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Category Archives: Symbols

Doves

01 Sunday Jul 2018

Posted by michelinewalker in Angels, Love, Symbols, War

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

Aphrodite, Book of Genesis, Christianity, Etiological texts, Holy Spirit, Judaism, Noah's Ark (survival), Olive branch, Picasso's Dove of Peace, Raven and Dove, Release Doves, Winged Creatures

Anthony_van_Dyck_-_Daedalus_and_Icarus_-_Google_Art_Project

Dædalus and Icarus by Anthony van Dyck, c. 1620 (Art Gallery of Ontario)

As a subject matter, doves are very complex, biologically and otherwise. First, they are subspecies in the large family of columbidae and “subspecies” of the domestic pigeon (Columba livia domestica), known by scientists as the rock dove. (See Columbidae, Wikipedia.)

The pigeon, endowed with an innate homing ability and “selectively bred for its ability to find its way home over extremely long distances,” is derived from the rock pigeon. (See Homing pigeon, Wikipedia.)

In Britannica,[1] we read that

Although ‘dove’ usually refers to the smaller, long-tailed members of the pigeon family, there are exceptions: the domestic pigeon, a rather typical pigeon, is frequently called the rock dove and is the bird called the ‘dove of peace.’

Picasso being the creator of Guernica (1937), an anti-war painting, he was asked to produce an image that would represent peace. He designed a dove, and his design was chosen as a symbol of peace during the First International Peace Conference, held in Paris (1949).

The rock pigeon or rock dove is not necessarily white. White doves are bred to be white. But Picasso, the creator of the “dove of peace” coloured his dove the colour white, white itself constituting a symbol: purity and innocence mainly.

But Picasso went further. He rolled away millenia by putting an olive branch in the beak of his dove, le pigeon (masculine). The olive branch symbolises peace, or the cessation of hostilities. Those who surrender carry a white flag. The white flag might help explain the otherwise contradictory juxtaposition of military and pacifist groups. Wars, a constant plight, have often been fought against cruel invaders and demented dictators.

dove-of-peace

The Dove of Peace by Picasso, 1949 (Photo credit: www.pablopicasso.org)

The Military

Let us begin with the military.

The rock dove is, due to its relation to the homing pigeon and thus communications, the main image in the crest of the Tactical Communications Wing, a body within the Royal Air Force. Below the crest is the wing’s motto, ‘Ubique Loquimur,’ or ‘We Speak Everywhere’ (see Doves as Symbols, Wikipedia).

During World War I, a “homing pigeon, Cher Ami [Dear Friend], was awarded the French Croix de guerre for her heroic service in delivering 12 important messages, despite having been very badly injured.”

Cher Ami (masculine), may have been a female fighting with the boys, but she was a Joan of Arc among homing pigeons, or rock doves, and fully deserved her Croix de guerre.

[I]n World War II, hundreds of homing pigeons with the Confidential Pigeon Service were airdropped into northwest Europe to serve as intelligence vectors for local resistance agents. Birds played a vital part in the Invasion of Normandy as radios could not be used for fear of vital information being intercepted by the enemy.

Hence the motto engraved on the crest of the Tactical Communications Wing, of the Royal Air Force: Ubique Loquimur, “We speak everywhere.”

Avro_Lancaster_pigeons_WWII_IWM_TR_193

Crewman with homing pigeons carried in bombers as a means of communications in the event of a crash, ditching, or radio failure (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Speech is associated with homing pigeons or the rock dove because they are messengers. They have been messengers since the story of the flood and Noah’s Ark, perhaps earlier. God nearly destroyed the world He created, but humanity survived and there followed a series of covenants, or talks: Ubique Loquimur. For the purpose of this post, we need only tell that a dove was the first creature who brought a sign. It brought Noah a sign, as in semiotics, indicating that life on earth had been preserved. For the purposes of this post, we need only tell that a dove was the first creature who brought Noah a sign indicating that life on earth had been preserved.

The Dove of Peace & the Olive Branch

As noted above, Picasso‘s first depiction of his Dove of Peace showed a white dove carrying an olive branch, the olive branch being another symbol of peace. In Picasso’s subsequent portrayals of the Dove of Peace, his dove is whiter but it still carries an olive branch. Picasso thereby rooted his symbol of peace in one of the world’s most powerful etiological texts, the Book of Genesis, which contains the story of Noah’s Ark.

