Comparative Study On "Bai Yu Jing" And "Aesop's Fables"

Hegel defines fable to be "Symbolic Art" in his "Aesthetics". Oneof the early literary genres, fable is a short narrative to have some allegorical effects in order to illustrate an abstract truth or life experience.Fable, originates from the oral folk tales, is a component of folk tales, and attains a prestigious status in the field of world literature. The three birthplaces of ancient fables throughout the world are China, Ancient Greece, and India. "Bai Yu Jing" (the Scripture ofOne Hundred Parables), a book to publicize Buddhist doctrines with allegorical stories, is influential not only in the field of religion,but in the scope of literature as well. Therefore, "Bai Yu Jing" enjoys great popularity and prestige in the eastern world, while its counterpart in the western world is "Aesop's Fables".Fable tales in "Bai Yu Jing" and "Aesop's Fables" make full use of the figures of speech, such as personification, metaphor, symbol, and hyperbole, etc. to symbolize and allegorically mirror the human society to teach a lesson, and give an admonishment. In Western fables,the animals are the most common characters. On the contrary, the eastern fables prefer human characters to any other characters. Most ofthese differences between the western and eastern fables derive fromthe different social and cultural background.In this paper, I will have the parallel comparison of these two works of eastern and western world from the aspects of structure, them e, artistic style, etc. Seven similar tales in both "Bai Yu Jing" and"Aesop's Fables" will be selected and compared on the bases of Marx'sTheory of Historical Materialism and Dialectical Materialism. Meanwhile, the parallel study and influence research in comparative literature will be used to have a very detailed comparison of these two works to find out the similarities, disparities, and rules in its development, which is very useful in understanding the fables of western andeastern world, and comparing the western and eastern culture.Consequently, following rules in the literary development of thefables are concluded: when the ancient people have been mired in hardliving circumstances, fables are created; concerning the leading roles, there are few female and plant figures in both western and eastern tales; all the themes are from the collection, production and recreation of the folk tales; the humor, verbal concise and its short formare their artistic features; the motifs of life wisdom and moralityare stressed. Moreover, the ancient Indian folk tales can be more orless traced in both "Bai Yu Jing" and "Aesop's Fables". While the trace can be found in "Bai Yu Jing" is considerable, in "Aesop's Fables"is just a little. Therefore, it is better to consider these two works as independent creations from each other.All in all, the representative fable collections of eastern and western world, "Bai Yu Jing" and "Aesop's Fable" have given much influence on the creation of fables tales throughout the world from then on.