AESOPIC LANGUAGE AS A STYLE OF MORALIZING IN LUTHERAN FABLES
The article considers a set of methods of allegory in the literary works of Martin Luther as a fabulist. The creator of modern German language used genres of satirical depiction of reality, pro-ceeding from the situational and contextual description of plots in the creations of the ancient fabulist Aesop (the 6th century BC) and from the events of his enlightening activity of the 16th century. Both in works of the legendary witty slave and the leader of the Reformation, the heroes of the fables are beasts speaking human language. Translation of the fables of the storyteller Aesop into German was presented in the collection Die Fabeln Martin Luthers, which is the transformation (verdeutscht) of the slave’s stories into the language of Luther.