Etiological texts explain origins and causes. I have noted elsewhere that children’s literature is a rich source of pourquoi stories such as Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories. Yet, the Bible, the Book of Genesis in particular, is a pourquoi (why) story.

Man has always sought an explanation to the human condition, his mortality, giving himself a past, a process called anamnesis, which, at times, may be his only sustenance.

320px-Millais_-_Die_Rückkehr_der_Taube_zur_Arche_Noah

The Return of the Dove to the Ark by John Everett Millais, 1851 (WikiArt)

Genesis: Noah’s Ark

  • Genesis: Noah’s Ark
  • the Raven and the Dove
  • the Olive branch

“The Noah’s Ark narrative is repeated, with variations, in the Quran, where the ark appears as Safina Nūḥ (Arabic: سفينة نوح‎ ‘Noah’s boat’).” (See Noah’s Ark, Wikipedia.) As for the flood, it appears in several etiological texts or myths.

In Judaism (Genesis 8:11), the first Abrahamic religion, there was once a competition that opposed a raven and a dove. During the flood, Noah’s Ark sheltered every animal, a male and a female of each species. When the water receded, Noah dispatched a raven to ascertain whether the flood was over and the land dry. The raven, a scavenger, did not return, which may have cost several crows, such as the crow in the Crow and Fox, their reputation. Noah then entrusted a dove to seek dry land.

[A]nd the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so, Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth.
(Genesis 8:11)

In the Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2100 BCE or earlier), “Utnapishtim releases a dove and a raven to find land; the dove merely circles and returns. Only then does Utnapishtim send forth the raven, which does not return, and Utnapishtim concludes the raven has found land.” (See Doves as Symbols, Wikipedia.)

Doves, or the homing pigeon, have therefore been messengers since Noah’s Ark, if not earlier. God nearly destroyed what He had created, but humanity survived and entered into a series of covenants. For our purpose, however, we need only tell that a dove, who may have been white, was the first animal to bring Noah a sign indicating that life had been preserved. This dove was a messenger.

There are conflicting versions of this account, i.e. Noah’s Ark. One features two doves, but I have chosen the one-dove account. In Judaism, the first Abrahamic religion, and Christianity, the second Abrahamic religion, a dove, carrying an olive branch, brought Noah, a fine message: life had been preserved. The Ark is a sign of survival. The sacred text of the third Abrahamic religion, Islam, is the Quran, and it contains a Noah’s Ark narrative. A flood is a central event in many mythologies.

The Dove of Peace & the Olive Branch

As noted above, Picasso‘s Dove of Peace is white and carries an olive leaf or branch in its beak.

Picasso’s first depiction of his Dove of Peace showed a dove carrying an olive branch. In Picasso’s subsequent portrayals of the Dove of Peace, his dove is whiter and surrounded by olive leaves that one could mistake for flowers. Picasso thereby rooted his symbol in one of the world’s most powerful etiological texts, the Book of Genesis.

Etiological texts explain origins and causes. I have noted elsewhere that children’s literature is a rich source of pourquoi stories such as Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories. Yet, the Bible, the Book of Genesis in particular, is a pourquoi (why) story. Man has always sought an explanation to the human condition, his mortality.

Bartolomé_Esteban_Perez_Murillo_003

The Holy Spirit as a dove in the “Heavenly Trinity” joined to the  “Earthly Trinity” through the Incarnation of the Son, by Murillo, c. 1677 (The Yorck Project [2002])

Doves in Christianity and the Release Dove

In Christianity, a white dove represents the Holy Spirit and the Trinity, where he is one of the person of God. Christianity is a monotheistic religion, as are all three Abrahamic religions, but the Christian God consists of three consubstantial (hypostasis) persons,  “each person itself being God.” (See The Holy Spirit in Christianity, Wikipedia.) The Christian dove is white, as are angels, mythical winged creatures, and the Unicorn, who can only be tamed by a virgin.

Doves are also used in ceremonials. These doves are called release doves. During Pope John Paul II‘s 1984 visit to Montreal, white doves were released and a sixteen-year old Céline Dion sang Une Colombe. Release doves have an innate homing instinct.

