Editing Apologue

{{short description|Brief fable or allegorical story}}
{{more footnotes needed|date=February 2012}}

An '''apologue''' or '''apolog''' (from the [[Greek language|Greek]] ἀπόλογος, a "statement" or "account") is a brief fable or allegorical story with pointed or exaggerated details, meant to serve as a pleasant vehicle for a moral doctrine or to convey a useful lesson without stating it explicitly. Unlike a [[fable]], the moral is more important than the narrative details.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Apologue|volume=2|page=194}}</ref> As with the [[parable]], the apologue is a tool of [[rhetoric]]al [[argument]] used to convince or persuade.

==Overview==
Among the best known ancient and classical examples are that of [[Jotham (son of Gideon)|Jotham]] in the [[Book of Judges]] (9:7-15); "The Belly and its Members," by the patrician [[Agrippa Menenius Lanatus (consul 503 BC)|Agrippa Menenius Lanatus]] in the second book of [[Livy]]; and perhaps most famous of all, those of [[Aesop]].<ref name="EB1911"/> Well-known modern examples of this literary form include [[George Orwell]]'s ''[[Animal Farm]]'' and the [[Br'er Rabbit]] stories derived from African and [[Cherokee]] cultures and recorded and synthesized by [[Joel Chandler Harris]].{{Citation needed|date=September 2017}}  The term is applied more particularly to a story in which the actors or speakers are either various kinds of animals or are inanimate objects.

An apologue is distinguished from a [[fable]] in that there is always some moral sense present in the former, which there need not be in the latter. An apologue is generally dramatic, and has been defined as "a satire in action."<ref name="EB1911"/>

==Apologue vs parable==
An apologue differs from a [[parable]] in several respects. A parable is equally an ingenious tale intended to correct manners, but it can be ''true'' in the sense that "when this kind of actual event happens among men, this is what it means and this is how we should think about it", while an apologue, with its introduction of animals and plants, to which it lends ideas, language and emotions, contains only metaphoric truth: "when this kind of situation exists anywhere in the world, here is an interesting truth about it."  The [[parable]] reaches heights to which the apologue cannot aspire, for the points in which animals and nature present analogies to man are principally those of his lower nature (hunger, desire, pain, fear, etc.), and the lessons taught by the apologue seldom therefore reach beyond prudential morality (keep yourself safe, find ease where you can, plan for the future, don't misbehave or you'll eventually be caught and punished), whereas the parable aims at representing the relations between man and existence or higher powers (know your role in the universe, behave well towards all you encounter, kindness and respect are of higher value than cruelty and slander).  It finds its framework in the world of nature as it actually is, and not in any parody of it, and it exhibits real and not fanciful analogies.

The apologue seizes on that which humans have in common with other creatures, and the parable on that which we have in common with a greater existence. Still, in spite of the difference of moral level, [[Martin Luther]] thought so highly of apologues as counselors of virtue that he edited and revised Aesop and wrote a characteristic preface to the volume.<ref>{{harvnb|Chisholm|1911}} for the main text, but the origin of the examples is unclear.</ref>  The parable is always blunt and devoid of subtlety, and requires no interpretation; the apologue by nature necessitates at least some degree of reflection and thought to achieve understanding, and in this sense it demands more of the listener than the parable does.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.shonmehta.com/2017/01/calamity.html|title=Calamity|website=www.shonmehta.com|access-date=2017-03-14}}</ref>

Some commentators have attempted to relegate the apologue in literary and artistic importance. As [[René Wellek]] observes, [[Hegel]] in his ''Aesthetics'' (mediated to at least some extent by [[Heinrich Gustav Hotho|Hotho]]'s account) consigns the apologue, parable, and proverb, along with the fable, the epigram, the riddle, and all didactic and descriptive poetry as "minor forms" of literature that do not qualify as art at all.<ref>{{cite book |last=Wellek|first=René|title=A History of Modern Criticism, 1750-1950|volume=2, The Romantic Age|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|year=1981|orig-date=1955|quote-page=324|quote=Hegel there discusses the animal fable, the parable, the proverb, the apologue, the riddle, the epigram, and didactic and descriptive poetry. It is denied that these minor forms are art...}}</ref><ref name=Hegel>{{cite book|last=Hegel|first=G.W.F.|translator=T.M. Knox|title=Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art|publisher=[[Clarendon Press]], [[Oxford]]|year=1975|volume=1|chapter=3, A.2|pages=390–392}}</ref>

