The use of animals in fiction is a long tradition, stretching back to when some of the earliest stories were written. The use of animals is also popular in both fiction aimed at children and adults. Much of what has been written, from Aesop’s Fables to Ted Hughes’s Crow, told by writers about animals are more often stories about us. This includes how we behave to each other and how we interact with, and make sense of, the natural world.
This happens with whatever form an animal is presented: the sacred, the profane, the domesticated or the ferocious; whether the animal is presented as truly animalistic or whether the writer attempts to anthropomorphize.
All of this is captured in the selected literary works on display at London’s finest literary institution — the British Library — forming an exhibition called Animal Tales.
The basis of the exhibition is an intriguing collected of books are set amongst silhouetted animals and a woodland scene.
The display and selection of works was carefully put together by Matthew Shaw, lead curator of the Library’s Americas and Australasia collections. One of the oldest works on display is a 1578 edition of Aesop’s Fables or the Aesopica.
Each one of Aesop’s fables has a lesson, or moral. Some remain well known today, such as “Appearances often are deceiving,” from the tale The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing; or, “Slow and steady wins the race,” found in The Hare and the Tortoise.
Contrasting Aesop, who was an ‘Ancient Greek’; a more modern representation of animals is a book about, and complete with a cut-out of, Dolly. Dolly was a female domestic sheep, and the first animal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell.
The exhibition also includes poems, such as Ted Hughes’ well-know one Crow (from the Life and Songs of the Crow.)
Poetry is also represented by T. S. Eliot’s Cats (Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, 1939.)
The sensations, as one walks around the exhibition, are enhanced through a soundscape drawn from the Library’s collection of sound recordings.The emotional response is also shaped by some interesting poems by the U.S. poet and memoirist Mark Doty, and interesting illustrations by the U.S. artist Darren Waterston.
Waterson is foremost known for his ethereal paintings; those on display included:
The images by Waterson are drawn from a series of works called A Compendium Of Creatures. Other images also help set the mood and tome:
Returning to the books, given that it is the centenary of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, it was pleasing to see the book on display, as well as other texts describing the literary transformations between human and beast.
There are other ‘classics’ on display, like Kes. The book (originally titled A Kestrel for a Knave) was adapted as a successful film by Ken Loach.
Watership Down, which was also successfully made into an animated adventure.
Keeping with the theme of animal’s with ‘human’ characteristics is The Jungle Book. Shown here in an illustrated pop-up edition. The Jungle Book was published, collating various magazine short stories, in 1894 by English author Rudyard Kipling.
George Orwell”s Animal Farm, here as an illustrated edition. In the novel the animals represent historical figures, in telling the betrayal of the ideals of the Russian Revolution by Stalin.
From the Edwardian era, The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. A children’s tale about the mischievous and disobedient young Peter Rabbit.
An interesting type of book, popular in Victorian times, is the the bestiary. This type of book, containing pictures and paintings, introduced readers to the exotic beasts, a ‘venery’ of what they would probably never see in their lifetimes.
Animal Tales is on show at The British Library in London until 1 November. Entrance is free.