Junge_Frau_mit_Taubenpost (1)

Young lady in oriental clothing with a homing pigeon (19th century painting) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Doves, as the Symbol of Love and “Language”

  • “Ubique Loquimur”
  • Ludwig Wittgenstein: a Private Language
  • Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin: Æsopian
  • music

Aphrodite, Venus in Roman mythology, is “the ancient Greek goddess of love, beauty,  pleasure, and procreation.” Love’s symbology consists of myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans. (See also Aphrodite, Britannica.)

As messengers, doves have spoken since time immemorial. Homing pigeons, or rock doves, carry a message, but doves roucoulent or coo. It is a rather muted sound. They may therefore be telling the ineffable, speaking a private language, as understood by Ludwig Wittgenstein. A private language “must be in principle incapable of translation into an ordinary language.” (See Private Language Argument, Wikipedia.)

They may also be speaking Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin‘s (27 January  1826 – 10 May 1889) aesopian, a term first used to describe a language unclear to outsiders, thereby allowing authors to say what they please with relative impunity. In La Fontaine‘s fables, many of which are retellings of Æsop‘s fables, animals are as eloquent as they are silent. Louis XIV punished La Fontaine, who asked that Nicolas Fouquet be spared too harsh a punishment. La Fontaine was not elected to the Académie française until 1682, when he was more than 60 years old.

Music

Lovers are indeed at a loss for words. In love as in war, humans need a camouflaged language. Music may, in fact, be a lover’s main recourse, be it opera or the humble song. We had trouvères (langue d’oc) in southern France and troubadours (langue d’oïl) in northern France. In medieval German-speaking lands, the Minnesang was a love song performed by Minnesänger. Guillaume Apollinaire’s Marie: the Words to a Love Song (29 June 2015) is an example of the power of music and poetry. Other examples, in the French language, are Les Feuilles Mortes, performed by Yves Montand and Jacques Brel‘s poignant Ne me quitte pas. 

lg_1095667

White Doves by Henry Ryland, 1891 (Courtesy Leighton Fine Art Galery)

Conclusion

I have also discussed mankind’s wish for wings or his need to have wings. Icarus flew too close to the sun, the god Helios. His wings being attached to his body with wax, the wax melted and he fell into the sea. Yet humankind has since built sophisticated aircrafts, and messages may be forwarded in a matter of seconds.

“Ubique Loquimur”

Love to everyone ♥

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Fables, Parables and the Ineffable (12 June 2018)
  • Marie: the Words to a Love Song (29 June 2015)
  • Winged Creatures: Pegasus and Icarus (20 November 2014)
  • Angels & Archangels: Michael, Lucifer… (14 November 2014)
  • Anthropomorphism and Zoomorphism (25 August 2013)
  • Vaux-le-Vicomte: Fouquet’s Rise and Fall (20 August 2013)
  • Jacques Brel’s “Ne me quitte pas” (7 July 2012)
  • Thursday’s News & Chansons (5 July 2012) (Yves Montand)
  • The Idea of Absolute Music (14 October 2011) (the ineffable)

Sources and Resources

  • The Epic of Gilgamesh is an Internet Archive publication
  • Homing Pigeon & Pigeon Intelligence, Wikipedia
  • Empowered by Colour (white)
  • Meaning of the Colour White (Jennifer Bourne)
  • The featured image is Britannica‘s

_________________________

[1] https://www.britannica.com/animal/dove-bird

Ludwig van Beethoven‘s Symphony No 6, 2nd movement

 

800px-Homing_Pigeon_on_path

A homing pigeon on a path outside (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

© Micheline Walker
1st July 2018
WordPress

Céline Dion chante Une Colombe, 1984

117053-004-9BDDBB1A

 

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Fables and Parables: the Ineffable

12 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by michelinewalker in Fables, Jean de La Fontaine, Symbols

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Brotherly love, Enemy Brothers, Homing Pigeons, La Fontaine's Two Pigeons, Pigeons & Doves, Précieuses, Sacred & Secular, Salons, the ineffable, The Parable of the Prodigal Son

800px-Pompeo_Batoni_003

The Return of the Prodigal Son by Pompeo Batoni, (1773) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fables & Parables

When Jean de La Fontaine (8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695) published his first collection of fables, he drew his subject matter from Greek fabulist Æsop (c. 620 – 564 BCE). Interestingly, Æsop lived before Jesus of Nazareth (c. 4 BCE – c. CE/AD 30 / 33) and the prophet Mohammad (c. 570 CE – 8 June 632 CE). Yet, in the Préface to La Fontaine’s first collection of poems, 6 books, published in 1668, La Fontaine compared his fables to the parables of Jesus of Nazareth: “Truth has spoken to men in parables; and is the parable anything else than a fable? ”

And what I say is not altogether without foundation, since, if I may venture to speak of that which is most sacred in our eyes in the same breath with the errors of the ancients, we find that Truth has spoken to men in parables; and is the parable anything else than a fable? that is to say, a feigned example of some truth, which has by so much the more force and effect as it is the more common and familiar?

