Portal:Literature/Biography archive/2007, Week 28

Jean de La Fontaine (July 8, 1621 – April 13, 1695) was the most famous French fabulist and probably the most widely read French poet of the 17th century. According to Flaubert, he was the only French poet to understand and master the texture of the French language before Hugo. A set of postage stamps celebrating La Fontaine and the Fables was issued by France in 1995. A film of his life has been released in France in April 2007 (Jean de La Fontaine - le défi starring Laurent Deutsch).