In pre-urban cultures, the talking animal was considered a real entity
and seems to have been accepted as such within virtually all early religious
mythologies around the world.
With the evolution
of urban cultures and the development of higher religions with an essentially
non-fundamentalist grasp of mythos as symbol, the talking animal ceased
to play as active a role in religion, but continued to speak symbolically
to adults in fable [eg Aesop].
As the major
religions consolidated and expanded their reach and culture continued to
develop, the talking animal spoke just as frequently, but more and more
only to children in fairy tales. It still retained its appeal to humanity,
its didactic and to an extent mythic function.
In modern
times the talking animal remains with us if in a further state of degeneration
in the cartoons which continue to permeate the imaginative lives of children.
Thus we see,
somewhat surprisingly, that in virtually all cultures through the world
and through history, including those of the present day, the motif of the
talking animal has had a place much more prominent and ubiquitous than
seems entirely intuitively reasonable.
shmoetry
Surrealism
Test Center home
