The Horse in Poetry and Prose
Baca Juga
The quick surveys that nosotros get got taken thus far of horses inward painting, memorial sculpture, in addition to theater in addition to film illustrate the sheer ubiquity, historically in addition to geographically, of equine imagery inward the visual, plastic, in addition to performing arts.
This is non surprising: equines behavior cracking material, functional, in addition to symbolic value for humans, making them prime number subjects for artistic representation; in addition to equines convey extraordinary visual beauty, physical stature, in addition to dynamic movement, making them ideal objects for aesthetic treatment. The condition of the equine inward literature differs.
Historically meaning visual in addition to plastic renditions of horses far outnumber verbal depictions. Horses get got played a visible though mostly peripheral role, however, inward to a greater extent than or less types of verse in addition to prose. Given the critical importance of the equine to warfare, hunting, transportation, in addition to other fundamentals of ancient life, horses naturally seem throughout global mythic in addition to epic traditions, whether the Bible, the Tibetan Epic of King Gesar, the Mongolian Epic Cycle of Jangar, or the Iliad. Horses oft seem inward Western mythology, for example, both as species — monstrously, inward the shape of centaurs; magically, inward the shape of unicorns — in addition to as individuals — sometimes supernaturally, such as Pegasus, in addition to sometimes naturally, such as the powerful equines inward many Celtic in addition to Norse myths. Finally, the Equus caballus gives its lift to chivalry in addition to plays an indispensable role inward the Western chivalric poetic tradition — from Sir Gawain in addition to the Green Knight, Le Morte d’Arthur, La Chanson de Roland, in addition to El Cid; to the seminal deconstruction of the genre, Don Quixote; to popular cultural incarnations from 1920s tales of Zorro to the 1950s TV serial Have Gun Will Travel, whose aptly named protagonist, Paladin, dispensed calling cards embossed, ambiguously, amongst what mightiness live a white or dark knight.
In improver to myth, epic, in addition to romance, horses less predictably traverse a meaning trunk of lyric verse that reaches from Sir Philip Sidney, through D.H. Lawrence, Rudyard Kipling, Edwin Muir, in addition to Carl Sandburg, to Ted Hughes, David Whyte, Louise Gluck, in addition to Donald Hall, to lift simply a few. The Equus caballus can, in addition to oft does, serve lyric verse non entirely as a theme, icon, in addition to subject, but also, in addition to to a greater extent than profoundly, as a reflection of the human speaker’s subjectivity in addition to as the reader’s betoken of entry into that subjectivity. Though non many contemporary poets, dissimilar their predecessors, tin give notice convey both poetic in addition to equestrian science to their work, the Pulitzer Prize poet in addition to Virginia horseman Henry Taylor proves an exception. In the championship verse form to the collection, The Horse Show at Midnight (1966), for example, Taylor non entirely captures the calm in addition to tension of the dark fourth dimension stillness of a demonstrate soundless inward progress, but he also does thus from both rider’s in addition to horse’s points of view; in addition to inward the championship verse form to The Flying Change (1985), Taylor subtly in addition to quite brilliantly infuses the beat in addition to period of time of the canter in addition to flight modify into the beat in addition to meter of the poem.
Serious prose literature has proven less accommodating to the Equus caballus than has poetry. Occasionally deployed as fully realized allegorical figures, memorably as the equine Houyhnhnms who master copy the human Yahoos inward Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726), horses as good oft devolve into neighing metaphors, such as the wounded Pilgrim inward Nicholas Evans’s The Horse Whisperer (1995). Horses play visible though relatively shaver parts inward serious contemporary fiction gear upward inward the old or novel American West — the novels of Larry McMurtry, Cormac McCarthy, or Thomas McGuane, for instance — in addition to fifty-fifty focal roles inward a few collections of literary essays, notably McGuane’s elegant Some Horses (2000). In general, though, serious prose literature pays footling attending to the horse, in addition to for a clear reason. In improver to focusing typically on social in addition to psychological bailiwick matter, serious novels, especially modern novels, are built formally in addition to thematically on narrative betoken of view, in addition to equines (like canines), whatever their other virtues, manifestly produce non possess a consciousness that novelists honor either accessible or interesting. Precious few serious modern novels job equines or canines as protagonists, in addition to fifty-fifty fewer job them as narrators or betoken of catch characters — Paul Auster’s Timbuktu (1999) existence a signal canine exception.
Horses (generally ponies), however, do bring together canines inward playing a large, important, in addition to oft titular role inward the “juvenile” literary canon (I job the term descriptively, non pejoratively), occasionally fifty-fifty as first-person narrators — Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty (1877), the sine qua non of pony literature, or Jack London’s Call of the Wild (1903), a clunky canine classic amongst staying power.
Arguably starting fourth dimension amongst Black Beauty, the juvenile equine canon inward English linguistic communication includes such classics as John Steinbeck’s The Red Pony (1933), Kate Seredy’s The Good Master (1935), Enid Bagnold’s National Velvet (1935), C.W. Anderson’s Billy in addition to Blaze (1936) in addition to his many other works, Walter Farley’s The Black Stallion (1941) in addition to its many sequels, Mary O’Hara’s My Friend Flicka (1941), Marguerite Henry’s Misty of Chincoteague (1947) in addition to her many other works, in addition to C.S. Lewis’s The Horse in addition to His Boy (1954). These books in addition to others, moreover, gave rising to an as rich juvenile equine cinema, whose classics make from sentimental favorites similar My Friend Flicka (1943), to luminous inspirational dramas similar National Velvet (1944) in addition to Black Beauty (1946), to self-conscious artistic studies similar Francis Ford Coppola’s The Black Stallion (1979).
A robust in addition to varied subgenre of the equine literary genre, finally, focuses on the racetrack. Examples make from serious in addition to accomplished novels, such as Jaimy Gordon’s National Book Award Winner Lord of Misrule (2010), to cracking “beach reads”, such as the many offense novels past times sometime steeplechase jockey Dick Francis. Semi-documentary portraits of famous Thoroughbreds are a staple of the subgenre, exemplified past times Laura Hillenbrand’s beautifully conceived in addition to executed Seabiscuit (2003). Here, the titular figure functions non entirely as cultural symbol, historical personage, in addition to private personality, but also as the formal device for framing in addition to interweaving the portraits of the human subjects.
While the history of the Equus caballus inward adult prose literature may live slim, the history of non-fictional literature on the Equus caballus in addition to on equine preparation in addition to usage, peculiarly military machine usage, represents an immense trunk of writing. The tradition dates inward the West to Xenophon, the Athenian historian in addition to general, in addition to his main equestrian treatise, On Horsemanship (c. 360 BC). Following a long hiatus, this trunk of piece of work has continued unbroken from the Renaissance to the present. It volition live the finally topic of this series.
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