Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695) was a French poet, the author of the Fables, which retell stories from Aesop and other sources in elegant and witty verse. Generations of French children learn them by heart, and they have been translated into English many times.
Genres
fairy tales and fables, poetry
Château-Thierry
Jean de La Fontaine was born on 8 July 1621 in Château-Thierry, in Champagne, where his father was master of waters and forests. He studied briefly for the priesthood, then law, and took over his father's office.
In 1647 he married Marie Héricart, aged fourteen; they had a son but soon lived apart. La Fontaine spent more and more of his time in Paris, in the literary circles of the day.
Fouquet and the Tales
He found a patron in Nicolas Fouquet, the king's superintendent of finances, for whom he wrote poems. When Fouquet was arrested in 1661 by order of Louis XIV, La Fontaine remained loyal and wrote an elegy pleading for him, which did not please the king.
He then lived under the protection of great ladies, the Duchess of Orléans and later Madame de La Sablière, in whose house he stayed for twenty years. His Contes et nouvelles en vers, playful and licentious tales, were a great success.
The Fables
The first six books of Fables appeared in 1668, dedicated to the six-year-old Dauphin. Five more books followed in 1678–1679 and a twelfth in 1694. Each fable, from The Grasshopper and the Ant to The Wolf and the Lamb, ends with a lesson about human behaviour.
Elected to the Académie française in 1683, La Fontaine was received there in 1684. He died in Paris on 13 April 1695. The first complete English verse translation, by Elizur Wright, was published in Boston in 1841.
Anecdotes
A distracted poet
La Fontaine had a reputation for absent-mindedness. Stories told about him say that he once attended the funeral of a friend and, some time later, went to visit him, forgetting he had died.
Approved by the king, at last
Louis XIV delayed approving La Fontaine's election to the Académie française in 1683, mainly because of his licentious tales and his loyalty to Fouquet. The king agreed only after Boileau, whom he favoured, was elected too.
Frequently asked questions
Where do La Fontaine's fables come from?
Mainly from Aesop and the Latin poet Phaedrus, and for the later books from Indian and Persian collections such as the fables of Bidpai.
How many fables did La Fontaine write?
About 240, published in twelve books between 1668 and 1694.
Who translated La Fontaine into English?
Among others Elizur Wright (1841), whose verse translation is in the public domain, and later Marianne Moore.