thesis for the fox poem

The Thought Fox Summary & Analysis by Ted Hughes

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

"The Thought Fox" was first published in the British poet Ted Hughes's debut collection, The Hawk in the Rain , in 1957. One of Hughes's most popular poems, "The Thought Fox" is about creativity, inspiration, and the process of writing poetry. The speaker, generally taken to be Hughes himself (or a version of him), sits alone during the dark quiet of a winter night, fingers poised over a blank page. A fox appears outside the window and makes a tentative but purposeful journey across the snow, before leaping and into the speaker's mind—at which point the "page is printed," and the poem is complete. This "thought fox" can be thought of as a metaphor for inspiration and creative thought, which seem to come from a mysterious place separate from the speaker's conscious mind. The poem treats the fox in mostly literal terms, however, and in doing so proves the power of poetry to bring new worlds—and creatures—to vivid life on the page.

• Read the full text of “The Thought Fox”

The Full Text of “The Thought Fox”

“the thought fox” summary, “the thought fox” themes.

Creativity, Inspiration, and Imagination

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “the thought fox”.

I imagine this ... ... my fingers move.

Through the window ... ... entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as ... ... touches twig, leaf;

Lines 11-14

Two eyes serve ... ... Between trees,

Lines 14-17

and warily a ... ... Across clearings,

Lines 17-20

an eye, ... ... its own business

Lines 21-24

Till, with sudden ... ... page is printed.

“The Thought Fox” Symbols

The Starless Night

• Line 5: “Through the window I see no star”
• Line 23: “The window is starless still”

“The Thought Fox” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Alliteration.

• Line 1: “midnight moment's”
• Line 4: “my,” “move”
• Line 5: “see,” “star”
• Line 7: “deeper,” “darkness”
• Line 9: “delicately,” “dark”
• Line 10: “touches twig”
• Line 14: “lame”
• Line 15: “lags”
• Line 16: “body,” “bold”
• Line 19: “concentratedly,”
• Line 20: “Coming”
• Line 21: “sudden,” “stink”
• Line 22: “hole,” “head”
• Line 23: “starless still”
• Line 24: “page,” “printed”
• Line 1: “imagine this midnight”
• Line 4: “blank page”
• Line 8: “Is entering,” “loneliness”
• Line 9: “Cold,” “snow”
• Line 10: “fox's,” “nose”
• Line 13: “prints into”
• Line 14: “Between trees”
• Line 15: “Shadow lags,” “hollow”
• Line 16: “Of,” “body,” “bold”
• Line 18: “widening deepening greenness”
• Line 21: “hot,” “of ,” “fox”
• Line 23: “ticks”
• Line 24: “is printed”
• Line 10: “twig, leaf”
• Lines 17-20: “clearings, an eye, / A widening deepening greenness, / Brilliantly, concentratedly, / Coming”
• Lines 23-24: “The window is starless still; the clock ticks, / The page is printed.”
• Line 9: “Cold, delicately”
• Line 11: “movement, that”
• Line 12: “now, and now, and”
• Line 14: “trees, and”
• Line 17: “clearings, an”
• Line 19: “Brilliantly, concentratedly”
• Line 21: “Till, with”
• Line 23: “still; the”
• Line 1: “midnight moment's forest”
• Line 3: “Besides,” “clock's loneliness”
• Line 6: “Something”
• Line 8: “entering,” “loneliness”
• Line 9: “Cold, delicately,” “dark,” “snow”
• Line 10: “fox's,” “nose touches,” “twig”
• Line 11: “serve,” “movement”
• Line 13: “Sets neat prints,” “ into,” “snow”
• Line 14: “Between trees,” “warily,” “lame”
• Line 15: “lags,” “hollow”
• Line 16: “body,” “bold,” “come”
• Line 17: “Across clearings”
• Line 21: “Till,” “sudden,” “hot stink,” “fox”
• Line 22: “It enters,” “dark,” “hole,” “head”
• Line 23: “starless still,” “clock ticks”

