An apologue or apolog (from the 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. As with the parable, the apologue is a tool of rhetorical argument used to convince or persuade.

Overview

Among the best known ancient and classical examples are that of Jotham in the Book of Judges (9:7-15); "The Belly and its Members," by the patrician Agrippa Menenius Lanatus in the second book of Livy; and perhaps most famous of all, those of Aesop. 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.

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 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.

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 slaves, who dared not reveal their minds too openly. The two fathers of apologue in the West were slaves, namely Aesop and 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; Tomas de Iriarte in Spain; Ivan Krylov in Russia and Leonid Hlibov in Ukraine.

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

  • Based on 'Air-Fire-Water-Shame' (Spanish).