The Esope, written around 1170 by Marie de France represents not only the first literary work by a French woman fabulist, but also the first collection of fables written in the vernacular in Western Europe. Scholars have paid some attention to the sources of the first forty fables of the Esope, believed to be ultimately derived from the Romulus Nilantii, but have tended to neglect those of the second half of Marie's collection, and particularly the ones drawn from Eastern fables and folklore. While acknowledging the influence of the Latin fable tradition on the Esope, in this dissertation I put forth and provide evidence for the theory that Marie de France followed a second model: the fable tradition of Indian origin which reached Europe through the Arabs Karl Warnke's valuable essay 'Die Quellen des Esope der Marie de France', published in the year 1900 in Festgabe fur Hermann Suchier, is the only scholarly attempt to unravel the sources of Marie's fables, including the non-Aesopic ones. His work is relatively comprehensive, in that it summarizes the variants of every fable and refers to analogies and parallels, but it does not offer any in-depth analysis. Moreover, since the publication of his essay, almost a century ago, several ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian, Indian, Jewish, and Arabic texts have come to light, thanks to the efforts of folklorists in various parts of the world. These texts and recorded tales provide new insights into the entire domain of fable-literature, including Marie's collection In this dissertation I intend to expand upon the work of Warnke. The omission of fables outside the Greco-Latin tradition from any study of the sources of Marie's work would result in an incomplete, distorted picture and the conclusions arrived at thereby would be misleading and fallacious. A thorough investigation of Marie's sources will prove that the Esope is not only indebted to Eastern literature and folklore but also occupies a significant position in the history of the dissemination of the tales to Europe / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_25988 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Contributors | Sethuraman, Jayshree (Author), Poe, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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