Jean de La Fontaine

Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695), French writer, who produced the most famous fables of modern times.

La Fontaine probably was born on July 8, 1621, in Château-Thierry and educated at the College of Reims. For many years he followed his father's profession of ranger in charge of supervising the forests and streams of the duchy of Château-Thierry. After 1659 he was supported by a number of noble and influential patrons of literature. His first major published work was an adaptation (1654) of the play Eunuchus (The Eunuch) by the Roman playwright Terence. La Fontaine's literary reputation was established by his Tales and Novels in Verse (1644; translated 1934). He became a member of a noted French literary group that included the playwrights Molière and Racine and the critic and poet Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux. Subsequent works of La Fontaine, which included additional volumes of Tales and Novels in Verse (1667-1674) and three collections of his Fables choisies mises en vers (Selected Fables Versified, 1668-1694), made him one of the most eminent French men of letters of the period. In 1683 he was elected to the French Academy, despite opposition from Louis XIV.

La Fontaine's work influenced many later writers. His fables are distinguished by vivid and artful narration and by the subtlety and range of their author's understanding of life. His Tales and Novels have as their sources The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio, L'heptaméron (1559; The Heptaméron) of Margaret of Navarre, and Les cent nouvelles nouvelles (One Hundred New Tales), reputedly by Antoine de La Salle, but La Fontaine retold the stories of these earlier authors with considerable variation and with unique verve and wit. He also wrote many miscellaneous works, including poems, opera librettos, and plays; the most important of these is the romantic tale in verse and prose The Loves of Cupid and Psyche (1669; translated 1744). La Fontaine died on April 13, 1695, in Paris.