Overview

Aesop's Heritage explores the evolution of the Aesopian fable in France and the Low Countries from 1500 to 1800, examining the intricate relationship between text, illustration, and education. The main drivers of this evolution were the French fable books of the 1540s, the fable illustrations by Marcus Gheeraerts, and, of course, the fables of Jean de La Fontaine. The book sheds new light on a number of well-known and lesser-known works, including an Aesop painting by Roelant Savery; Flemish wall tapestries with fable motifs; John Ogilby and his illustrators (Stoop, Cleyn, Hollar, Barlow); Oudry’s fable illustrations and paintings; and the prolific production of illustrated fable books for children in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France.

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9789004752757

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Paul J. Smith is Emeritus Professor of French Literature at Leiden University. His research focuses on 16th- and 17th-century French literature, its reception in the Netherlands, French and Dutch fable and emblem books, literary rhetoric and early modern natural history. Dirk Geirnaert worked many years as a historical lexicographer at the Dutch-Flemish Institute for the Dutch Language in Leiden. Now he is an independent scholar working in the domain of Dutch historical literature and linguistics. He has published many articles on Middle Dutch fragments, on Dutch literature of the Middle Ages and the 16th century, and on allied products of medieval and renaissance figurative arts.

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