End-Stopped Line

• Line 1: “forest:”
• Line 4: “move.”
• Line 5: “star:”
• Line 8: “loneliness:”
• Line 9: “snow,”
• Line 10: “leaf;”
• Line 17: “eye,”
• Line 22: “head.”
• Line 24: “printed.”
• Lines 2-3: “alive / Besides”
• Lines 3-4: “loneliness / And”
• Lines 6-7: “near / Though”
• Lines 7-8: “darkness / Is”
• Lines 9-10: “snow, / A”
• Lines 11-12: “now / And”
• Lines 12-13: “now / Sets”
• Lines 13-14: “snow / Between”
• Lines 14-15: “lame / Shadow”
• Lines 15-16: “hollow / Of”
• Lines 16-17: “come / Across”
• Lines 17-18: “eye, / A”
• Lines 18-19: “greenness, / Brilliantly”
• Lines 19-20: “concentratedly, / Coming”
• Lines 20-21: “business / Till”
• Lines 21-22: “fox / It”

Extended Metaphor

Personification.

• Line 3: “the clock's loneliness”
• Line 2: “Something”
• Line 3: “the clock's”
• Line 4: “this blank page”
• Line 5: “Through the window I see no star:”
• Line 11: “now”
• Line 12: “And,” “now, and now, and now”
• Line 23: “The window is starless still; ”
• Lines 23-24: “the clock ticks, / The page is printed.”

“The Thought Fox” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Concentratedly
• (Location in poem: Lines 14-15: “and warily a lame / Shadow”)

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Thought Fox”

Rhyme scheme, “the thought fox” speaker, “the thought fox” setting, literary and historical context of “the thought fox”, more “the thought fox” resources, external resources.

"Ted Hughes: Stronger Than Death" — Watch a BBC documentary about Hughes.

The Poem Out Loud — Listen to Hughes read the poem himself and talk about the inspiration behind it.

Hughes's Biography — Learn more about Hughes's life and work from the Poetry Foundation. 

Ted Hughes and the Art of Poetry — Read a 1995 Paris Review interview with the 

LitCharts on Other Poems by Ted Hughes

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A Picture of Otto

Bayonet Charge

Cat and Mouse

Football at Slack

Fulbright Scholars

Full Moon and Little Frieda

Hawk Roosting

Telegraph Wires

The Harvest Moon

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

The Thought-Fox

By Ted Hughes

’The Thought-Fox’ by Ted Hughes is a creative poem that uses the symbol of a fox, and its quick, fleeting movements, to represent a writer’s muse.

Nationality: English

He was Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.

Poem Analyzed by Elise Dalli

B.A. Honors Degree in English and Communications

After the war, Britain was an economic and cultural mess. The Second World War had pushed it into crushing debt and that, combined with the moral-lowering problem of losing their colonies, led to fewer jobs, and thus to poets whose body of work dealt primarily with the issues of loss of faith and hopelessness. Ted Hughes, who wrote  ‘The Thought-Fox’ , was one of those poets. Born in Yorkshire, Ted Hughes was the son of an avid countryman who fought in the war as part of the Lancashire Fusiliers. He had a great interest in animals, which feature heavily in a lot of his poems, and went so far as to work at a zoo after University. You can read more Ted Hugh’s poetry here .

Ted Hughes was married to Sylvia Plath until his affair in 1962. Only a year later, Sylvia Plath would take her own life, leaving behind feminist fans to hound Hughes after her death, and chisel his name off her headstone.

