Animals and men in La Fontaine’s Fables and La Rochefoucauld’s Maxims

Abstract

François de La Rochefoucauld, as well as Jean de La Fontaine, integrates the group called 17th century moralist writers. However, even with common features that approximate their works, they are distinguished by their different reception. The maxims, a brief, clear, and direct genre, would voluntarily cause discomfort in its reader due to the truths it conveys, while the fable, less intransigent towards its audience, would seek to soften these truths through allegory. This brief exposition, which presents some points of convergence and divergence between the two genres, seeks to establish a dialogue between them, and the particularity of this dialogue would arise from the use of the animal tradition.