Abyssinian (1)The Cat in the literature
 Edgar Allan Poe - "The Black Cat", 1840"The Black Cat" is a short story from "Tales Of The Grotesque And Arabesque" collection of Edgar Allan Poe. The Black Cat from the story, a cat named Pluto that loves the narrator but irritates him when it follows him everywhere: "... was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree." The name Pluto is that of the Roman God of the underworld. Pluto contributes to a strong sense of Hell and may even symbolize the Devil himself. | |
 Hoffmann Ernst T. - "The Life and Opinions of Tomcat Murr", 1820 - 1822 a fictional autobiography of a cat. Tomcat Murr is a loveable, self-taught animal who has written his own autobiography. But a printer's error causes his story to be accidentally mixed and spliced with a book about the composer Johannes Kreisler. As the two versions break off and alternate at dramatic moments, two wildly different characters emerge from the confusion - Murr, the confident scholar, lover, carouser and brawler, and the moody, hypochondriac genius Kreisler. | |
 R. Kipling - "The Cat That Walked By Himself", 1907narrows about the cat that walked by himself and all places were alike to him. Kipling defines the cat as "the wildest animal". | |
 variants of G. F. Straparola, C. Perrault, Fratelli Grimm - "Puss in Boots"A very old European folk tale, known in many variations in many countries. Basically, it is the story of a clever and magical cat who helps his poor master become rich by means of trickery. Folklorists believe that Puss in Boots originated as a tale in the oral tradition, and was first written down in Italy during the 1500’s. | |
 Doris Lessing - "Particularly Cats" | |
 Mikhail Bulgakov - Master and Margarita, 1929-1940The cat Behemoth (Кот Бегемот) is the most important literary cat of 20th sencery. The direct heir of the hag's mate and of the Tomcat Murr of Hoffmann. Brings with himself the live beginning, reminds of the suddenness of life, which brokes servile world of the unlucky builders of the bright future. | |
 Ivan Genzler - "Biography of cat Vassilij Ivanovich" | |
 Nikolaj Vagner (Fiabe del gatto Murlyka) | |
 Nel folclore russo, nelle fiabe c’è anche il Gatto Cullatore (Кот-Баюн = Kot Bajùn), un «personaggio fiabesco»negativo perché fa le fusa, miagola delle canzoni e addormenta i principi che cercano le loro principesse. | |
 Nella tradizione fiabesca russa è diffuso un motivo del gatto dotto o saggio.Così nella prefazione per il poema «Ruslan e Ludmila» di Pushkin c’è il Gatto Saggio. | |
 The Cheshire Cat is a fictional cat appearing in Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" in 1865.The Cheshire Cat appears like a smile of the nature, laughing at vainness of the people efforts to comprehend secrets of the essence. | |
 Howard Phillips Lovecraft - "The cats of Ulthar", 1920 "It is said that in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no man may kill a cat; and this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For the cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see. He is the soul of antique Aegyptus, and bearer of tales from forgotten cities in Meroe and Ophir. He is the kin of the jungle’s lords, and heir to the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language; but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she hath forgotten." | |
 Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu - "The White Cat of Drumgunniol", 1992 "There is a famous story of a white cat, with which we all become acquainted in the nursery. I am going to tell a story of a white cat very different from the amiable and enchanted princess who took that disguise for a season. The cat of which I speak was a more sinister animal" |