Explore The Thought-Fox

• 2 Analysis of The Thought-Fox
• 3 Historical Background

Paradoxically, a lot of Ted Hughes’ poetry reaches back to muse and author models, favoring an old-fashioned format that was ridiculed by other poets.  While Movement poetry was a closed system, a down-to-earth, humanistic approach to poetry, Hughes wrote with mystical language and the idea of something more. As Hughes himself said, “One of the things those poets had in common I think was the post-war mood of having ha enough … enough rhetoric , enough overweening push of any kind, enough of the dark gods, enough of the id, enough of the Angelic powers and the heroic efforts to make new worlds. They’d seen it all turn into death-camps and atomic bombs. All they wanted was to get back in civvies and get home to the wife and kids and for the rest of their lives, not a thing was going to interfere with a nice cigarette and a nice view of the park …. Now I came a bit later. I hadn’t had enough. I was all for opening negotiations with whatever happened to be out there.”

‘The Thought-Fox’  takes this approach to poetry. It is a poem about the writing of a poem, utilizing the symbol of the fox to stand for the idea of the muse: fleeting and quick, it haunts the poet-writer, disturbing his quiet night.

Analysis of  The Thought-Fox

‘The Thought-Fox’  starts on a silent, clear night. The poet, sitting alone at his desk, attempts to write, but has no luck with it. He senses a second presence – ‘something more near / though deeper within darkness / is entering the loneliness’. Here, the night itself is symbolic of the depths of imagination, standing for the idea of dormant genius, and the muse, which typically visits at unorthodox hours. The poet is alone at night, laboring over his poem, when he feels the stirrings of an idea.

The idea itself is symbolized by the fox’s presence, and at first, it is not clear what the idea is, to the poet. As Hughes writes, ‘a fox’s nose touches twig, leaf;’ showing, through the fragmented image of the fox’s nose, that it is only a very basic view of an idea, not one stamped out clearly. The fox is shrouded in darkness; only the pinnacle of it can be seen by the watchful poet, and likewise, the muse visits but only leaves him with a fragment of an image to build into a poem. The fox remains half-hidden and elusive throughout the entire poem; the idea, likewise, remains half-hidden to the poet, allowing him only wisps of imagery to contend with. There is a certain softness about the way that Hughes writes his imagery: his penchant for mythical language comes through in spades as he talks about the ‘dark snow’, the ‘eye / a widening deepening greenness’. Hughes has an almost cinematic quality of imagery – one can very easily imagine the quiet night, the poet at his desk, the fox touching a leaf in a separate shot – and he uses this to further evoke the idea of the playful muse, sneaking in, and sneaking out of the poet’s grasp.

Gradually, the fox emerges out of formlessness; a ‘sudden sharp hot stink of fox’, thus showing that the poet has reached the peak of his musing, and has managed to write the poem that has tantalized him throughout the night. The fox is suddenly visible, the idea is suddenly within the poet’s mind, and has been immortalized on the page. The poem and the fox exist as one entity.

Another thing to note is the very pattern of the poem itself. Ted Hughes writes with a pace that heightens the anticipation. At the start, only the fox’s nose is visible. Then two eyes. The choppy punctuation shows the hesitancy of the fox/idea, the delicate way that Ted Hughes writes about the fox leaving prints in the snow is further emphasized by the sharp, short phrase ‘sets neat prints in the snow’. ‘The Thought-Fox’  moves almost like clockwork, starting out at an hour crawl, and quickening, the image of the fox becoming more concrete, until the final staggering end where the fox comes out in a rush – again, symbolized in the way that Hughes writes about it – only to dim back down into quiet – ‘the window is starless still; the clock ticks; / The page is printed’.

Hughes wrote, in this poem, ‘And I suppose that long after I am gone, as long as a copy of the poem exists, every time anyone reads it the fox will get up somewhere out of the darkness and come walking towards them’.

Historical Background

Ted Hughes is known as the poet of the ‘will to live’, and his primary interest tends to be the idea of animals as lords of life and death, on par with gods. He writes, ‘My interest in animals began when I began. My memory goes back pretty clearly to my third year, and by then I had so many of the toy lead animals you could buy in shops that they went right round our flat topped fore place fender nose to tail’.

