La Fontaine: Selected

Enjoyable stories that aim to teach life lessons. Entertaining and interesting. I highly recommend for those learning French at an intermediate level.

This book is in French and English. It is a nice tool to assist your knowledge with both languages or for intermediate learners in French (or English). I highly recommend it to every fable lovers out there.

These fables are humorous and interesting. After I finish this book, my grand-children will enjoy the English, which is suitable for anyone above 8-10 years old. As with fables in general, there are lessons to be learned. I like dual language books.

LaFontaine was born in 1621 in Chatieur Thierry on the Marne. He was the son of a provincial office and was himself slated to be that. Instead he wandered off to Paris, had a number of patrons , tried to write great and noble verses but had his one great success with the Fables. The Fables taken from Aesop, and the Indian fabulist Bidpai were written in verse. They were published in two volumes, the first of which is considered the superior. They often take a kind of dual subject form, i.e. the this and the that, the Cicada and the Ant, the Crow and the Fox , the Wolf and the Lamb.James Michie's translation is according ton Geoffrey Grigson who introduces this volume the best one. But I do not feel it really succeeds as poetry.I read the little one- dimensional stories as prose. They have a touch of the cruelty Fables often have and the stories and morals do not most often rise above the commonplace. But generations have read and enjoyed these fables and what is my taste that it should argue against them?

This book contains many short french stories that are sure to be a big help to any beginner through intermediate level student. It enriches french vocabulary while simultaneously getting the reader used to translating in a non-strict, understandable manner. The opposite page with the english translation is a big help when one gets stuck on a new word!