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In the late twelfth century, the English writer Nigel Wireker produced the Speculum Stultorum, the Mirror of Dunces.EIn this story, an ass, Brunellus, dissatisfied with his short tail, leaves home to visit the famous physician Galen to get a prescription for a longer tail. Galen sends him to Salerno, where the remedy not only fails but makes his tail even shorter. Deciding that he at least can be a learned ass, Brunellus travels to Paris where he studies theology and founds his own order of monks. Finally, on his way to Rome, he is discovered by his owner, who takes him home, no wiser for all his travels. Like Aesop, Wireker tells his story as a parable designed to teach the reader that he should be content with what nature gives, for nothing can be retained other than what nature givesE(nihil ultra quam quod natura dat retinere potest). And there is evident satire of monasticisim, for the ass Brunellus founds an order in which marriage is permission, just as it was in the orderEof the original creation. Wireker, it should be noted, was no bumpkin. He was precentor of the cathedral at Canterbury when he wrote the Speculum.
Another learned writer of the same period, Master Nivardus of Ghent, produced a Latin beast epic, Ysengriumus, which lies somewhere near the Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons and Brer Rabbit. Ysengrim is a wolf, consistently tricked by the wily fox Renard. Renard convinces Ysengrim to fish in a frozen stream with his tail, and when his tail freeze into the stream, Renard sends some peasants out to beat him. A wild boar convinces Ysengrim to enter a monastery, promising regular and sumptuous meals. Tonsured though he he, the wolf is unable to learn anything and is quickly dismissed from the monastery. Renard, meanwhile, has seduced Ysengrims wife. Finally, Ysengrim is killed by a herd of pigs, and Renard speaks a mock funeral oration over the body.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 at 03:52 PM
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