Felines are seductive and fascinating animals. Their sinuous movements and their deep gazes have captivated more than one author, philosopher or man of letters.
Today we talk about cats in literature following the footprints left by Micio in more or less famous literary works.
Cats in literature
Micio is the great friend of writers and poets, often a source of inspiration. He fascinated them and they paid homage to him by making him the protagonist or central figure of their writings.
And how can you blame them? These creatures with a mysterious charm know how to capture, seduce and bewitch us. Halfway between physical and metaphysical, the cat embodies a mystery that can only be revealed through the delicate words of a poet.
The cat in the history of literature
Felines have populated the world of literature for centuries and centuries as protagonists of poems, stories and novels or as friends and companions of artists, writers and illustrious poets.
We find them present in many writings and some authors and some authors are known for their unbridled feline passion: from Elsa Morante to Doris Lessingfrom Ernest Hemingway to Charles Bukowski cats have left a paw in literature with their mysterious, enigmatic, languid and independent attitudes.
And these attitudes are also remembered by poets such as Pablo Neruda (how not to mention his Ode al gatto), Umberto Saba who praised it in The cat and the French Charles Baudelaire The cat.
Kitty in the ancient world
As mentioned, Micio has been occupying the fantasies and writings of great men of letters for centuries now. Beyond the legends about cats, there are fairy tales from all over the world that tell of Micio since ancient times.
Such stories come from all over the world: Russia, Japan, the Americas, Scandinavia and Ancient Rome. Cicero, Herodotus and Pliny the Elder wrote about the cat.
The cat in fairy tales
The first to write fables on the elegant feline grace are the Greek Aesop and the Latin Phaedrus, two great writers of fables. Aesop, in particular, made the cat a character enriched with allegorical symbols referring to mankind and its defects.
Towards the end of the 1600s, the fabulist Fountainhas dedicated ample space to the cat who represents false, hypocritical, thieves and slackers.
The cat with the boots
In the celebrated The cat with the boots by Charles Perrault, contemporary writer of La Fontaine, Micio regains sympathy thanks to his elegant manner and gentleman’s dress.
Alice in Wonderland
With Lewis Carroll, the Cheshire Cat (Ghignagatto in the Italian version or lo cheshire cat in the animated version signed Disney) main character of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderlandreaches the pinnacle of mystery and enigma.
The Cheshire Cat smiles slyly and seems to make fun of everyone he has to deal with. It is a bewildered and bizarre character that one cannot help but become attached to.
The story of a seagull and the cat who taught her to fly
Luis Sepúlveda, on the other hand, tells the story of a decidedly special friendship between the black cat Zorba, who is entrusted with a seagull’s egg. The cat will take care of the little seagull that will be born teaching him to fly.
The story presents us with several cats: Zorba is not the only one represented, but he is certainly the one who remains in the heart the most for his goodness and his ability to keep his promises.
The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe
And how not to mention the famous Black cat by Edgar Allan Poe? It is one of the stories found in the collection Tales of the grotesque and the arabesque.
The feline protagonist is Pluto, a very large black cat with unparalleled intelligence. Within the story, Pluto becomes a symbol of cunning, wickedness, terror and death.
Philosophical considerations of the Murr Cat
We conclude this roundup of felines with the most erudite cat of all: Murr. In his Philosophical considerations of the cat Murr, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann gives his own voice to Murr, a well-mannered gray cat who reads the great classics and composes writings in prose and verse.
Thanks to him we have a philosophical look at life, with graceful and profound considerations and valuable lessons drawn from art and literature. Is it possible to imagine a cat more cat than that? Not for us at Todocat!