Avianus

Avianus, short Avian, a Roman poet, Greek fables in Latin elegiac couplets was nachdichtete. He lived around 400 AD

Work

Get a complete work of 42 fables that predominantly go back material on the Greek collection of Babrius. Preceded by the work is a Widmungsepistel in prose, in the Avianus indeed mentioned Babrius under his predecessors, but indicates that he based his paraphrase an " uneducated in Latin " written submission ( " fabulas ... rudi latinitate compositas " ) wrote. He dedicates his work to a Theodosius, whom he confers superior education both in Greek and in Latin literature, and the one usually has Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius with the writer, but sometimes also identified with one of the Emperor Theodosius called. According to the letter of dedication the work is to entertain the reader, sell his sorrows, sharpening his mind and give him insight into the order of all living things, which arises as a " sententia " from the actions of appointed with human language and human characteristics of plants and animals.

Tradition

Inspired by Aesop fabulae Aviani poetae gained great popularity in the Middle Ages as a textbook for the elementary instruction in Latin and for the grammar and rhetoric studies in the liberal arts. Known are 137 manuscripts, the oldest of which represent two different contaminated in the later manuscripts text traditions. There are several edits or part of an action in the vernacular languages ​​, as an Anglo -Norman Versbearbeitung of 8 fables from the late 12th century ( Avionnet de York ), a complete French Versbearbeitung of Avianus and other Latin fables that originated in the first half of the 14th century and in its second editorial Joan of Burgundy, wife of Philip VI. was dedicated by France, ( Isopet I de Paris), also a Latin and German editing, published at Ulm Heinrich Steinhowel as part of its collection of fables Aesopus ( 1466-77 ), and which in turn was printed by Julien Macho again in a French translation ( Lyon 1480, reprinted several times ).

From the gathered in the fabulae Aviani poeta Fox Fables some in the middle of the 12th century in the Latin Ysengrimus and also in the written by unknown authors Old French Roman de Renart ( written between 1170 and 1250) were adopted, in which the mythical animals were equipped with their traditional names to this day. As models, among others, for the Dutch epic Van den vos Reynaerde, these works ensured the European tradition of the ancient sources in Reineke Fuchs.