He was born in Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire, on the 17 th of August 1930, and became the Poet Laureate of England from 1984 until his death in 1998.

Home » Ted Hughes » The Thought-Fox

About Elise Dalli

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Well done analysis, Elise, thanks.

For me, the culmination and most powerful part of the poem is in the last stanza, it’s first two lines: “Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox It enters the dark hole of the head.”

I could feel and hear the “pop” as it entered Ted’s head and mine—you too?

That is poetry poking its head into the skull’s lair.

Keep amusing the Muse, Jack

Yeah, I agree. Old school, super feminist me hated Ted Hughes because I was far too besotted with Sylvia. Now as a grown up…Hughes was a damn genius.

I don’t know if I just can’t find it, but please consider adding the poem to your article 🙂

Which poem?

Unfortunately it is my mum.

Beautiful explanation! Thanks a ton it’s very useful

No worries. Glad you found it useful.

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Dalli, Elise. "The Thought-Fox by Ted Hughes". Poem Analysis , https://poemanalysis.com/ted-hughes/the-thought-fox/ . Accessed 21 June 2024.

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This flaming fox appeared to Hughes in a memorable dream in which it entered Hughes’s room on two feet and walked across his still unfinished essay, leaving a burning paw-print on the paper before turning to Hughes and saying, “You are killing us."

The Thought-Fox

I imagine this midnight moment's forest: Something else is alive Beside the clock's loneliness And this blank page where my fingers move. Through the window I see no star: Something more near Though deeper within darkness Is entering the loneliness: Cold, delicately as the dark snow A fox's nose touches twig, leaf; Two eyes serve a movement, that now And again now, and now, and now Sets neat prints into the snow Between trees, and warily a lame Shadow lags by stump and in hollow Of a body that is bold to come Across clearings, an eye, A widening deepening greenness, Brilliantly, concentratedly, Coming about its own business Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox It enters the dark hole of the head. The window is starless still; the clock ticks, The page is printed.

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The Thought Fox | Poem Analysis | The Thought Fox Line by Line Analysis

The Thought Fox Analysis

“ The Thought Fox ” is a famous poem taken from his volume, The Hawk in the Rain . Hughes uses poetic masks like that of the fox and particularly of the wolf. The fox here, is a symbol of the contradictory nature of things. The scope of this symbol gradually extends from personal to universal significance.

Like several other poems, it deals with the conflict between two selves. The poem commences with an exposition of the protagonist’s imagined picture. The poet imagines what the conditions will be in the forest, in a moment at midnight. He is in his room expecting inspiration, with the clock ticking away. He feels that there is something else besides this loneliness of midnight and the quiet movement of his fingers on the blank sheet of paper.

As he looks out of his window there is not even a star to illuminate the environment. He senses the entry of something into his loneliness. In the cold night, a fox’s nose, delicate as the snow, seems to touch a tender twig, a leaf.

Strangely enough, even the white snow is not visible in the dark night. The poet notices the two eyes of the fox. Wherever the gaze of the fox moves, the poet recognizes prints in the snow. The poet becomes aware of the movement of two eyes that seem to make clear prints on the snow repeatedly between the trees. He recognizes a shadow lagging behind.

As the poem develops this figment of the imagination develops from airy nothing to receive a habitation and a name. The imagined self becomes a reality for the speaker and works out into the uttered word, the poem. The second self appears after quite some time, startling the reader out of his complacency. The imaginary ‘I’ meets another ‘I’ peeping into his privacy,

“Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox It enters the dark hole of the head.”

One wonders whether it is really another self or the poet’s presentation of the first ‘l’ as a third person. The obsessive notion of the staring eye comes up:

“an eye, A widening deepening greenness… Coming about its own business …”

The poem ends with a return to worldly reality but, as Thomas West observes, we “…discover now a printed page which reveals” an external world of time and long dead imaginings (in print), which feels very distant from the imaginative act, this dark and secret reality of the mind’s possession by something akin, in its apartness and its and its energy, to the jaguar.

