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Letter F
| Fables. by La Fontaine. Paris, France: Livre de Poche 1996. | In French. |
| Faust. by Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Wayne, Philip, trans. Two volumes. London, Great Britain: Penguin Books. 1949. | Goethe's activities as poet, statesman, theatre director, critic, and scientist show him to be a genius of amazing versatility. This quality is reflected in his Faust, which ranks with the achievements of Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare. The mood of the play shifts constantly, displaying in turn the poet's controlled energy, his wit, his irony, his compassion, and above all his fit for lyrical expression. Faust, which Goethe began in his youth and worked on during the greater part of his lifetime, takes for its theme the universal experience of the troubled human soul, but its spiritual values far transcend mere satanism and its consequences. |
| Festival Time. by Khandpur, Swarn. Two volumes. Bombay, India: IBH Publishing Co, 1978. | There is a popular saying in India that every day is a holy day and there are 500 festivals in 365 days! These colorful and simple books describe the most important festivals and their origins for the benefit of children and adults. |
| Folktales from India. by Ramanujan, A.K., ed. New York, NY: Pantheon Books. 1991. | An indispensable guide to India's ageless folklore tradition, translated from twenty-two languages. Gods disguised as beggars and beasts; sagacious jesters and magical storytellers; wise counselors and foolish kings - all of these inhabit a fabulous world, yet one firmly grounded in every day life. |
| Folktales of India. by Beck, Brenda E.F.; Claus, Peter J.; Goswami, Praphulladatta; and Handoo, Jawaharlal, eds. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. 1987. | Nearly one hundred tales translated from fourteen different languages, this collection open the vast narrative world of Indian folklore to readers of English. The volume includes oral tales collected from tribal areas, peasant groups, urban locales and remote villages in both north and south India. The tales emphasize universal human characteristics - truthfulness, modesty, loyalty, courage, generosity and honesty. |
| Folktales of Ireland. by O'Sullivan, Sean, trans. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 1966. | The first organized effort by the Irish Folklore Commission to make available the folktales and the substantive oral tradition of this country. The religious tales (Section 3) are blended from pagan and Christian sources. The deep religious feeling of the Irish people is expressed in such stories, and the editor proclaims to have seen audiences listen to them with the silence accorded to a sermon in church. |
| For the Love of God: Selections from the Nalayira Divya Prabandham. by Azhwars, the. Sundaram, P.S., trans. New Delhi, India: Penguin Books (P) Ltd. 1996. | The Nalayira Prabandham consists of four thousand verses in praise of Lord Vishnu in what is perhaps the oldest language of India-Tamil. Composed by the Azhwars, literally the 'God-immersed', the Prabandham includes the work of Andal, the only woman among the poet-saints of South India. The present volume carries a representative selection from the four of the twelve Azhwars-periyazhwar, Tirumangai Azhwar, Tiruppaan Azhwae and Nammazhwar-apart from Andal's'Tiruppaavai' and 'Nachiyaar Tirumozhi'. Extolling the beauty, courage and wisdom of Lord Vishnu in his various incarnations as savior of the world, these poems reveal the passionate involvement of the poet-devotee with the divine object of love. It is this involvement, often sensual and erotic, as in the case if Andal's poetry, that transcends narrative time and space and renders the epic contemporary. |
| Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden, the. by Granoff, Phyllis. New Delhi, India: Penguin Books (P) Ltd. 1998. | This fine selection of stories revolves around the concept of renunciation, the essence of Jainism. True and complete knowledge, omniscience and liberation from the endless cycles of transmigratory births can be achieved by lay men and women as well as by monks and nuns. Themes central to Jainism are explored here. Among these are renunciation of the world by young men; the effects of such renunciation upon families, wives and children; the persistence of emotional bonds beyond a single birth; the paradox of friendship and social ties, at once tenacious and transient; the strength of the fidelity and piety of women and the power of love and excessive emotion to delude and entrap. |
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