Insects (& Other Arthropods) in Literature

Humanity has been reflecting on insects for a very long time. In the Cave of Spiders near Valencia, Spain, there is a 6000-year-old petroglyph that depicts the gathering of wild honey. The Chauvet Cave paintings of southern France are, at 30,000 years of age, the oldest works of art known to us. Amidst the riot of horses, lions and rhinos on the cave walls are apparent images of butterflies and centipedes. Likewise, the oral and written traditions of many peoples include stories that feature insects or other arthropods. Throughout time, these animals have been used by writers and storytellers to flesh out a wide array of thoughts and emotions, as the selection here illustrates. Some of these pieces deal directly with insects; in other cases, the imagery is a step or two removed. I've gathered these examples over many years and have more to add when time permits. For now, I guess this will do. Please let me know if you're aware of a text link not included below.

Narratives

E. F. Benson: "Caterpillars"

Algernon Blackwood: "An Egyptian Hornet"

A. S. Byatt: Morpho Eugenia

Henri Charriere: Papillon

John Fowles: The Collector

Thomas Harris: The Silence of the Lambs

Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis

Manuel Komroff: "Ants"

Katherine Mansfield: "The Fly"

Vladimir Nabokov: "Father's Butterflies"
__________: Pnin

Edgar Allan Poe:"The Gold Bug"
__________: "The Sphinx"

P'u Sung-ling: "The Cricket Boy"

Manuel Puig: Kiss of the Spider Woman

Walt Whitman: "Bumble-Bees" (from Specimen Days)

Drama

Aristophanes: Wasps

Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Three Thousand Red Ants

Jean-Paul Sartre: The Flies

Lyric & Epic Poetry

Guillaume Apollinaire
(All from Bestiary, Or
The Parade of Orpheus): "The Caterpillar"
__________: "The Fly"
__________: "The Flea"
__________: "The Grasshopper"

William Blake: "The Fly"

Robert Burns: "To a Louse"

Emily Dickinson: "From Cocoon Forth a Butterfly"
__________: "Two Butterflies Went Out at Noon"
__________: "The Spider as an Artist"
__________: "Death is Like the Insect"

Ralph Waldo Emerson: "The Humble-Bee"

Robert Frost: "A Considerable Speck"

The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Gilgamesh includes at least two references to arthropods: the so-called "scorpion men," and dragonflies, the latter of which is discussed here. The passages occur near the beginning of Tablet IX and the very end of Tablet X, respectively, in the Temple translation (linked above).

Homer: Iliad
__________: Odyssey
A number of Homeric similes use insects as the focus of their imagery. Some of the more interesting are within Iliad 12:149-172, 16:257-274 and 16:632-657.

Tripp Howell: "The Metaphysics of Ants"

Hsu Chao: "The Locust Swarm"

John Keats: "On the Grasshopper and Cricket"
__________: "To Autumn"

Federico Garcia Lorca: "The Little Mute Boy"

Antonio Machado: "Flies"

Pablo Neruda: "Fleas Interest Me So Much"

Kenneth Rexroth: "Ant" (From Bestiary)

Riddle 47 of The Exeter Book
Apparently, the generally agreed-on solution by scholars is "Bookworm." I can't find a modern translation from the Old English on the Web, but the first line is rendered, "A moth ate words."

Dylan Thomas: "To-Day, This Insect"

Cesar Vallejo: "The Spider"

William Wordsworth: "To a Butterfly"

James Wright: "The First Days"
You'll need to scroll down about three-quarters of the page in order to find this particular poem. I suspect that Wright was observing a large hornet, such as Vespa crabro, rather than a bee. And, of course, "His" should be "Her," but I'm quibbling about a lovely poem!

William Butler Yeats: "Another Song of a Fool"

Mythology, Folklore & Spiritual Literature

"The Story of Arachne" (Greco-Roman), as retold by Ovid in Book VI of the Metamorphoses

The Holy Bible
The Bible contains numerous references to insects, including Exodus 8:16-19 & 20-32, Exodus 10:1-20, Judges 14, Psalms 105:31-35, Proverbs 6:6, Ecclesiastes 10:1 and Nahum 3:15-17.

"The Butterfly Dream" (Chinese), in The Equality of All Things (a chapter of the Chuang Tzu)

"How Stories Came to Earth" (Ashanti)

"The Myrmidons" (Greco-Roman), as retold by Ovid in Book VII of the Metamorphoses
At this link, you'll need to scroll about two-thirds of the way down the page. Look for "The Story of Ants chang'd to Men." The Myrmidons also show up in the Iliad (link above) as Achilles' devoted troops.

"The Story of Orion" (Greco-Roman), as retold by Robert Graves in Greek Myths
In Chapter 41, Graves tells a version in which Apollo sends a giant scorpion to battle Orion. No other source (ancient or authoritative modern) that I've been able to consult includes this passage.

"The Myth of Osiris" (Egyptian), as retold by Sir James George Frazer in The Golden Bough
If you're impatient, jump down to Paragraph 5.

"The Treasures of the Gods" (Icelandic), as retold by Snorri Sturluson in the Skaldskaparmal (a section of the Prose Edda)

Home

Updated 19 June 2001