The Thought Fox Line by Line Analysis

• I imagine…alive- The poet is busy composing the poem at midnight. He imagines that moment in a forest. Midnight moment’s forest-the appearance of the forest at that moment.
• Something else is alive— he feels that some other creature is also awake at that moment.
• Clock’s loneliness– the only sound heard is the ticking of the clock. The poet personifies the clock and says that it was all alone.
• Blank page where my fingers move- his fingers move on the blank sheet of paper as he writes his poem.
• Window…no star- He looks out of the window. It is pitch dark and there is not even a single star to illuminate the world.

6-8. Something more near…loneliness- He is unable to see any star but he senses the presence of something else. He feels that it is not just a fleeting airy local presence but one which has a form going far deeper into the darkness.

9-10. Cold, delicate…leaf – Suddenly he feels a fall in the temperature. The cold touch is very delicate, like a fox smelling a twig, a leaf.

11-13. Two eyes serve…snow – The poet recognizes the two staring eyes, the source of his inspiration. Hughes often speaks of staring eyes. Here he refers to the eyes of a fox but in several later poems, inspiration reaches him through the two staring eyes of a wolf. He is able to see very clearly the repeated movement of the eyes of the fox. They set neat prints everywhere on the ‘snow.

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The Thought-Fox

By ted hughes, the thought-fox essay questions.

How is the image of a fox creeping through the forest like an idea forming in a poet's head?

First, the speaker's intuition that "Something else is alive" and "near" in stanzas 1 and 2 suggests the vague outline of the idea developing in his mind, while also foreshadowing that some creature will soon emerge from the "darkness" outside of his window. The fox is described through the animal's actions and features—its nose sniffing a twig, its paw prints neatly measured in the snow, its shadow lagging by stump—which allows us to form a complete picture of the fox by filling in the gaps in the information the speaker presents to us. This strategy corresponds to the manner in which an idea for a poem takes shape as a writer ruminates on an image or figure. The fox, like an idea, emerges slowly, then suddenly: finally, when the light bulb goes off, all the writer needs to do is put pen to page.

How does the poet establish tone and mood in the first two stanzas of "The Thought-Fox"?

First, the speaker builds the poem's setting: we know that the poem takes place at midnight, that the speaker is alone, and that the speaker is trying to write a poem. The starless sky adds to the poem's dark, lonely atmosphere. Then, the vague language of stanzas 1 and 2 creates a sense of unease: the speaker senses that "Something else is alive" and "near," even if he can't say what exactly this "something" is. The repetition of long vowels and "s" sounds, combined with the use of stressed syllables, creates a slow, steady pace. The speaker's emotions are also ambiguous: judging from the poem's diction, pace, and setting, is the speaker eager, anxious, afraid, or some combination of the above? Combined, these elements create a lonely, pensive tone, and an edgy, sinister mood: the speaker, deep in thought, hints at the way he feels about his situation, but ultimately his ambiguity puts the reader on edge, unsure of what will emerge from the darkness.

The Thought-Fox Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Thought-Fox is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Describe the features of the fox as mentioned by the speaker.

Check out GradeSaver's summary and analysis for Lines 9-16 in the study guide for the unit, which is readily available for your use. This section gives a detailed looked at the fox's features.

How does the fox imply the creative response of the speaker?

After reading and analyzing "The Thought-Fox," it's easy to see why the image of a fox emerging from the edge of a dark forest is similar to an idea developing and surfacing from the depths of a writer's mind. The fox's manner—sneaky, clever, bold...

How does the fox walk in the midnight of the poem

The fox walks with intent and care. It walks neatly.

