davey#Poetry #Fables The Turtles of three versifiers.
Jean de La Fontaine gave us a story of tortoise versus hare, in Le Lièvre et la Tortue. Three hundred and three years after the fabulist's death, Guy Wetmore Carryl published "Fables for the Frivolous," which included a clever, amusing retelling, "The persevering tortoise and the pretentious hare." Perhaps six-score years later, Billy Collins gave us his version, "My hero." (Not "My hare-o," though Collins does like to gently fun with us.) Collins too offers the tortoise as the winner--but on the poet's terms.
Jean de La Fontaine gave us a story of tortoise versus hare, in Le Lièvre et la Tortue. Three hundred and three years after the fabulist's death, Guy Wetmore Carryl published "Fables for the Frivolous," which included a clever, amusing retelling, "The persevering tortoise and the pretentious hare." Perhaps six-score years later, Billy Collins gave us his version, "My hero." (Not "My hare-o," though Collins does like to gently fun with us.) Collins too offers the tortoise as the winner--but on the poet's terms.