The Literary Dog Writer
By Lillian Miceli
Apr 1, 2006, 07:05
Dogs have long been muses for many a writer, whether in poetry, novel, song or screenplay form. Throughout history this recurring theme has been celebrated on paper by some of the greatest philosophers and writers. The Dog Writer's job is to show just how dogs inspire and at the same time attempt to de-mystify the bond between dogs and people. This is a Canine Career Path unlike any others, exceptionally personal and complex, since the use of the dog in literature is often thought to be symbolic of our own human circumstances, both bad and good.
Our relationship with dogs, either in history or legend, began thousands of years ago with Greek and Roman mythology. In the beginning, writing about dogs was relegated mainly to hunting activities. Shakespeare changed all that as he elevated the canine's position. Twelfth Night, Macbeth and even Two Men of Verona present man's devotion and friendship toward his dog in many a speech within the plays. Homer, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Freud and FDR are but a few of the extraordinary people whose writings were inspired through their
relationships with their dogs.
In the 1900's Jack London and Zane Grey both wrote great expansive novels recounting the actions of brave and spirited dogs constantly in peril or pursuit of saving their fellow man, or woman. The screenplay as well was recruited as another device for showing dog adventures as witnessed in film in "Lassie" and "Rin Tin Tin." Furthermore, humorists like James Thurber and E.B. White would have been quite amused seeing the escapades of the
present day "Wallace and Gromit." And let us not forget the deep character development of those unforgettable canines in Disney's "Lady and the Tramp," or the anticipation of a little boy wanting a puppy in the nursery rhyme How Much is That Doggie in the Window by Iza Trapani and Bob Merrill.
But no other form of literature quite conveys the various highs and lows of loving your canine friend as does poetry. Pablo Neruda's poignant and moving account of his dog that died, though profoundly sad, makes one feel the pain was all worthwhile, knowing and loving this four-legged creature.
A Dog Has Died, Tr. by Alfred Yankauer by Pablo Neruda.
My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.
Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.
Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.
No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he'd keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.
Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea's movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean's spray.
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.
There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie to each other.
So now he's gone and I buried him,
and that's all there is to it.
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