Dogs in literatureDogs in literature:
Humans have had a longer relationship with dogs than with any other domesticated animal, but only recently has literature developed that captures the essence of the close friendship we have with this species.
EARLY LITERATUREThe first recorded dog literature was written over 2,000 years ago by Marcus Terentius Varro, an officer in the Spanish Army, and a poet and philosopher. In De Re Rustica, Varro describes different types of dog, offering advice on how to examine them for soundness, where to buy them, what to feed them, how to breed them, and how to train them. His book is less well known than that of the Roman Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia, but far more immeditate and practical. Pliny quotes the Spaniard Columella when he describes rabies: "Madness in dogs is dangerous to human beings when Sirius, the dog star, is shining, and it is then that it causes hydrophobia (rabies). So it is a wise precaution in these days to mix dung, perhaps with that of fowls, is the dog's food, or if the disease has already taken hold, hellebore". Columella states that if, 40 days after being whelped, the dog's tail is docked and the end bitten off, the tail will not grow again and the dog is not susceptible to madness. This may be the orgin of the senseless custom of amputating dogs'tails. The Roman Gratius wrote Cynegetica in the same period, likening dogs to their owners. He affirmed that dogs were similar to the people of their country of origin. Umbrian dogs from northern Italy, he said, ran away from their enemies, while Tartar dogs had ferocious tempers. Arcadian dogs were tractable, while Celtic dogs fought without training. He suggests cross breeding: "An Umbrain dam will give the slower-witted Gaul a lively intelligence; the Gelonians will inherit courage from a Hyrcanian sire; and the Calydonian from a Molossian sire will lose its greatest defect, a foolish tongue".
Literature In The Middles AgesAfter the collapse of the Roman Empire, there is scant mention of dogs in literature for hundreds of years. We know of their roles in various countries through the wording of legislation passed to prevent poaching and protect game.
The first book in the English language to discuss dogs was The Master of Game, authored by Edward, Duke of York and written in the early 1400s.
Aesop's Animal StoriesFor centuries, Aesop's Fables have been enjoyed by readers all over the world. "The Dog and the Wolf", illustrated by Charles Bennett in 1857, is one of the many animal stories included in the book.It was not until the late 1500s, when Dr. John Caius (or John Keys, founder of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and physician to successive English kings and queens) wrote De Canibus Britannicis, that an attempt was made to classify dogs. Elsewhere in Europe, dog literature remained devoted to writings about hunting. During this period, novelists made only passing references to dogs. Shakespeare anachronistically mentions spaniels (Anthony and Cleopatra), Beagles (Twelfth Night), greyhounds (The Merry Wives of Windsor), mongrels and curs(Macbeth), and hounds (A Misdummer Night's Dream). His most sensitive portrayal occurs in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, when the character Launce talks lovingly of the devotion of his dog, Crab. In Memoirs from the House of the Dead, Feodor Dostoevsky describes the anguish of prison life and talks of Sharik, a prison dog whom he befriends. Sharik responds by running to greet him when he returns from prison labour. "'So this is the friend fate sends me!' thought I and after this, every time I returned from work during that first heavy and grievous period, before I went anywhere else I hurried first of all behind the barracks, with Sharik bounding along before me with yelps of joy, put my arms round his head and kissed him again and again, and my heart arched with a feeling that was at once somehow sweet and agonisingly bitter."
20th-Century LiteratureCourage, fidelity, love, and devotion are the hallmarks of 20th-century dog literature. Jack London and Zane Grey wrote vivid accounts of the courageous endeavours of dogs. In Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie explains that the Darlings are too poor to have a nanny, so they acquire a Newfoundland, Nana, to look after the children." She had always thought children important ... and the Darlings had become acquainted with her in Kensington Gardens, where she spent most of her time peeping into perambulators." Capping his career as the most profound of social commientators, the novelist John Steinbeck, in Travels with Charley, circumnavigates the continental United States, accompanied by his canine friend and confidant. "Of course his horizons are limited," says Steinbeck, "but how wide are mine?"
Thurber describes the attitude of his poodle:"She is not a hunter or a killer, but an interested observer of the life of lower animals of which she does not consider herself one". These humorists write with a deep understanding of canine behaviour; they also reveal great afection for the dog.
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Watercolour by Emily Bronte
Eminent woman of letters Emily Bronte is one of many Victorian novelists to revere the dog, which provided the inspiration for this watercolour that she painted in 1838, entitled Keeper - from life.
Shakespeare and the dog(right)
The dog features in several of Shakespeare's plays. One of Shakespeare's most mischievous and menorable characters is Crab, the dog belonging to servant Launce in The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
