What makes Socrates and Aesop related? Some researchers doubt that such people were in the world. Unfortunately, neither Socrates nor Aesop's works were copyrighted. Their writings reached us in the retelling of other people. Nevertheless, both of them had a significant impact on our culture. However, let us leave aside the first anthropologist who was poisoned by the poison of Tsikuta and talk about the fabulist and his heirs: I. A. Krylov and Z. Freud.
Aesop
The ancient Greek poet composed fables in prose. The work considered in this article is no exception. The form of Aesop's fable “Fox and Grapes” is prosaic.
Recall the plot. The fox was hungry and suddenly saw a ripe bunch of grapes, and when she couldn’t grab it, she told herself that there was nothing to regret, because “the grape is green” (I. A. Krylov). Aesop's fable itself takes up a little more space than our retelling, and it is written, of course, in a more remarkable language.
Each fable of the ancient Greek contains a certain very accurate observation about people and human nature as a whole, packed into a capacious wording. What did Aesop want to tell us (“Grapes and the Fox”)? The moral of the work is this: if people do not succeed in life in some business, then they sin on circumstances, but leave their persona without due attention.
What is “Aesopian language”?
The ancient Greek was so remembered by all mankind that he still lives in his collective memory. And the full responsibility for this lies not so much with the form of Aesop's fable "The Fox and the Grapes", as its content. Although, probably, both the form and the content of the composition should equally divide the laurels for the immortal glory of the fabulist.
However, let's talk about the specifics of the "Aesopian language." In the usual sense, this stable expression means allegory. However, not every such wording can be considered worthy of the name of an ancient fabulist. Only one is valued that can show off with enormous semantic content on a small size of a printed or oral message.
I. A. Krylov
Among the numerous admirers of Aesop was the remarkable domestic author I. A. Krylov. He met the ancient Greek while reading the Frenchman - Lafontaine. I. A. Krylov liked the plot so much that he decided to compose his version of what he read. It seems that Ivan Andreevich, as well as modern man, was delighted with the form of Aesop's fable "Foxes and Grapes", but nevertheless he decided to set out the same story in verse. Moreover, it was not just a banal retelling. In the version of Krylov, the fox has a character, a picture emerges, the scene comes to life in the imagination, acquiring volume.
Z. Freud
For the father of psychoanalysis, not the form of Aesop's fox “The Fox and the Grapes” was important, but its meaning: a person is inclined to relieve himself of responsibility and blame circumstances for everything. In general, Z. Freud owes much to his ability to sensitively read the meanings of the ancient heritage, projecting them onto modern reality. That is why, probably, there are so many Greek roots in his psychological theory (Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, for example).
What does Aesop teach us in his works? “Fox and Grapes” is a fable that can be used as an illustration of one of the psychological defense mechanisms that Freud discovered, namely rationalization: we justify ourselves in such a way that our self-esteem does not suffer. Of course, we do this completely unconsciously.
A person cannot afford to buy some thing, for example, an expensive coat, and begins to convince himself that such clothes have many shortcomings or that they have cheaper analogues, and in general, “it didn’t hurt.” It’s familiar, yes? That is what Aesop wanted to show us. “The Fox and the Grapes” is a fable that has become popular and immortal.