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/50316/50316-h/50316-h.htm

Ce que je dis n’est pas tout à fait sans fondement puisque, s’il m’est permis de mêler ce que nous avons de plus sacré parmi les erreurs du paganisme, nous voyons que la Vérité a parlé aux hommes par paraboles; et la parabole est-elle autre chose que l’apologue, c’est-à-dire un exemple fabuleux, et qui s’insinue avec d’autant plus de facilité et d’effet qu’il est plus commun et plus familier?

The Parable of the Prodigal Son does resemble a fable. Its narrative is “the more common and familiar.” However, despite a “more common and familiar,” exemplum, it tells the otherwise ineffable. How does one speak of love unconditional and forgiveness, which is at the core of Jesus of Nazareth’s teachings? In The Parable of the Prodigal Son, one of two brothers asks to be given his half of his father’s estate. This son then leaves home, squanders his money foolishly, and is reduced to starvation when a famine occurs. He therefore returns to his father’s home, saying that he has sinned.

When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’

(Luke 15:11-32 NIV [New International Version])

A lay, or secular, reading of the Parable of the Prodigal Son does point to foolish and, therefore, relatively “common” human behaviour on the part of the prodigal son. From the very beginning of La Fontaine’s fable about the two pigeons, the pigeon who has fallen prey to wanderlust is called fool enough, “assez fou.”

Two doves once cherished for each other
The love that brother has for brother.
But one, of scenes domestic tiring,
To see the foreign world aspiring,
Was fool enough to undertake
A journey long, over land and lake.
The Two Doves

Deux Pigeons s’aimaient d’amour tendre.
L’un d’eux s’ennuyant au logis
Fut assez fou pour entreprendre
Un voyage en lointain pays.
Les Deux Pigeons

However, La Fontaine’s pigeon was merely tired of “scenes domestic,” which is not a sin. He suffers the consequences he was told he would suffer, except that the dreaded falcons are an eagle and that children are “pitiless” human beings who try to harm our traveler.

My heart forebodes the saddest lot
The falcons [faucons], nets Alas, it rains!
The Two Doves

Je ne songerai plus que rencontre funeste,
Que Faucons, que réseaux [nets]. Hélas, dirai-je, il pleut : …
Les Deux Pigeons

To a large extent, the moral of The Two Pigeons is embedded in the story or exemplum. Yet, early in his fable, La Fontaine inserts a proverb, a genre that does not require a narrative or exemplum. Proverbs are related to fables and parables, but they are short, as are maxims. La Rochefoucauld wrote maxims.

L’absence est le plus grand des maux :
Non pas pour vous, cruel. …
Les Deux Pigeons

This absence is the worst of ills;
Your heart may bear, but me it kills.
The Two Doves

Absence was a topic discussed in the French Salons of the first half of the 17th century, by Précieuses and Précieux. Précieuses discussed “questions of love,” chaste love mostly. Although La Fontaine’s poem is not a disquisition on absence, he inserts a proverb in the early verses of Les Deux Pigeons: “L’absence est le plus cruel des maux [pl. of mal].” This proverb, the word “absence” in particular, introduces romantic love, which constitutes a discourse between human beings, mainly, and doves. Jean de La Fontaine’s fable is not altogether about two pigeons. Anthromorphism characterizes only one part of the fable, its beginning. (See Romance, Wikipedia.)

La Fontaine’s motto (devise) was:

Diversité c’est ma devise.
Pâté d’anguille, Contes de La Fontaine

and his fable features modulations and transpositions, as in music. He writes “variations” on the theme of love. The segment I quoted in my last post expresses romantic love.

