 35 in the Perry Index. The popular idiom 'to blow hot and cold' is associated with it and the fable is read as a warning against duplicity.
"The Astrologer who Fell into a Well" is a fable based on a Greek anecdote concerning the pre-Socratic philosopher Thales of Miletus. It was one of several ancient jokes that were absorbed into Aesop's Fables and is now numbered 40 in the Perry Index. During the scientific attack on astrology in the 16th–17th centuries, the story again became very popular.
Hercules and the Wagoner or Hercules and the Carter is a fable credited to Aesop. It is associated with the proverb "God helps those who help themselves", variations on which are found in other ancient Greek authors.
The Heron and the Fish is a situational fable constructed to illustrate the moral that one should not be over-fastidious in making choices since, as the ancient proverb proposes, 'He that will not when he may, when he will he shall have nay'. Of ancient but uncertain origin, it gained popularity after appearing among La Fontaine's Fables.
There are no less than six fables concerning an impertinent insect, which is taken in general to refer to the kind of interfering person who makes himself out falsely to share in the enterprise of others or to be of greater importance than he is in reality. Some of these stories are included among Aesop's Fables, while others are of later origin, and from them have been derived idioms in several languages.
