François Rabelais was a French writer who has been called the first great French prose author. A humanist of the French Renaissance and Greek scholar, he attracted opposition from both John Calvin and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Though in his day he was best known as a physician, scholar, diplomat, and Catholic priest, later he became better known as a satirist, for his depictions of the grotesque, and for his larger-than-life characters.
The Five Books of the Lives and Deeds of Gargantua and Pantagruel, often shortened to Gargantua and Pantagruel or the Cinq Livres, is a pentalogy of novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais. It tells the adventures of two giants, Gargantua and his son Pantagruel. The work is written in an amusing, extravagant, and satirical vein, features much erudition, vulgarity, and wordplay, and is regularly compared with the works of William Shakespeare and James Joyce. Rabelais was a polyglot, and the work introduced "a great number of new and difficult words ... into the French language".
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.
French folklore encompasses the fables, folklore, fairy tales and legends of the French people.
Netherlandish Proverbs is a 1559 oil-on-oak-panel painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder that depicts a scene in which humans and, to a lesser extent, animals and objects, offer literal illustrations of Dutch-language proverbs and idioms.
The Tortoise and the Birds is a fable of probable folk origin, early versions of which are found in both India and Greece. There are also African variants. The moral lessons to be learned from these differ and depend on the context in which they are told.
Mate Maras is a Croatian translator. He has translated many famous classical and contemporary works from English, Italian and French into Croatian. He is the only man who translated the complete works of William Shakespeare into Croatian. His translation of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel earned him the grand prix of the French Academy. He wrote the first Croatian rhyming dictionary.
Aesop was a Greek fabulist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as Aesop's Fables. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day. Many of the tales associated with him are characterized by anthropomorphic animal characters.
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 Bear and the Gardener is a fable originating in the ancient Indian text Panchatantra that warns against making foolish friendships. There are several variant versions, both literary and oral, across the world and its folk elements are classed as Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 1586. The La Fontaine version has been taken as demonstrating various philosophical lessons.
The title of The Woodcutter and the Trees covers a complex of fables that are of West Asian and Greek origins, the latter ascribed to Aesop. All of them concern the need to be wary of harming oneself through misplaced generosity.
Jean de La Fontaine collected fables from a wide variety of sources, both Western and Eastern, and adapted them into French free verse. They were issued under the general title of Fables in several volumes from 1668 to 1694 and are considered classics of French literature. Humorous, nuanced and ironical, they were originally aimed at adults but then entered the educational system and were required learning for school children.
The Fox and the Woodman is a cautionary story against hypocrisy included among Aesop's Fables and is numbered 22 in the Perry Index. Although the same basic plot recurs, different versions have included a variety of participants.
There are five fables of ancient Greek origin that deal with the statue of Hermes. All have been classed as burlesques that show disrespect to the god involved and some scepticism concerning the efficacy of religious statues as objects of worship. Statues of Hermes differed according to function and several are referenced in these stories. Only one fable became generally retold in later times, although two others also achieved some currency.
The Trois petites pièces montées is a suite for small orchestra by Erik Satie, inspired by themes from the novel series Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais. It was premiered at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées in Paris on February 21, 1920, conducted by Vladimir Golschmann. Satie later arranged it for piano four hands and today it is more frequently heard in this version. A typical performance lasts about five minutes.
The Great Mare was a gigantic mare that served as a mount for giants in several Renaissance works. Stemming from medieval traditions inspired by Celtic mythology, she first appeared in The Grand and Priceless Chronicles of the Great and Enormous Giant Gargantua, written in 1532, in which Merlin created her from bones atop a mountain.
Francis Joseph Broadhurst, sometimes called Frank Broadhurst, was an Australian commercial artist who worked as a caricaturist, illustrator, painter and designer. He was born and trained in Melbourne, but achieved his greatest success in Sydney.
The Weasel and Aphrodite, also known as Venus and the Cat is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 50 in the Perry Index. A fable on the cynic theme of the constancy of one's nature, it serves as a cautionary tale against trusting those with evil temper, for even if they might change their body, they will not change their mind.
The Moon and her Mother is an ancient Greek fable doubtfully attributed to Aesop. It is number 468 in the Perry Index, and in Laura Gibbs's inclusive collection it is listed as number 16 in the Vernon Jones index (1912).