Ah, happy lovers, would you roam?
Pray, let it not be far from home.
To each the other ought to be
A world of beauty ever new;
In each the other ought to see
The whole of what is good and true.
The Two Doves

Amants, heureux amants, voulez-vous voyager ?
Que ce soit aux rives prochaines ;
Soyez-vous l’un à l’autre un monde toujours beau,
Toujours divers, toujours nouveau ;
Tenez-vous lieu de tout, comptez pour rien le reste [.] 
Les Deux Pigeons

Moreover, although both our pigeons and the prodigal son have been fools, the prodigal son has sinned: “I have sinned against heaven and against you” (Luke 15:11-32), which suggests a gradation among exempla (pl.). When both pigeons are reunited, they rejoice, pigeons are pigeons, but the prodigal son confesses: “I have sinned” (Luke 15:11-32).  

The Parable of the Prodigal Son features two sons, one of whom, the “good” brother, is rather miffed because his father celebrates his prodigal brother’s (the “bad” brother) return. The parable has three figures, one of whom, the father, is a wise and Christic figure, and tells the ineffable.

‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’

(Luke 15:11-32 NIV [New International Version])

Given that one son is miffed, La Fontaine may have been inspired by the Biblical enemy brothers or Cain and Abel, sons born to Adam and Eve, one of whom, Cain, kills his brother, Abel. (See Cain and Abel, Sophocles’ Antigone, Jean Racine’s La Thébaïde, and Jean Anouilh’s Antigone, Wikipedia.) Were it not for a wise father, the prodigal son’s brother, or “good” son, may have harboured resentment. But La Fontaine’s fable’s dramatis personae consists of two, not three, figures: Les Deux Pigeons.

Peter_Paul_Rubens_-_Cain_slaying_Abel,_1608-1609

Cain slaying Abel by Peter Paul Rubens, 1608 (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

The Exemplum: Sermons

Fables and parables also describes sermons. The word exemplum is usually associated with the sermons of the Middle Ages. Jacques de Vitry (Jacobus de Vitriaco c. 1160/70 – 1 May 1240), a French canon regular who rose to prominence, wrote hundreds of exempla (pl.). In the English language, John Donne (22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) is the author of very fine sermons. But few preachers have empowered their words to the same extent as French bishop and theologian Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet.

The unexpected and suspicious death, perhaps poisoning, at the age of 26, of ‘Madame,’ Henriette d’Angleterre, 26 June 1644 – 30 June 1670, the wife of Louis XIV’s brother, called ‘Monsieur,’ was an exemplum few circumstances could equal. [1] In 17th-century France, the age of Louis XIV, an absolute monarch, the memento mori (remember that you have to die), nearly supplanted the carped diem (seize the day) of Horatian Odes I.XI. [2] How does one keep an absolute monarch humble? One approach is to remind him of his mortality, but indirectly. Louis XIV attended Madame‘s funeral and heard Bossuet’s Oraison funèbre. Bossuet also wrote the funeral oration of Louis III, Prince de Condé, 10 November 1668 – 4 March 1710, a “prince of the blood” (un prince du sang). [3] There is a king greater than Louis XIV. Coincidentally, or ineffably, Jean de La Fontaine ends Les Deux Pigeons suggesting that he may be too old to love:

Ai-je passé le temps d’aimer ?
Les Deux Pigeons

Is love, to me, with things that were?
The Two Doves

The Rose

You may remember the vanitas, still lifes, created by artists who often used flowers to express the brevity of life. The Roman de la Rose is our best example. But who can forget François de Malherbe‘s [4] exquisite Consolation à M. Du Périer:

Et rose elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses,
L’espace d’un matin.
Consolation à M. Du Périer (1598) [5]
(See Consolatio.com, transl.)

fantinlatour1

Roses in a Glass Vase by Henri Fantin-Latour, 1873
(Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, England) (Photo credit: Venetian Red)

Contrary to Horace’s precept, to inform and to delight, or blending l’utile et l’agréable,  sermons may not provide delight or pleasure, which Horace (Ars Poetica) teaches. It remains that wrapped in a story, a message is easier to convey, and to remember, than non-fiction. Gustave Doré has ‘illustrated’ the anthropomorphic nature of The Two Pigeons, (Gutenberg [EBook #50516]).

