Monster Smackdown: The Trojan Horse Vs. Godzilla At Cornell Library

By Nancy Mattoon

A Japanese historical magazine,
which singles out the birth of Godzilla
as the signature event of the year 1954.
(All Images Courtesy of Carl A. Kroch Library.)

Man has a long history of creating "famous" animals. Some are mythical or literary, like the Minotaur or Toto. Others are real animals, elevated to celebrity status like Rin Tin Tin, or more recently, Internet sensation Maru the Cat. A fascinating new exhibit at Cornell University's Carl A. Kroch Library uses rare books, manuscripts, photographs, and artifacts to explore "how and why humans choose to elevate certain individual animals or species to the status of divinities, emblems, mascots, heroes, or celebrities."

Woodcut Illustration From:
Opera Virgiliana. Lyon: Crespin, 1529.

Animal Legends: From the Trojan Horse to Godzilla is an elephantine display of serpentine complexity. It is divided into five major sections, corralling creatures from ancient times to modern, including the menagerie rescued from the Biblical Flood by Noah, Ulysses's "noble hound" Argos from Homer's Odyssey, E.B. White's web-spinner Charlotte, and even canine cosmonauts Belka and Strelka, two of the first living creatures to orbit the earth for an entire day. It is inspired in large part by the pioneering work of French cultural historian Michel Pastoureau, who in his book Les Animaux Célèbres, maintains that our intense attraction to wonders of the animal kingdom comes from the simple fact of "how difficult it is to be human."

Barrie G. James. The Trojan Horse:
the Ultimate Japanese Challenge to Western Industry.
London: Mercury Business Books, 1990.

The first section of the display, Tales of Destruction and Rebirth, begins with an examination of the Trojan Horse. The exhibit notes that the wooden equine giant, filled with soldiers, "may have been a siege machine." But "in any case, the tale was made hugely popular by Virgil’s Aeneid, and by innumerable pictures and films." Books and ephemera dating from 1529 to 1990 reveal the staying power of this "metaphor for political tactics of infiltration," and the show reminds us that the horse's most recent incarnation is as "the name of a destructive computer application."

Poster for the American Version of
La Guerra di Troia, 1961.

The rare books and ephemera in the show providing images of the Trojan Horse are a great indication of the huge range of the exhibition. The section begins with Opera Virgiliana (1529), which features two hundred woodcut illustrations for the poems contained in the Eclogues, the Georgics and the Aeneid. After that beauty is the 1664 "pocket edition" of the works of Virgil from the Elsevier family of Dutch booksellers, publishers, and printers. Up next is a garishly kitschy poster for the big-budget 1961 "sword and sandal" motion picture epic, La Guerra di Troia. Following on the heels and hoofs of the horse opera, is a presentation copy of Archibald MacLeish's The Trojan Horse: A Play (1952), inscribed to Cornell English Professor Arthur Mizener. Finally an alarmist business book from 1990, The Trojan Horse: the Ultimate Japanese Challenge to Western Industry, by futurist Barrie James, closes out the wildly eclectic selection.

Poster for Gojira.
Japan: Toho Ltd., 1954.

One of the largest sections of the show is called From Farm To Screen. Creatures covered here include E.B. White's super-mouse on a road trip, Stuart Little, Disney stalwarts Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, and the pop culture star attraction of the exhibition, mass media "mon-star," Godzilla. The exhibit notes that unlike the "carefree escapism" offered by Disney's cartoon critters, "Godzilla, a primitive, destructive force awakened by the excesses of modern science," plays "on the darker aspects of human fears and repressed desires." But the subversive appeal of the unstoppable King of Chaos cannot be denied: "Godzilla has starred in 28 feature films produced by the [Japanese] Toho Film Company, as well as two American remakes, and has also appeared in television series, novels, comic books, video games, songs, toys and countless commercials and advertisements."

A Pictorial Box Set of
Five Godzilla Films in Translation.
Japan: Toho Ltd. and Anchor Entertainment, 1997.

Animal Legends: From the Trojan Horse to Godzilla presents a terrific introduction to a cultural phenomenon that deserves much more serious study. The animal kingdom is an important part of the collective iconography of every culture that has ever existed across the centuries, and throughout the world. And, as the exhibit points out, "All human societies have reserved a mythical or allegorical place for...extra-ordinary animals, 'fictitious' or 'real,' from the most ancient myths of origin to the most recent scientific discoveries." As mankind's environmental expansion continues to encroach upon what used to be the domain of the animal kingdom, the time to reflect upon its cultural importance is now.

Poster for Godzilla, King of the Monsters!.
Japan: Toho Ltd. and Jewell Enterprises, 1956.

Animal Legends: From the Trojan Horse to Godzilla continues through September 30, 2011 at the Hirshland Exhibition Gallery of the Carl A. Kroch Library of Cornell University. A terrific online exhibit has been created to those unable to visit the Ithaca, N.Y. campus.

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Michael Suarez, New Director of UV’s Rare Book School, Wows With Lecture on Plate-Subscription Books

William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, Los Angeles

Michael Suarez, S.J., new Director of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, presented the Fifth Annual Kenneth Karmiole Lecture on the History of the Book Trade at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library in Los Angeles on Saturday, November 7th to an enraptured audience.

