Although Paz's work has been extensively reviewed and analyzed in Spanish and English, there are no sustained critical treatments of "Fable" in English. The work is generally discussed with the other poems in the 1954 volume Semillas para un himno (Seeds for a Hymn), which is often viewed as representing a particular phase in Paz's career as a thinker and a poet. Its initial reception in Mexico was mixed. Paz published the volume shortly after returning to his native land after eleven years abroad, six of which were spent in Paris among André Breton and other French surrealists. The surrealist elements and tone of Semillas para un himno are obvious. Many Mexican critics were appalled at the work, which they said had no social or political relevance to what was happening in Mexico at the time. Jason Wilson, in his study of Paz's life and career...