It’s often forgotten that being memorized is the best way to be remembered. For centuries, British schoolchildren had to learn to recite the first 20 lines of Geoffrey Chaucer’s general prologue from the “Canterbury Tales.” Then that got thrown out. Now, Chaucer has, for most people, joined that long list of vague names inhabiting a vague past.
Jean de La Fontaine, the greatest fable writer since Aesop, has yet to suffer this fate. This is, I would argue, something to be celebrated. Just as nobody would say that a history student who couldn’t recall facts was good, literary appreciation requires the enlistment of memory. Fortunately for French schoolchildren, La Fontaine’s charming verse makes this task only minimally torturous.