Genre of story, in either verse or prose, in which animals or inanimate objects are given the mentality and speech of human beings to point out a moral. Fables are common in folklore and children's literature, and range from the short fables of the ancient Greek writer
Aesop to the modern novel
Animal Farm (1945) by English writer George Orwell.
Fabulists include the Roman Phaedrus, French poet
La Fontaine and, in English, Geoffrey
Chaucer and Jonathan
Swift.
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