One of the Reading Rooms at the Clark Library

His subject, Learned Book Illustrations, their Patrons, and the Vagaries of the Trade in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century England, might, in the wrong hands, have held the potential to desiccate cortexes. But Michael Suarez, a Jesuit priest who received his doctorate in English Literature from Oxford University, has held research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, is no ordinary lecturer.

No ordinary lecture room: The lavishly decorated salon at the Clark
Library where the Kenneth Karmiole Lectures occur. It is a testament
to the superlative lecture performance of Michael Suarez
that all eyes were upon him and not upon the ceiling.

The most passionate and enthusiastic speaker I have ever had the pleasure to listen to, Professor Suarez (or Father Suarez, or Michael - he’s very casual about the titles he possesses) demonstrated complete mastery of his subject during his talk, which, miraculously (as a Jesuit priest he gets an extra helping hand unavailable to most), was delivered without text or notes of any kind.

It was a breathtaking performance.

“From the mid-seventeenth century, English antiquaries, cartographers, classicists, and scientists increasingly sought to produce large folios with elaborate illustrations. But how to pay for the enormous production costs of such works?

“Engravings by the leading practitioners of the day—whether depicting the beauties of the great cathedrals, the epic glories of classical antiquity, or the finer points of natural history—required significant investments in both men and materials.

This lecture...considers the commercial and cultural expedients that self-publishing authors, learned societies, and projecting booksellers developed to finance their books, many of exceeding beauty and genuine importance. Examining these ‘books for looking’ produced for cultural elites and chiefly underwritten by their intended readerships, we encounter narratives of fiscal irresponsibility, signal innovation, shameless advertising, remarkable networking, outright deception, outstanding loyalty, and brazen vanity” (Hannah P. Clark, from her lecture summary).

Oh, brother, do we ever.

Modern direct-marketers have nothing over these author-publisher-booksellers, who, armed with a list of likely prospects amongst the peerage and the rich, shamelessly appealed to the vanity and ego of their marks, er, patrons, to con them into sponsoring, through subscription, the production of each plate within these massive folio showpiece volumes. In exchange, the sponsor-subscriber would have their coat of arms engraved into the plate with a florid dedication extolling the virtues of the sponsor. The cost for this personal ad, as it were, was £5, a sum worth $1,176 today. Each plate-subscriber received a "free" copy of the book.

The publisher-authors were subscription-sales sharks who really knew how to put the bite on prospects.

If the book was reprinted, the publisher hit the original plate sponsors up for a £3 “renewal” fee. If the original subscriber objected, he would be informed that another sponsor for the particular plate that the original subscriber thought he “owned” would be solicited. If the original patron still refused, the plate would be re-sponsored, and the original patron’s armorial device and dedication to the original plate would be replaced with that the new sponsor's.

Or, another publisher would issue a different edition of the same book, use the same engraved plates from the earlier volume, and re-sell sponsorship-subscriptions.

Plate from The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro. Translated, adorn'd
with Sculpture, and illustrated with Annotations, by John Ogilby.
London: Thomas Warren for the Author, 1654. The armorial device and
dedication have been cropped from this image. Plate re-printed for
Tonson's edition of 1697, with a new subscriber.

The most famous example of this practice is John Ogilby’s 1654 translation of Virgil. For this edition, Ogilby commissioned 101 engraved plates (!), found 101 subscribers to pay for them, and did very well.

An engraving from The Works of Virgil: Containing his Pastorals,
Georgics, and Aeneis. Translated into English Verse by Mr. Dryden ….
London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, 1697. Reprint of the engraving
found in Ogilby's 1654 edition. Note the sponsor's armorial device
and the dedication to the sponsor at lower edge
of plate, replaceable, if necessary.

In 1697, printer Jacob Tonson issued his own edition of Virgil. Translated by John Dryden, Tonson used the exact same, sumptuous plates that had been executed by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) for Ogilby but found new subscribers for them. In some cases, he arranged for the new patron’s face to replace a character’s in the plate, thereby dramatically increasing added-value to vanity already over-valued by these members of the Restoration glitteratti seeking to advertise their wonderfulness to one and all, particularly their friends.

No family armorial coat of arms? No problem. Through royal contacts, arrangements would be made for a coat of arms to be officially issued. The publishing slick didn't miss a trick in the quest for great whales, their skills with a harpoon rivaling Queequeg's.

As there were many author-publishers with plate-book subscriptions to hawk but only a limited number of people in England with the wherewithal to afford such extravagance on vanity, the same people would invariably be called upon to cough-up cash. And, as with today's incessant telephone marketing calls, complaints were common.

Michael Suarez’s resume is deep and rich. One thing you will not find in his official bio is the fact that he was formerly a prison chaplain who played a major role in quelling a prison riot. According to Stephen Tabor (Michael does not advertise this incident), Curator of Early Printed Books at the Huntington Library, during the melee Suarez very gently, almost imperceptibly, hugged the ringleader from behind and with soft voice and delicate physical prompting led him away.

His lecture blew me away.

A gentle and charming intellectual giant, Michael Suarez, S.J. won the 2008 Foley Poetry Contest with his poem, Going. He thinks religious poetry should embrace humor.

I think we should embrace Michael Suarez. 

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