Jean de La Fontaine summary

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Jean de La Fontaine, (born July 8?, 1621, Château-Thierry, France—died April 13, 1695, Paris), French poet. He made important contacts in Paris, where he was able to attract patrons and spend his most productive years as a writer. He is best known for his Fables (1668–94), which rank among the masterpieces of French literature. Comprising some 240 poems, they include timeless tales about simple countryfolk, heroes of Greek mythology, and the familiar animals of fables. Their chief theme is the everyday moral experience of humankind. His many lesser works include The Loves of Cupid and Psyche (1669), notable for its lucid, elegant prose. He was elected to the Académie Française in 1683.

Neoclassical art Summary

Neoclassical art, a widespread and influential movement in painting and the other visual arts that began in the 1760s, reached its height in the 1780s and ’90s, and lasted until the 1840s and ’50s. In painting it generally took the form of an emphasis on austere linear design in the depiction of

Hippolyte Taine Summary

Hippolyte Taine was a French thinker, critic, and historian, one of the most-esteemed exponents of 19th-century French positivism. He attempted to apply the scientific method to the study of the humanities. Taine was born into a professional middle-class family; his father was a lawyer. He was

fable Summary

Fable, narrative form, usually featuring animals that behave and speak as human beings, told in order to highlight human follies and weaknesses. A moral—or lesson for behaviour—is woven into the story and often explicitly formulated at the end. (See also beast fable.) The Western tradition of fable

poetry Summary

Poetry, literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm. (Read Britannica’s biography of this author, Howard Nemerov.) Poetry is a vast subject, as old as history and