JEAN DE LA FONTAINE

The ingenuity and carelessness of the supreme fabulist became proverbial, at least as much as his prose. When he remained without means of subsistence, he composed himself his epitaph: ‘Here lies Jean, who left as he had come. He ate income and capitals, believing the riches were not necessary at all. He spent his time well: he made two parts of it and passed one sleeping and the other doing nothing’. But certainly his spirit – more darkly meditative than the late Baroque era during which he lived could have understood – is to be found in the scant consideration that he had of his own fables: he preferred ancient fable artists; to the point that Fontenelle – the nephew of the two Corneille – could say: ‘What a fool, that La Fontaine! Imagine that he seriously believes the ancients had more brain than him!’

Dario Agazzi for SAFT