Editing Fables and Parables (section)

==Characteristics==
Emulating the fables of the ancient [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] [[Aesop]], the [[Macedonia (Roman province)|Macedon]]ian-[[Ancient Rome|Roman]] [[Phaedrus (fabulist)|Phaedrus]], the Polish [[Biernat of Lublin]], and the [[France|Frenchman]] [[Jean de La Fontaine]], and anticipating Russia's [[Ivan Krylov]], [[Poland]]'s Krasicki populates his '''fables''' with [[Anthropomorphism|anthropomorphized]] [[animal]]s, [[plant]]s, [[Animate noun|inanimate]] [[Object (philosophy)|object]]s, and [[nature|forces of nature]], in [[epigram]]matic expressions of a [[skepticism|skeptical]], [[irony|ironic]] view of the world.<ref>Zdzisław Libera, introduction to [[Ignacy Krasicki]], ''Bajki:  wybór'' (Fables:  a Selection), pp. 5-10.</ref>

That view is informed by Krasicki's observations of [[human nature]] and of national and international [[politics]] in his day—including the predicament of the expiring [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]]. Just seven years earlier (1772), the Commonwealth had experienced the first of three [[Partitions of Poland|partitions]] that would, by 1795, totally expunge the Commonwealth from the [[political map]] of Europe.<ref>Czesław Miłosz, ''The History of Polish Literature'', p. 167.</ref>

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth would fall victim to the aggression of three powerful neighbors much as, in Krasicki's fable of "[[#The Lamb and the Wolves|The Lamb and the Wolves]]," the lamb falls prey to the two wolves. The First Partition had rendered Krasicki—an intimate of Poland's last king, [[Stanisław August Poniatowski]]—involuntarily a subject of that Partition's instigator, [[Prussia]]'s King [[Frederick II of Prussia|Frederick II]] ("the Great").<ref>Czesław Miłosz, ''The History of Polish Literature'', p. 177.</ref>  Krasicki would, unlike Frederick, survive to witness the final dismemberment of the Commonwealth.

Krasicki's '''''[[parable]]s''''' (e.g., "[[#Abuzei and Tair|Abuzei and Tair]]," "[[#The Blind Man and the Lame|The Blind Man and the Lame]]," "[[#Son and Father|Son and Father]]," "[[#The Farmer|The Farmer]]," "[[Wikisource:Fables and Parables#Child and Father|Child and Father]]," "[[#The Master and His Dog|The Master and His Dog]]," "[[Wikisource:Fables and Parables#The King and the Scribes|The King and the Scribes]]," and "[[#The Drunkard|The Drunkard]]") do not, by definition, employ the anthropomorphization that characterizes the ''fables''. Instead, his parables point elegant [[moral]] lessons drawn from more quotidian ''[[human]]'' life.<ref>Czesław Miłosz, ''The History of Polish Literature'', p. 178.</ref>

Krasicki's, writes [[Czesław Miłosz]], "is a world where the strong win and the weak lose in a sort of immutable order... [[Reason]] is exalted as the human equivalent of animal strength:  the [clever]  survive, the stupid perish."<ref>Czesław Miłosz, ''The History of Polish Literature'', p. 178.</ref>

Miłosz writes:

{{blockquote|Poetry for [Krasicki] was a more concise and elegant prose, and originality of subject had no importance.  Thus [he] borrowed the subjects of his fables from the enormous body of fabular literature starting with Aesop and finishing with his own French contemporaries.  He also borrowed from [the earlier French fabulist] [[La Fontaine]], especially in... his ''New Fables''... published [posthumously in 1802], but whatever he took was always completely transformed.  His extreme conciseness is best seen if one counts the number of words in the original author's version and compares it to that of Krasicki's on the same subject.  The pleasure... for the poet [as well as] for the reader... is probably due to the [compression] of a whole story, sometimes even a [[novella]], into a few lines, and among Krasicki's best... fables [are those] which [comprise] only one quatrain where the author's pen moves in one rush toward the final ''pointe''.<ref>Czesław Miłosz, ''The History of Polish Literature'', p. 178.</ref>}}

The ''Fables and Parables'' are written as 13-[[syllable]] lines, in [[couplet]]s with the [[rhyme scheme]] AA BB. They range in length from 2 to 18 lines. The introductory invocation "To the Children", while employing the same rhyme scheme, uses lines of 11 syllables.

Curiously, the fables include two with the identical title, "The Stream and the River"; two with the identical title, "The Lion and the Beasts"; two with the identical title, "Nightingale and Goldfinch"; and two with the identical title, "The Wolf and the Sheep".

Critics generally prefer Krasicki's more concise ''Fables and Parables'' (1779), sampled here, over his later ''New Fables'', published posthumously in 1802. This is consistent with Krasicki's own dictum in ''On [[Poetry|Versification]] and Versifiers'' that "A fable should be ''brief'', clear and, so far as possible, preserve the truth."<ref>Quoted in Libera's introduction to [[Ignacy Krasicki|Krasicki]], ''Bajki:  wybór'', p. 5.</ref>

In the same treatise, Krasicki explains that a fable "is a story commonly ascribed to animals, that people who read it might take instruction from [the animals'] example or speech...; it originated in eastern lands where supreme [[governance]] reposed in the hands of [[Autocracy|autocrat]]s. Thus, when it was feared to proclaim the [[truth]] openly, [[simulacrum|simulacra]] were employed in fables so that—if only in this way—the truth might be agreeable alike to the ruled and to the [[monarch|ruler]]s."<ref>Quoted in Libera's introduction to [[Ignacy Krasicki|Krasicki]], ''Bajki:  wybór'', p. 5.</ref>