Also on display is a letter in which Edgar Allen Poe sends a last minute revision of the tenth and eleventh stanzas of The Raven to John Augustus Shea of The New-York Daily Tribune, where the poem appeared the very next day. This revision is the earliest surviving portion of The Raven in the poet’s hand. Poe’s initial choice for his “bird of ill-omen” representing “Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance” was a parrot. The parrot was, after all, capable of speech, but Poe quickly decided that the raven was “infinitely more in keeping with the intended tone” of the poem.
When describing the connection between his work and nature, Jackson Pollock famously commented, “I am nature.” Pollock’s Untitled (Abstract Ram) dates about 1944, a time when the artist incorporated Jungian theories of the unconscious and imagery of the American Southwest into his work. The drawing is suggestive of a sheep-like animal with a circular horn, elongated head and muzzle, and swirls of curly wool.
MORAL TEACHERS
But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee
— Job 12:7
Foxes are considered sly, lambs gentle, and owls wise. We often make moral judgments about animal behavior, and animals have long served as stand-ins for humans in moral tales, from Aesop’s fables to Animal Farm. Although Aesop is credited with many of the fables we know today — The Tortoise and the Hare, for example — no writings securely attributable to the sixth-century B.C. Greek storyteller survive. The exhibition includes three works related to Aesop, including the earliest known manuscript of his life and fables, made in southern Italy in the tenth or eleventh century. This manuscript also contains the earliest known Greek translation of the Fables of Bidpai, animal stories of Indian origin. Similarly on view in the exhibition is a 1666 edition of the life and fables of Aesop, lavishly illustrated by one of the most accomplished animal and bird painters in seventeenth century England, Francis Barlow. The page on view depicts Aesop surrounded by adoring animals listening to one of his tales. Finally, a 1931 edition of Aesop’s Fables combines stories collected by the seventeenth-century English author Roger L’Estrange with fifty illustrations by American artist Alexander Calder.
First published in 1667, Charles Perrault’s Tales from Times Past, with Morals: Tales of Mother Goose remains our source for many traditional fairy tales. Though fairy tales had been told for centuries, Perrault was the first to have them written down and published. On display is the manuscript page and illustration that tells the tale of Puss in Boots, who uses his industriousness and wits to help his penniless owner marry a princess.
Illustrations: Fables of Æsop according to Sir Roger L’Estrange, with fifty drawings by Alexander Calder Paris: Harrison of Paris; New York: Minton, Balch and Company, 1931 Gift of Mrs. L.B. Wescott, 1976 © 2012 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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