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Lafontaine-like author in other languages | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7367 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes  12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 1 of 8 07 July 2005 at 5:45am | IP Logged |
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I wonder how to find versified texts that would be relatively easy to understand and hugely successful in their country of origin.
For instance, in French Jean de Lafontaine is an extremely pleasurable author to read. It is taught universally across the French speaking world and every body who has been schooled in French knows at least a couple of his versified fables. He took most of the material from Aesop but the way he tells them make these fables little treasures that people are always glad to listen to. My problem is to find similar texts or authors in other languages. They must exist. In English I only know the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a fine text although not as universally appealing as Lafontaine. The languages I am looking for are German, English, Italian, Spanish and Russian. In wonder if native speakers of these languages or others could find an equivalent to Lafontaine in their native languages? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Qbe Tetraglot Senior Member United States joewright.org/var Joined 7126 days ago 289 posts - 335 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Japanese, German, Mandarin, Aramaic | Message 2 of 8 07 July 2005 at 10:07am | IP Logged |
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Michael Coulson in "Teach Yourself Sanskrit" points out that Pancatantra is the ultimate source of La Fontaine's fables.
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| hokusai77 Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 7143 days ago 212 posts - 217 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Italian*, FrenchB1, EnglishC1 Studies: GermanB1, Japanese | Message 3 of 8 07 July 2005 at 10:14am | IP Logged |
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Italo Calvino's books. They're hugely popular in Italy and not too difficult, even to foreigners. If you like tales, you can read "Fiabe italiane", a collection of Italian popular stories and tales, which were grouped by Calvino himself. Edited by hokusai77 on 07 July 2005 at 10:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7179 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin | Message 4 of 8 07 July 2005 at 10:22am | IP Logged |
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Ronald Dahl wrote many famous and well known short stories in English. I'm not sure how difficult they'd be for a foreigner to read, as I speak English natively, but I'd check them out. You can probably find a few of them for free online.
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| omicron Senior Member United States Joined 7112 days ago 125 posts - 132 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 8 07 July 2005 at 6:01pm | IP Logged |
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I can't think of any series along the lines of Jean de Lafontaine, but here are some fairly famous English poems.
"The Owl and The Pussycat" is a children's poem that virtually everybody has read at some point. Two of the most famous (and most parodied) America poems are Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha" (Beware - Hiawatha is looooong) Robert W Service is more famous in Canada than in the US. My favorite of his is "The Cremation of Sam McGee" Lewis Carroll's "You are Old, Father William", from Alice in Wonderland is well known. You might also like his "The Hunting of the Snark" All of these, in my opinion, are lot's more fun than the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Edited by omicron on 07 July 2005 at 6:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cthulhu Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7214 days ago 139 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English, Mandarin, Russian | Message 6 of 8 07 July 2005 at 8:50pm | IP Logged |
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I'd really like to be able to give examples of some Chinese authors like this, but there really aren't many such versified texts in the language. Chinese verse is almost universally short; even the little that is of any considerable length is still written in the same abstruse archaic language as the rest of the poetry in the language.
The best example I can think of, and that I would like to suggest as a fair equivalent, would be the Mu Lan Shi, the Ballad of Mulan. Written in the 6th century by an unknown author, it's really famous, to the extant that Disney made a movie about it, it's like 15 verses long and written in what passes for simple language in Chinese verse. Zhongwen.com has a hyperlinked version of it on their site with an English translation Here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Russianbear Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6766 days ago 358 posts - 422 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, Ukrainian Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 8 08 May 2006 at 1:52pm | IP Logged |
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administrator:
I think it is not easy to find Russian author who is both pleasurable and easy to read. The people who are easiest to understand are the classics, but their ease is offset by the fact that they wrote around 150 years ago and thus their vocabulary may include words that are not familiar to the contemporary student of the Russian language. As far as pleasure and popularity go, the leader is clear - a 19th century writer called Alexander Pushkin. His "Eugene Onegin" is considered by many to be the single most important work in Russian literature. Of course, since it is much harder to translate lyrics than prose, Pushkin is not as well known as several Russian prose writers such as Tolstoy or Turgenyev. However his importance is huge in Russia. His style was so influential that he is singlehandedly credited with reinventing (and oftentimes, with creating) the Russian literature. He is beloved in a way that arguably no English language writer is in the English speaking countries. Pushkin's style is considered to be very clear and easy to understand, and that said, there is a big difference with what is considered to be easy for a native Russian speaker and a person who is trying to learn Russian. So I don't suggest you tackle "Eugene Onegin" right away, since in Soviet/Russian schools, children don't study this work until one of the last years of high school. But it is not THAT hard, and it can be a good measure of progress - I would even go as far as to say that if you are able to read (and actually understand) "Eugene Onegin", you actually know Russian language pretty well. But probably it is going to be over your head, and I would suggest starting with something more simple first. Pushkin's fairy tales were/are read to (and read by)many generations of Russian children - I remember reading them to me when I was like 4 or 5 years old. If small children can make sense out of it, it can't be that hard. On the other hand, I don't know if it is really that much fun for an adult to read children's books, though. Another option is to actually read a guy who (like Lafontaine) also wrote fables and who also borrowed most of the material from Aesop - namely, Ivan Krylov. His fables are also covered in school, around grades 5-7. I hope this was helpful. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7367 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 8 08 May 2006 at 3:11pm | IP Logged |
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Russianbear, welcome to the forum and thank you very much for your insight!
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