Parable

The parable (Greek παραβολή ) is a related with the parable form of literature, a didactic and short story. It raises questions about the moral and ethical principles, which are understandable by transfer to another presentation area. The standing in the foreground scene ( image plane ) has (similar to the allegory ) a symbolic meaning for the reader. The parable brings the reader to think and to recognize a good life by the derivation of the general intentioned (property level). The reader understand the author's work vice versa. A parable usually contains two lessons: on the one in the narrow sense, on the other hand in the broader sense. The doctrine can be contained both explicitly and implicitly.

One can illustrate the characteristic of this form of literature in terms of a mnemonic also to a geometric parable: The parable of the two branches are then available for image and factual level of the narrative. At the apex is the abstract link between the told and what is meant ( tertium comparationis ), which the reader must infer -understand itself.

Etymology

The term is derived from the ancient Greek parable παραβολή ( parabolic ) " juxtaposition, comparison, simile ". The classic verb παραβάλλειν ( parabállein ) consists of the word parts παρά pará, "next " and βάλλειν ballein "throw" and means " next to each throw, besides provide, compare ".

Language

As in parables next to the property and an image plane to be displayed, they are usually characterized by a pictorial language. For this reason, stylistic devices like metaphors, comparisons, personifications, allegories and connoted terms very common building blocks of this type of text.

Demarcation from other text types

The parable is often seen as a long text of a fable, parable, etc. Example. However, it differs by encryption ( fable ), indirectness ( parable ) and specification (example) of these forms of writing. The fable is to the reader, as long as it contains no morals, cause to think about the criticism and to empathize with the situation of the characters make the text. Different is the parable that speaks of people, which you do not need further interpret the content. Furthermore, she does not try, as the fable, to offer an explanation for the reader, but to convince someone of one's own opinion. In addition, a parable is explained in the parable mostly, so one should improve its own behavior. In a fable, however, only criticism is leveled at what you would like to change, but no proposals to change the criticized are given, which one is made ​​to think in the fable.

Well-known parable poet

Selection ( with working examples)

• Aesop: Fables
• Ingeborg Bachmann: Poetry
• Giovanni Boccaccio
• Bertolt Brecht: Stories from the Lord Keuner, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
• Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky
• Friedrich Dürrenmatt: The Physicists
• Max Frisch: Andorra, Biedermann and the Arsonists
• Franz Kafka: Before the Law
• Günter Kunert
• Jean de La Fontaine
• Friedrich Adolf Krummenacher
• Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Ringparabel
• Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra
• Yevgeny Lvovitch Black: The dragon

Known parabolas

• Hercules at the Crossroads of Prodicus or Tryphon
• The parable of the stomach and the limbs of Menenius Agripapa (supposedly 494 BC)
• Parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32 EU)
• Parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16 EU)
• Parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Matthew 25:1-13 EU)
• Ringparabel in drama Nathan the Wise by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing ( didactic parable )
• An everyday confusion, the shock to the farm gate and Before the Law by Franz Kafka ( paradoxical and absurd parables )
• The Good Person of Szechwan by Bertolt Brecht, 1943
• The railway parable of Erich Kästner, 1932
• Animal Farm by George Orwell, 1945
• Andorra by Max Frisch, 1961