==Origins==
The origin of the apologue is extremely ancient and comes from the [[Middle East]] and its surrounding area (Persia, Asia Minor, Egypt, etc.), which is the Classical fatherland of everything connected with [[allegory]], [[metaphor]] and [[imagination]]. Veiled truth was often necessary in the Middle East, particularly among the [[slave]]s, who dared not reveal their minds too openly. The two fathers of apologue in the West were slaves, namely [[Aesop]] and [[Phaedrus (fabulist)|Phaedrus]]. Leading later writers of apologues were [[Giambattista Basile]] in Italy; [[La Fontaine]] in France; [[John Gay]] and [[Robert Dodsley]] in England; [[Christian Fürchtegott Gellert]], [[Gotthold Ephraim Lessing]] and [[Friedrich von Hagedorn]] in Germany; [[Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa|Tomas de Iriarte]] in Spain; [[Ivan Krylov]] in Russia and [[Leonid Hlibov]] in Ukraine.<ref name="EB1911"/>

==Structure==
Length is not an essential matter in the definition of an apologue. Those of La Fontaine are often very short, as, for example, "Le Coq et la Perle" ("The Cock and the Pearl").<ref name="EB1911"/>

''"A cock was once strutting up and down the farmyard among the hens when suddenly he espied something shining amid the straw. “Ho! ho!” quoth he, “that’s for me,” and soon rooted it out from beneath the straw. What did it turn out to be but a Pearl that by some chance had been lost in the yard? “You may be a treasure,” quoth Master Cock, “to men that prize you, but for me I would rather have a single barley-corn than a peck of pearls.”''{{Citation needed|date=September 2017}}

On the other hand, in the romances of [[Reynard the Fox]] we have medieval apologues arranged in cycles, and attaining epical dimensions. An Italian fabulist, [[Corti]], is said to have developed an apologue of "The Talking Animals" reaching twenty-six [[canto]]s.<ref name="EB1911"/>

==In literature==
[[Antoine Houdar de la Motte|La Motte]], writing at a time when this species of literature was universally admired, attributes its popularity to the fact that it manages and flatters [[amour-propre]] by inculcating virtue in an amusing manner without seeming to dictate or insist. This was the ordinary 18th-century view of the matter, but [[Rousseau]] contested the educational value of instruction given in this indirect form.<ref name="EB1911"/>

A work by P. Soullé, ''La Fontaine et ses devanciers'' (1866), is a history of the apologue from the earliest times until its final triumph in France.<ref name="EB1911"/>

[[Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu|Montesquieu]] wrote a propos his ''[[Persian Letters]]'' "There are certain truths of which it is not enough to persuade, but which must be made to be ''felt''.  Such are the moral verities. Perhaps a bit of history will be more touching than subtle philosophy."{{Citation needed|date=September 2017}}

[[André Alexis]]' ''[[Fifteen Dogs|Fifteen Dogs: an Apologue]]'', an extended [[prosimetrum|prosimetric]] example of apologue, was published in 2015, notably winning that year's [[Giller Prize]] and subsequently earning Alexis the [[ Windham-Campbell Literature Prize]].<ref>{{cite journal|journal=[[Canadian Literature (journal)|Canadian Literature]]|volume=225|issue=Summer 2015|pages=159–161|last=Ridington|first=Robin|title=Reading André Alexis' ''Fifteen Dogs: An Apologue''.}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Traditional story]]
*[[Epilogue]], a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature, usually used to bring closure to the work.

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{ws|[[s:Landon in The Literary Gazette 1821 Supplement/Apologue|Apologue, a poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1820)]]}} Based on 'Air-Fire-Water-Shame' (Spanish).

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[[Category:Rhetoric]]
[[Category:Narrative techniques]]
[[Category:Persuasion techniques]]
[[Category:Traditional stories]]