two-pigeons
The Two Doves by Gustave Doré, Gutenberg  [EBook #50316]

laf_head_177
La Fontaine: http://www.la-fontaine-ch-thierry.net/meunfils.htm FR
La Fontaine: http://www.la-fontaine-ch-thierry.net/nine1_2_3.htm EN

The Personal and the Pastoral

After “le reste” or “good and true,” La Fontaine speaks about himself and recalls a bergère, a shepherdess. Pastorals are a discourse on love. Salonniers and salonnières also compared themselves to shepherds and shepherdesses. The most famous bucolic or pastoral novel of 17th-century France is Honoré d’Urfé‘s L’Astrée, written in the first quarter of the 17th century and modelled on Guarini‘s Il Pastor Fido (1590). Having loved, La Fontaine writes:

J‘ai quelquefois aimé ! je n’aurais pas alors
Contre le Louvre et ses trésors,
Contre le firmament et sa voûte céleste,
Changé les bois, changé les lieux
Honorés par les pas, éclairés par les yeux
De l’aimable et jeune Bergère (shepherdess)
Pour qui, sous le fils de Cythère, (Kythira)
Je servis, engagé par mes premiers serments.
Les Deux Pigeons

Myself have loved; nor would I then,
For all the wealth of crowned men,
Or arch celestial, paved with gold,
The presence of those woods has sold,
And fields, and banks, and hillocks, which
Were by the joyful steps made rich,
And smiled beneath the charming eyes
Of her who made my heart a prize
To whom I pledged it, nothing loath,
And sealed the pledge with virgin oath.
The Two Doves

Pigeons, Doves and Turtledoves

  • Dove, and the symbology of love
  • Homing pigeons

The translator of La Fontaine’s Site officiel uses the word “dove,” not pigeon. Doves are colombes and tourtelles, turtledoves. In the symbology of love, one uses the word colombe. Doves, colombes and pigeons are columbidae, but they differ from one another. Therefore, the translator of the Musée de France introduces love, romantic love, by using the word colombe, in the title of his translation. As for Walter Thornbury [EBook #50316], he translated the French pigeons using the English pigeons. It is the same word in both languages. But it should be noted that we do not have homing doves, just homing pigeons. By using pigeons, Jean de La Fontaine suggests that his columbidae will return home. He describes the pigeon as a volatile (a bird, noun) FR and volatile (adjective) FR/EN. 

Conclusion

There is a sense in which literature (non-fiction), speaking animals in particular, always tell, to a smaller or greater extent, that which cannot be told. Anthropomorphism and zoomorphism are effective recourses, but the exemplum, and various displacements (modulations or transpositions) may also be used. In the context of our two pigeons, “L’absence est le pire des maux” seems too elevated a moral. But La Fontaine raises the curtain only to let it fall again.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1997/12/18/the-fabulous-la-fontaine/

Very few of his poems are specifically lyrical in character, and those few are not among his most typical. It is clear, however, that the power of La Fontaine’s lyricism depends on its displacement into the most surprising contexts.[6] 

Charles Gounod has set to music verses from Les Deux Pigeons, and so have I (shame on me). Charles Aznavour has composed a song based on La Fontaine’s Deux Pigeons.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • French, Malherbe (geudensherman.WordPress) FR
  • Consolatio.com (01 February 2005)
  • To Inform or Delight (29 March 2013)
  • Courtly Love or Fin’Amor  (7 March 2013)
  • Anthropomorphism and Zoomorphism (6 March 2017)

Love to everyone ♥
____________________

[1] Oraison funèbre d’Henriette-Anne d’Angleterre is a Wikisource publication FR
The Funeral Oration of Henrietta of England is a Wikisource publication EN (Gordon Goodwin, transl.)
[2] Gather Ye Roses by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1875, is a Wikisource publication
[3] On the Death of the Great Condé is a Wikisource publication (Robert Turnbull, transl.) EN
Oraison funèbre du très haut et très puissant prince Louis de Condé is a Wikisource publication FR
[4] 
French, Malherbe (geudensherman.WordPress) EN ♥
[5] Consolatio.com  (01 February 2005) EN ♥
[6] Charles Rosen, “The Fabulous La Fontaine,” The New York Review of Books, 18 December 1997. ♥

Charles Aznavour sings Les Deux Pigeons 

Bruno Laplante sings Les Deux Pigeons by Charles Gounod

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Picasso’s Dove of peace, 1949

© Micheline Walker
12 June 2018
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