Who was Jean de La Fontaine ?
Jean de La Fontaine (1621 – 1695) was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century.According to Flaubert, he was the only French poet to understand and master the texture of the French language before Hugo. La Fontaine was born at Château-Thierry in Champagne (France).He was educated at the collège (grammar school) of Reims, and at the end of his school days he entered the Oratory in May 1641, and the seminary of Saint-Magloire in October of the same year; but a very short sojourn proved to him that he had mistaken his vocation. He then apparently studied law, and is said to have been admitted as lawyer. The curious personal character of La Fontaine, like that of some other men of letters, has been enshrined in a kind of legend by literary tradition. At an early age his absence of mind and indifference to business gave a subject to Gédéon Tallemant des Réaux. The Fables exhibit the versatility and fecundity of the author’s talent more