Sets neat prints into the snow

Study Guide for The Thought-Fox

The Thought-Fox study guide contains a biography of Ted Hughes, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Thought-Fox
• The Thought-Fox Summary
• Character List

Home / Poetry / Ted Hughes / Critical Analysis of “The Thought Fox” | Poem by Ted Hughes

Critical Analysis of “The Thought Fox” | Poem by Ted Hughes

Ted Hughes is famous for using animal imagery for the purpose of symbolism in his poetry. Animals serve many functions in his poems. It depends on the species of the animals and what function is to serve. An in-depth critical analysis of “The Thought Fox” shows that it is also one of those poems of Ted Hughes in which he assigns a special meaning to “Fox”. The poem is highly symbolic and reveals the procedure of writing poetry. Ted Hughes is a poet by profession, therefore, critics define this poem as poetic inspiration instead of artistic inspiration.

In general terms, a deeper critical analysis of “The Thought Fox” reflects that it is not specifically about poetry. It is divine guidance for every artist; a process, through which an idea comes into the mind of an artist and its expression in the relevant form. The end of the poem “the page is printed” means the poem is written. It is specifically dedicated to poets. However, there is no doubt that divine guidance for every artist is the same. Ted Hughes imaginatively expresses a method through which an artist shows his talent to the world. Thus, the poem is not only about a poet and is not just related to poetry rather it is relevant to every artist, whether he is a musician, painter or poet.

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Critical Analysis of “The Thought Fox”:

Starting lines of the poem demonstrate an image of a person and his surroundings. The poet says that in a lonely room a person, who in this case is the poet himself, is seated. It is dark night. Everything is still and quiet except the sound (tick-tick) of the clock. The person is sitting alone and a blank page is in front of him. Perhaps, it is the darkest night as the stars are not there in the sky. Suddenly, the persona (poet) feels something in the darkness. He sees two moving eyes. Possibly it is a fox, who is wandering. The fox smells a twig but leaves it. After some time, it departs and leaves its footprints on the snow. After a while, an idea in the shape of a poem comes into the mind of the person who fills the page with that idea.

Then there comes the fox. It is the most important symbol in the whole poem. Something moving in the darkness is actually an idea that suddenly comes into the poet’s mind. Ted Hughes is a lover of animals and in this poem, he symbolizes the fox as an idea that touches the consciousness of the poet.

Symbolically, the fox is signified by a thought. Ted Hughes explains how an idea invades the mind of an artist. He links divine revelation with a fox. It is unclear to us why he shows the procedure of writing poetry only through fox and does not use any other object to express the method of writing poetry. This is how beautifully the poet represents the procedure of writing poetry.

Fox is a thought, that suddenly comes into the mind of a poet and leaves its footprints in form of words. Ultimately “The page is printed” suggests that the poet has successfully written a poem. The poem reveals the artistic talent and powerful imagination of the poet. Keith in a critical analysis of “The Thought Fox” writes:-

“The poem has already sets neat prints upon the page in the line before we are told that the fox sets them into the snow. The noun ‘shadow’ has to drag itself across the gap between the lines which separates it from its adjective. And the alliteration of ‘lame’ and ‘lag’ upon a long palatal consonant mimes the meaning to a degree which becomes obvious if we try to find a substitute for either word.” Keith on critical analysis of “The Thought Fox”

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'The Thought-Fox' by Ted Hughes - Complete Study Guide

Subject: English

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Lesson (complete)

Last updated

17 November 2023

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A Summary and Analysis of Aesop’s ‘The Fox and the Grapes’ Fable

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Aesop’s fable of the fox and the grapes is among the most famous of all of Aesop’s fables. What does this little tale mean? And what common everyday phrase did it inspire?

In summary, the fable of the fox and the grapes runs as follows: one hot summer’s day a fox was strolling through an orchard when he came to a bunch of grapes that were ripening on a vine, hanging over a lofty branch. ‘Those grapes are just the things to quench my thirst,’ said the fox. Drawing back a few paces, the fox took a run and a jump, but just missed the bunch of grapes.

