Jean de La Fontaine (July 8, 1621, Château-Thierry – April 13, 1695, Paris) was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional languages.
According to Flaubert, he was the only French poet to understand and master the texture of the French language before Hugo. A set of postage stamps celebrating La Fontaine and the Fables was issued by France in 1995.
Read more about Jean De La Fontaine: Works, Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words jean de la, jean de and/or fontaine:
“Grief that is dazed and speechless is out of fashion: the modern woman mourns her husband loudly and tells you the whole story of his death, which distresses her so much that she forgets not the slightest detail about it.”
—Jean De La Bruyère (1645–1696)
“False greatness is unsociable and remote: conscious of its own frailty, it hides, or at least averts its face, and reveals itself only enough to create an illusion and not be recognized as the meanness that it really is. True greatness is free, kind, familiar and popular; it lets itself be touched and handled, it loses nothing by being seen at close quarters; the better one knows it, the more one admires it.”
—Jean De La Bruyère (1645–1696)
“He knows the universe and does not know himself.”
—Jean De La Fontaine (1621–1695)