The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine

Front Cover

“It is a pleasure to open a book of verse as sure and sly as these translations by Norman Shapiro. He gets the tune right and the tone right, and manages to echo both the folk wisdom and the poker-faced formality of the originals.” — seamus heaney, on Shapiro’s Fifty Fables of La Fontaine “A wonderfully lively and resourceful translator, who knows how to put French wit and charm into English.” — richard wilbur, former Poet Laureate of the United States “Among numerous translations of La Fontaine, Norman Shapiro’s work stands out for conveying the spirit and equivalent poetic forms of the Fables without succumbing to the trap of literal rendering or the frustration of transporting unusual rhymes into awkward English. Shapiro’s language sparkles with wit, word play, and even unexpected archaisms, all in keeping with La Fontaine’s own style. Delightful!” — carroll f. coates, translator of Waiting for the Vote of the Wild Animals “Shapiro’s skills, and certainly his prolific output, as a translator of French poetry are unsurpassed in our time.” — st. louis post-dispatch Charming and elegant, Jean de La Fontaine’s (1621–95) animal fables depict sly foxes and scheming cats, vain birds and greedy wolves, all of which subtly express his penetrating insights into French society and the beasts found in all of us. Norman R. Shapiro has been translating La Fontaine’s fables for over twenty years, capturing the original works’ lively mix of plain and archaic language. This newly complete collection is destined to set the English standard for the oeuvre of one of the world’s greatest fabulists. A celebrated master translator, norman r. shapiro is a professor of Romance languages and literatures at Wesleyan University. As the author or translator of many books, he has received a number of awards, including the MLA Scaglione Prize for translation. University of Illinois Press Urbana and Chicago www.press.uillinois.edu poetry / french literature / folklore The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine  Shapiro  succumbing to the trap of literal rendering or the frustration of transporting Illinois ISBN 978-0-252-07381-6 introduction by John Hollander illustrations by David Schorr translated by Norman R. Shapiro The Complete Fables of Jean d of Jean de LaFontaine The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine ...