Lecture Preview
Nandu News Reporter Zhu Rongting Turtle and rabbit race, cat and mouse... In addition to the well-known Aesop fables, these familiar stories are most likely written by a 17th-century fable master. He was Jean de La Fontaine.
As an outstanding representative of French classical literature and a famous allegorical poet, La Fontaine and his works were born in France in the 17th century, which was the period of French classicism and the era of reinterpretation of ancient Greco-Roman culture.
Born in the French town of Château de Thierry, La Fontaine is known as the "Homer of France", and his works have been compiled by posterity as "The Fables of La Fontaine", and together with the Fables of Aesop and the Fables of Krelov, he is known as the three major fables of the world. He is good at using animal metaphors, through simple, vivid, witty language, and wonderful dialogue, to portray the various characters of his time.
This year marks the 400th anniversary of La Fontaine's birth. Recently, the exhibition "Nature's Fables – The Multi-Faceted Life of La Fontaine" is being held in the Multicultural Hall on the eighth floor of the North Building of Guangzhou Library, covering a wide range of fables and Fables and books on the theme of La Fontaine's fables, in addition to related theme lectures and children's workshops.
From 14:30 to 16:30 today, Dong Qiang, director of the French Department of the School of Foreign Chinese of Peking University, Gao Ji, assistant professor of the Institute of Comparative Literature and Comparative Culture of Peking University, doctor of romance language and literature at the University of Chicago, and Deng Wei, associate professor of the Department of French at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, will come to the No. 2 Lecture Hall of the Negative One Floor of the Guangzhou Library to take readers back to the 17th century French town of Château de Thierry, to understand the birth of allegorical poetry, and to witness how that great century shaped a generation of allegorists Jean de La Fontaine. Let us follow in the footsteps of experts and enter the era of La Fontaine and its literary world.