Turning round again he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again the fox tried to jump up and reach the juicy grapes, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: ‘Oh well, I am sure they are sour anyway.’

What is the moral of the fable of the fox and the grapes? It is easier to despise what you cannot get . This fable gave rise to the common expression ‘sour grapes’, which, although often used to denote any sour or bitter mood, can also more specifically denote the idea of having liked something, which one has gone off (turned sour, if you will) because one is unable to obtain it.

Like the chancer in a bar approaching a girl he likes, only to be rebuffed and so to retort that she’s ugly anyway (charmers, always), the fox in the fable really wanted the grapes, but his own failure to reach them leads to him walking off in a huff, consoling himself with a narrative he knows to be false – that the grapes are sour after all.

This little story strikes deep at the heart of something we know to be true: that we all tell ourselves stories about the world, either to make ourselves feel better about something (as is the case here with the fox and the grapes) or to beat ourselves up about something.

This little story, in other words, contains a keen truth about the way we as humans tell stories ourselves, spinning narratives, even fictional ones, to cope with failure and our inability to fulfil our goals. In the last analysis, though, this little fable of the fox and the grapes hides a nasty and uncomfortable truth: that we can very quickly turn from desire to hatred purely because we don’t get what we want. Small wonder, perhaps, that ‘sour grapes’ became such a famous phrase.

Aesop wasn’t the first person to write animal fables. Several centuries earlier, Hesiod had written one about a hawk and a nightingale, while a poet named Archilochus penned several, including one about an eagle and a vixen, and one about a fox and a monkey. But Aesop would turn the fable into a popular form. William Caxton printed the first English translation of the Fables in 1484, enabling such phrases as ‘sour grapes’ and ‘to cry wolf’ to enter the language.

As with Homer, we can’t be sure an ‘Aesop’ ever actually existed. If he did, it was probably in around the sixth century BCE, several centuries after Homer, if Homer himself ever existed. Aesop’s Fables may have been the work of many hands, part of an oral tradition that gradually accumulated.

Nevertheless, legends grew up around the storyteller. One commentator claimed that Aesop fought at the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE, but since by then he had been dead for nearly a century one can’t imagine he was much help.

Indeed, if a man named Aesop did exist in the first place, he is thought to have been a disabled black slave. The idea that he was of African descent – possibly from Ethiopia – dates back some time. The presence of such animals as camels and elephants in Aesop’s fables, not to mention the fable of ‘Washing the Ethiopian White’, support this theory that he was of African origin.

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6 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Aesop’s ‘The Fox and the Grapes’ Fable”

Very informative. Finally “sourgraping” made sense now 😂😂😂

I absolutely love fables, this is a brilliant post.

Thanks, Lucy! More fabulous fables posts to come :)

Oooh super! :D

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Thanks for re-introducing us to and reminding us of the wisdom of the ancients.

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California Democrats Need Real Opposition

A book by a leading republican demonstrates the state’s lack of a counter-narrative.

California Democrats need real competition—not Republicans like John Cox—to pressure them to deliver on their progressive promises, writes columnist Joe Mathews. John Cox in 2021. Courtesy of AP Newsroom .

by Joe Mathews | June 18, 2024

In our era of one-party rule by complacent Democrats, California might benefit from a coherent and compelling political opposition.

Instead, we keep getting John Cox.

You probably don’t recognize Cox’s name. This goes to the heart of the problem.

Cox, a businessman and former congressional and Republican presidential candidate from Illinois who moved to the San Diego area more than a decade ago, has been the most prominent opponent of ruling Democrats during their 14 years and counting of total political control in the Capitol.

Cox spent millions of dollars running twice against Gov. Gavin Newsom—losing to the governor in 2018’s regularly scheduled election and again in the 2021 recall. Over the past dozen years, Cox has also proposed provocative and attention-grabbing ballot measures, including initiatives to increase the size of the legislature , limit gas taxes, and force elected officials to wear the names of their top donors on their clothing.

