Etymology/usage/grammar of Aesopian

Writers who use ambiguous or allegorical meanings, especially to elude political censorship are Aesopian; the word derives from the style used by the Aesop in his fables.

In a review of Encyclopèc)die by Philipp Blom, Anthony Daniels elaborates upon Aesopian method (source: www.arts.telegraph.co.uk, 31/08/2004):

"The Encyclopèc)die, which began life as a mere translation from the English of Chambers' Cyclopaedia but which soon developed a momentum of its own as a compendium of all useful human knowledge, was deeply - though subtly - subversive.

The aim was to replace unexamined religious belief with empirical knowledge and reason. Because censorship was still strong, though not completely inflexible, in the France of Louis XV, the authors of subversive articles in the various volumes had to adopt an indirect Aesopian approach (a most aesthetically and intellectually satisfying technique that is closed, alas, to authors who have no censorship to evade).

My favourite practitioner of such subtle subversion is the Abbèc) Mallet, who undermined religious dogmas by discussing them in deadpan and literal-minded fashion.

He meditates, for example, at great and pedantic length on the precise geographical location of Hell - was it in Terra Australis, in the sun, or in the environs of Rome? And how many species of animal Noah would have had to take aboard the Ark, how many bales of hay and straw, and how often he would have had to clean out the animals' stalls?

No dogma can long withstand the onslaught of this kind of concrete-mindedness, posing in the garb of credulous orthodoxy."