The New International Encyclopædia/La Fontaine, Jean de
LA FONTAINE, Jean de (1621-95). A
French poet, noted for his tales (Contes)
and fables. He was born at Château-Thierry,
in Champagne, July 8, 1621, of good though not
noble family, for his father was a superintendent
of streams and forests. Jean began to study
for the priesthood, but, with the dreamy irresponsibility
that characterized his life, he forsook this
career after eighteen months, and, though the
father resigned in Jean's favor (1643) and even
provided him with a wife, the fifteen year-old
Marie Héricart (1647), his life was still that
of a happy-go-lucky idler. La Fontaine's poetic
talent was awakened by the reading of Malherbe
and Racan. For his amusement he adapted
unsuccessfully the Eunuchus of Terence (1654),
and by dedicating a narrative poem, Adonis, to
Fouquet (1658), he won the patronage of the
then powerful Minister, who received him into
his household. On Fouquet's fall he had as
successive patronesses the Duchess of Bouillon
(1662), the Duchess of Orleans (1667), Madame
de la Sablière (1671), and Madame d'Hervart
(1693). To please the first of these, he began
to write Contes et nouvelles en vers (1665). To
these he added at interials until his election
to the Academy (1683), which the King had
sanctioned only on his promise to be ‘proper’
(sage); for the Contes as a rule were not.
The Fables, whose humor was quite without such
Gallic spice. La Fontaine had begun to write
in 1668, and in 1671 had given further
illustration of his versatile talent as editor of a
volume of mystically religious verse. He wrote
also in this, his most productive period, Les
amours de Cupid et Psyché (1669), an epic La
captivité de Saint Malo (1673), and the Poème
du Quinquina (1682), with several slight if not
weak comedies collected in 1702. In his last
year (1695) he seems to have become sincerely
religious. La Fontaine was a spoiled child of
nature, simply guileless and carelessly absent-minded,
exasperating the friends who tolerated
and could not but love him. Racine, Boileau, and
Molière were his closest intimates, but Molière
alone realized the permanent value of his work
in the development of French literature, through
the Contes, and especially through the Fables.
The former are essentially fabliaux (q.v.), most
skillfully told and with a delicate feeling for
style and prosody that conceals the highest art
under its apparent spontaneity. Here La
Fontaine is the follower of La Salle, Des Périers,
and the Heptameron, the imitator of Boccaccio
and the Italian story-tellers, none of whom
recognized what are now regarded as fundamental
conventions of decency. The poet was assailed
by contemporary adversaries on the score of
impropriety. The Fables, on the other hand, could
shock no reader's modesty, though they reveal
a total incapacity for moral indignation, and a
boundless tolerance of the ‘natural.’ The graceful
liveliness of their narration, the restrained
naturalism of their description, the homely wisdom
of their unobtruded moral, the boldness of
their covert political teaching, especially in later
years, the shrewd analysis and observation of
human motive, has been a perennial delight to
generations. The fact that every French schoolboy
knew the Fables influenced and aided the
emancipation of poetry by the Romantic School
of 1830. In mind La Fontaine is akin to Molière.
None of his imitators has approached him, and
with Molière he is the most widely liked French
writer of the seventeenth century. La Fontaine's
works are in many editions. The most elaborate
is by Regnier (9 vols., Paris, 1888-92). Useful
also are those of Moland (7 vols., Paris, 1872-76)
and Marty-Laveaux (5 vols., Paris, 1857-77).
Regnier's edition has a good biography by
Mesnard. Consult, also: Lafenestre, La Fontaine
(Paris, 1885); Taine, La Fontaine et ses fables
(15th ed., ib., 1901); and for further biblioggraphy,
Brunetière, Manuel de l'histoire de la
littérature française (ib., 1897) translated by
Derechef (London, 1898).