“The absurdity of animals having the passions and the faculties of man” : Charlotte Smith’s Fables (1807)
In both The Natural History of Birds and Beachy Head; with Other Poems, Charlotte Smith includes bird‐poems cast as fables in which she portrays elements of her own personal and poetical history. Signalling her indebtedness to past fabulists like La Fontaine, Pilpay (Bidpai), and Aesop, she recreates their vignettes as dark tales of spousal betrayal, neglect and abuse, self‐deception, and overweening vanity. Smith’s fables thus move beyond their source material, exploring with psychological depth not only the base emotions of others but also past representations of herself.