The Fables showes the versatility of the author's talent more fully than any other of his other work. La Fontaine had many predecessors in the fable (especially in the beast fable). Poet took inspiration from ancient Masters (Aesop, Horace, Boccaccio and Ariosto and Tasso, Machiavelli's comedies and ancient Indian literature epos).
The fables plots are as much to be considered as the ingenuity of the moralizing, exhibiting the intimate knowledge of human nature displayed in the substance of the narratives as also an artistic mastery shown in their form.