• Aboriginals in North America
  • Beast Literature
  • Canadiana.1
  • Dances & Music
  • Europe: Ukraine & Russia
  • Fables and Fairy Tales
  • Fables by Jean de La Fontaine
  • Feasts & Liturgy
  • Great Books Online
  • La Princesse de Clèves
  • Middle East
  • Molière
  • Nominations
  • Posts on Love Celebrated
  • Posts on the United States
  • The Art and Music of Russia
  • The French Revolution & Napoleon Bonaparte
  • Voyageurs Posts
  • Canadiana.2

Micheline's Blog

~ Art, music, books, history & current events

Micheline's Blog

Tag Archives: Ramsay Wood

Carlos Fuentes on Ramsay Wood’s Kalila and Dimna, and Micheline’s little house

20 Saturday Aug 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Carlos Fuentes on Ramsay Wood’s Kalila and Dimna, and Micheline’s little house

Tags

Carlos Fuentes, fantasy, fatigue, Italo Calvino, Ramsay Wood, Reynard the fox, the Crusades, Ysengrimus

“It is at the source of Spanish literature:  no picaresque novels even no Quixote, without these wise and vigorous, sly and funny tales. They are contemporary:  they are eternal… Today, when we need, more than ever, to understand the Muslim world, Ramsay Wood’s fresh recreation of the tales becomes indispensable reading for the West.  Indispensable, more than for political, for human, artistic, glad reasons. Wood’s superb stories should be set alongside Italo Calvinos’s recent retelling of the folk tales of Italy.  No higher praise is necessary.”

The above is what Carlos Fuentes (b. 1928) has to say about Ramsay Wood’s translation of the The Tales of Kalila and Dimna, the Arabic translation, by Ibn al-Muqaffa, of Vishnu Sharma’s Panchatantra, written in Sanskrit.  Indeed, “no higher praise is necessary.”

In order to understand the Muslim world, it is also useful to gather information on the Crusades.  It is during the Crusades that the West first entered the Muslim world.  There was criticism of the Crusades expressed in a very long Latin-language beast-epic entitled Ysengrimus, written by Nivardus of Ghent in 1148-1149, or a little later.  Nivard de Gand’s Ysengrimus is the birthplace of Reynard the Fox, arguably the most famous character in beast literature.  Reynard is the  protagonist in countless fables.

This is a very short blog.  Not that I have run out of words, but that I am tired.  I suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, also called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.  In 1976, I caught a viral infection from which I never fully recovered.  However, do not feel sorry for me.  There are so many books to read and so much beautiful music to listen to.  Moreover, there are clipboards or portable desks.

In 2002, I sold a house I loved.  So, during the last few weeks, I have attempted to draw a little house that would suit me.  It was a challenge.  The house had to be small:  12,000 sq. feet.  How does one fit so many books and a piano in a small space?  Besides, I have always enjoyed having a guest room.

I am happy to report that I have finally drawn the floor plan of my little house and did so using a clipboard as desk.  I may not move out of this apartment, but I have decided to keep my drawing.  Fantasy can be a very cozy refuge.

Micheline's Blog

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

La Fontaine’s “Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi” (The Frogs who Desired a King)

18 Thursday Aug 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Fables

≈ 52 Comments

Tags

CNN's Don Lemon, Ecclesiastes, Europe gasping for air, frogs and hardline Republicans, Hillary Clinton, Jean de La Fontaine, La Fontaine's Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi (The Frogs Who Desired a King, Michele Bachmann, Ramsay Wood, United States, Vanitas

grenouille-demandent-roi-1

“Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi”

“Le Chêne et le Roseau”  is an exquisite fable, containing many lessons, one of which is the Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas (Vanity of vanities; all is vanity, Ecclesiastes 1:2) that permeates French seventeenth-century literature. We all die, even kings. Death is the equalizer.

More timely, however, is a fable entitled “The Frogs who desired a King” (book three, number IV of La Fontaine’s first volume of Fables [1668]).

“Les Grenouilles qui demandent un roi” tells the story of “silly and frightened” frogs who live in a democracy, but, tired of democracy, ask Jupiter for a monarch. Jupiter acquiesces. From the skies  descends a peace-loving king who makes a huge noise as he lands. This king is a beam (un soliveau) often represented as a log.

