A French poet and fabulist of the 17th century, Jean de La Fontaine is celebrated for his Fables, collections of short verse tales featuring animals to illustrate moral lessons. His works, imbued with humor and wisdom, remain major classics of French literature.
Jean de La Fontaine(1621 — 1695)
Jean de La Fontaine
France
7 min read
Frequently asked questions
Famous Quotes
« Patience and time do more than strength or passion.»
« Help yourself, and Heaven will help you.»
« The reason of the strongest is always the best.»
Key Facts
- Publication of the first collection of Fables in 1668, containing 124 fables in six books
- Publication of the New Collections between 1671 and 1694, expanding his body of work with 91 additional fables
- Appointed member of the Académie française in 1684
- Created a poetic style blending regular verse with metrical freedoms to suit each individual fable
- Adapted fables from ancient sources (Aesop) and Eastern sources (Bidpai) to 17th-century French society
Works & Achievements
First collection of verse fables, dedicated to the young Dauphin. These one hundred and twenty-four fables established La Fontaine's reputation and profoundly renewed the genre inherited from Aesop.
Second collection, broader in scope and more philosophical, dedicated to Madame de Montespan. In it he deepens the psychology of his characters and his moral reflection on human nature.
The final book of the Fables, dedicated to the Duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis XIV. It displays a more melancholy wisdom and an accomplished mastery of form.
A collection of often ribald and licentious stories inspired by Boccaccio, Ariosto, and Rabelais. These texts, condemned by the Church, were renounced by the author on his deathbed.
A long mythological poem dedicated to Nicolas Fouquet, which reveals La Fontaine's talent for lyric poetry and his admiration for ancient authors such as Ovid.
An unfinished poem celebrating the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, composed for Fouquet before his arrest. A precious testimony to literary patronage in the seventeenth century.
Anecdotes
La Fontaine was famous for his legendary absent-mindedness. It is said that he once attended the funeral of a friend without recognizing the deceased, then returned home declaring that he had spent a pleasant afternoon. His mind was constantly elsewhere, lost in his poetic thoughts.
A protégé of Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV's superintendent of finances, La Fontaine remained loyal to him after his arrest in 1661. He composed an Elegy in his honor, which greatly displeased the king. This loyalty cost him royal favor for a long time and delayed his admission to the Académie française.
La Fontaine was elected to the Académie française in 1683, but Louis XIV initially refused to validate his election, preferring another candidate. He had to wait for another seat to become available before being officially received in 1684 — a testament to the king's lasting resentment toward him.
On his deathbed, La Fontaine underwent a sincere religious conversion. He renounced his Contes et nouvelles en vers, deemed too licentious, and received the last rites. According to contemporary accounts, he died in a state of deep piety, which surprised many of his contemporaries who were accustomed to his libertine spirit.
La Fontaine maintained an unwavering friendship with Molière, Racine, and Boileau, forming a literary quartet that met regularly. Boileau recounted that La Fontaine was the only one among them who never revised his verse, composing it in a single flow with a disconcerting ease.
Primary Sources
I use animals to instruct men. […] The appearance is puerile, I confess; but these puerilities serve as a wrapper for important truths.
Nymphs who owe him your most charming charms, / If along your banks Louis should walk, / Try to soften him, bend his courage.
I am writing to you from Château-Thierry, where I have arrived with great fatigue. The countryside is beautiful, but I prefer my room to all the roads in the world.
The apologue is composed of two parts, one of which may be called the body, the other the soul. The body is the fable; the soul, the moral.
Iris, I would praise you, it is all too easy; / But you have a hundred times refused our incense.
Key Places
La Fontaine's birthplace, where he was born in 1621 and spent his childhood. The family home, now a museum, bears witness to his bourgeois origins.
The lavish residence of his patron Nicolas Fouquet, where La Fontaine stayed and flourished as a writer before Fouquet's arrest in 1661.
La Fontaine lived for twenty years under the roof of Marguerite de La Sablière, a woman of wit and letters, on the rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs. This salon was his most lasting home.
The institution of which La Fontaine became a member in 1684, following a controversial election. He represented the Ancients' camp in the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns.
The court of the Sun King, which La Fontaine seldom visited, owing to Louis XIV's coldness toward him. This palace symbolizes the world he brushed against without ever truly belonging to it.
Liens externes & ressources
Références
Œuvres
Fables (Livres I-VI)
1668
Fables (Livres VII-XI)
1678-1679
Fables (Livre XII)
1694
Contes et nouvelles en vers
1664-1685
Le Songe de Vaux
1661
