COLLOQUIUM: Jeremy Lefkowitz, Swarthmore, "Writing Aesopica"

The narrative style and linguistic register of our earliest surviving collections of Aesop's fables suggest a deliberate and cultivated simplicity.  This talk will explore some of the ways in which a distinct style of fable-writing surfaces in the tradition, in both prose and verse fable books.  The emphasis will be on the ways in which the Roman poet Phaedrus balanced his undeniable ambition with the genre's marginalized position in literary culture and its traditional commitment to simple storytelling.