Frightened by the din, the frogs go into hiding, only to return slowly to look at the king. The peace-loving king is a beau, which is not very kingly. The frogs start jumping on the beam-king, which the king tolerates as Jupiter grumbles. The beam-king is a kindly monarch, but he does not move.

Dissatisfied, the people go back to Jupiter to ask for a king who moves. So Jupiter sends them a crane who starts eating them up. In Æsop’s  version of this fable, the crame is a stork.

Our silly frogs complain, and Jupiter tells them, first, that they should have kept their government (a democracy), second, that they should have been pleased to be sent a gentleman-king, the beam-king, and, third, to settle for the king they have for fear of encountering a worse one, La Fontaine’s celui-ci (this one) pointing to the voracious crane.

The Moral

One of the morals of this fable is the eternal “Leave well enough alone,” but we are also reading a “Beware-of-your-wishes-as-they-may-come-true” narrative. I would therefore suggest that my neighbours to the south take a good look at their duly-elected President and count their blessings. President Obama’s first gesture when he came into office was to save an economy that is no longer confined to the United States. Furthermore, as the US borrowed a huge amount of money to pay a debt incurred by the previous administration, President Obama set about providing the citizens of his country with social programs, beginning with health care. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had not succeeded in allowing the US to take this gigantic step toward nationhood, but she had traced a path. I salute her and thank her on behalf of her nation.

Then came July 2011! America could not default on its debt and the Republicans knew it, but the Tea Party, Michele Bachmann’s turf, and hardline Republicans were so slow in coming up with a relatively acceptable plan that the US lost its triple-A credit rating and left Europeans gasping for air. What on earth was Congress doing?

However and fortunately, because the rest of the world knows the US has an extraordinary President, the consequences were not catastrophic.  President Obama’s administration has credibility and America has great minds, people who, unlike Bachmann’s campaign aids, would not push CNN’s Don Lemon into a golf cart as he attempted to chronicle Bachmann’s campaign at the Iowa’s State Fair, in Des Moines.

Who are these pompous people? Could they be heirs to the “gent fort sotte et fort peureuse” (people so silly and so afraid) of La Fontaine’s fable, ready to throw stones mindlessly?

P.S.  By the way, Ramsay Wood has continued to translate of The Tales of Kalila and Dimna (tales told by Dr Bidpai), the Arabic version of Vishnu Sharma’s Panchatantra.  I own and cherish a 2000 paperback edition of the first volume of the Tales of Kalila and Dimna, published in 1986 by Inner Traditions (Rochester, Vermont).  Ramsay Wood writes in a manner that makes the reader think Wood himself wrote Kalila and Dimna, and the stories sound as young as the morning dew.  The first volume of Ramsay Wood’s translation of Kalila and Dimna has a brilliant and informative introduction by Doris Lessing.  (See my post on “Le Chêne et le Roseau”).

© Micheline Walker
18 August 2011
WordPress
0.000000 0.000000

Micheline's Blog

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Europa

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,507 other subscribers

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Categories

Recent Posts

  • Epiphany 2023
  • Pavarotti sings Schubert’s « Ave Maria »
  • Yves Montand chante “À Bicyclette”
  • Almost ready
  • Bicycles for Migrant Farm Workers
  • Tout Molière.net : parti …
  • Remembering Belaud
  • Monet’s Magpie
  • To Lori Weber: Language Laws in Quebec, 2
  • To Lori Weber: Language Laws

Archives

Calendar

February 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728  
« Jan    

Social

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • WordPress.org

micheline.walker@videotron.ca

Micheline Walker

Micheline Walker

Social

Social

  • View belaud44’s profile on Facebook
  • View Follow @mouchette_02’s profile on Twitter
  • View Micheline Walker’s profile on LinkedIn
  • View belaud44’s profile on YouTube
  • View Miicheline Walker’s profile on Google+
  • View michelinewalker’s profile on WordPress.org

Micheline Walker

Micheline Walker
Follow Micheline's Blog on WordPress.com

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

  • Follow Following
    • Micheline's Blog
    • Join 2,475 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Micheline's Blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: