SOURCE: "The Paradox of the Fable in Eighteenth-Century France," in Neophilologus, Vol. LXI, No. 4, October 1977, pp. 510-17.

In the following excerpt, Runte observes that in the century after La Fontaine's death, fabulists and other writers tended to characterize his work in the fable genre his work as immoral and as imprecise in style.

The fable enjoyed a popularity in eighteenth-century France which is confirmed not only by the numerous collections of fables and the over two hundred authors who contributed to them, but by the fact that their audience was universal.¹ Fables were quoted, recited in society as well as at the Académies, and were reprinted in correspondence and journals such as the Mercure, L 'Almanach des Muses, L 'Annee littéraire, Le Journal encyclopedique and Les Etrennes du Parnasse.² Lanson's statement that "tout le monde, en ce temps-la, parle par paraboles ou par fables,"³ is substantiated...