Retelling the stories: the impact of Aesop's fables on the development of Xhosa children's literature

Abstract

The aim of this article is to trace how Aesop's fables impacted on the development of Xhosa children's literature from the 1920s. The questions which come to mind about Aesop's fables are: How were Aesop's fables incorporated into Xhosa children's literature? Why did the the poets write some of the fables in poetic form? What does poetic form contribute which prose narrative does not? In an attempt to answer the above questions, a brief account of Aesop's life is outlined. The appearance of his fables in Xhosa literature is traced from the emergence of the Stewart Xhosa Readers in the 1920s, their translation from English into Xhosa in the 1950s up to a period when these fables appeared as narrative poems. Three poems selected randomly from the anthologies of Sinxo in Thoba Sikutyele 1959. Manyase in Umlu kaPhalo 1960 and Jolobe in Indyebo Yesihobe 1970 are analysed.