None of Cox’s initiatives passed. And he made no lasting impact on political debate, much less the actual governance of this state.

He recently wrote a book that, mostly unintentionally, demonstrates why.

The Newsom Nightmare: The California Catastrophe and How to Reform Our Broken System, published late last year, pulls back the curtain to offer some insider takes on California politics. Cox details, for example, how talk show host Larry Elder’s entry into the 2021 recall race, with the support of the politically toxic Donald Trump, hurt any chance of a Newsom recall passing by allowing the governor “to make Elder, along with the former president, the face of the recall and shift the debate from Newsom’s failures.”

Cox recounts scandals over regulating the utility PG&E, which the state bailed out even after it killed people in fires and a gas explosion. And he offers vignettes of California small businesspeople and mid-level officials frustrated by the overregulation and official secrecy of a state that is great at many things—but not governance.

But like so much of the political conversation in our state, Cox’s book doesn’t add up to very much. Cox offers no future-focused opposition narrative that would pressure Democrats to improve their performance or create public demand to cast them out of office.

Maddeningly, Cox clearly understands the perils of an absent opposition. “Having a single-party supermajority govern every branch of government throws the checks and balances crucial to representative democracy off kilter. It renders democracy impotent,” he writes.

And he correctly points out structural problems in the governing system that give power to rich and powerful people and interest groups. He shows how California legislative districts are so big—by far the most populous of any in the U.S.—that every lawmaker must raise millions to run for office. He details a “pay to play” campaign finance system that allows businesses, unions, and rich people with state contracts to give money to the very same lawmakers who make financial decisions. And he recounts how the outsized power of donors prevents Californians from turning their grand ambitions and good intentions for better education, health care, and housing into reality.

“The key to solving these problems,” he writes, “is to fashion solutions that reflect good practice and policy, forged by intelligent and well-thought-out tradeoffs, that have the effect of helping the vast majority of our people rather than favoring a narrow interest or group.”

But you’ll read in vain for a detailed Cox proposal full of well-thought-out tradeoffs or compromises on major issues. And that’s not the only contradiction in the book. Cox rightly bemoans the politics of personal attacks—personality and cultural wars distract us from deeper problems. Yet he still chose The Newsom Nightmare as his title.

The bigger problem is that Cox can’t elucidate what a California opposition could stand for . His book is all over the place—there’s Ronald Reagan nostalgia, blasts at local bureaucracy, contradictory calls both for tougher regulation and lighter regulation of business, and a bunch of word salad about immigration that might only make sense to frequent Fox News viewers.

There’s also a confusing ending about the national peril of what Cox calls “Californication,” which seems to be about many things but does not have anything to do with an old David Duchovny series about sex in our state .

Cox does draw some blood when he writes about the abusive tactics of trial lawyers and the distorting power of the state’s public employee unions, which saddle government budgets with unsustainable pensions. But he never offers a clear solution to the tricky question of how to take away benefits that are legally guaranteed.

He also takes a few swipes at his own party but doesn’t explain how someone might bring Republicans back to relevance in California.

Cox’s failures of coherence wouldn’t be worth mentioning, except that there is another gubernatorial election scheduled for 2026. And already, a half-dozen Democratic politicians —all with long experience in politics and little record of governing success—appear to be running for the office.

There is, as of yet, no clear opponent to these insider Democrats. And there is no one offering a clear prescription for how to change California’s structure so that people in our progressive state finally get the progressive solutions they’ve been promised—higher wages, high-quality healthcare, stronger schools, and affordable housing.

Perhaps someone will step forward to provide real opposition and offer a compelling vision for how to fix the state’s broken governing system and deliver more and better services.

Or perhaps Californians who want a change will be stuck with someone like John Cox, again.

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