FABLES IN THE AGORA: FROM ARISTOTLE TO THE CENTURY OF ENLIGHTENMENT

Abstract

Having been long established in western poetic tradition as a short composition of ethical intent, usually performed by anthropomorphized animals and conveying a rule of behavior, the fable has represented, ever since its origins, a key strategy of persuasion at the service of orators seeking to convince and influence an audience. Originally defined as a rhetorical genre and inevitably mirroring social and historical mutations, the fable as well as the moralities inferred from it have played varying functions and accomplished different goals in the course of centuries, so as to accommodate changing communicative needs. In this article, we seek to provide a critical and diachronic survey of the resonance of classical rhetoric in the definition of fable as a genre and examine its literary manifestations from Aristotle to the Enlightenment.