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beast tale
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beast tale

literature
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History

beast tale, a prose or verse narrative similar to the beast fable in that it portrays animal characters acting as humans but unlike the fable in that it usually lacks a moral. Joel Chandler Harrisā€™s Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1880) derived many episodes from beast tales carried to the United States by African slaves. Animal Farm (1945), an anti-utopian satire by George Orwell, is a modern adaptation of the beast tale.