Managing Monsters by Marina Warner

Author:Marina Warner [Warner, Marina]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2010-11-30T05:00:00+00:00

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BEAUTIFUL BEASTS: THE CALL OF THE WILD

A LENGTH OF rope, made of steel wire at one end, can be interwoven with jute fibre until the other end of the rope is altogether different, and yet it’ll still be the same rope, unbroken from end to end. Within today’s myths of human nature, the warrior and the wild creature, the child and the beast don’t stand at opposite ends, but are intertwined, continuous, inseparable. And yet they’re also in polar opposition to one another, too. In the argument about the difference between humans and animals, there’s been a pronounced change of sympathy, growing ever more strongly since the eighteenth century. And it’s the wild pole that has been radiating the greater magnetic attraction on human imagination and allegiance.

In the medieval romance, Valentine and Orson, the Empress of Constantinople finds herself alone in a wild forest giving birth to twins. Her husband, the Emperor, has cruelly cast her out under false suspicion of adultery. A passing she-bear steals one of the children for herself; the other baby, Valentine, is rescued with his mother when a nobleman comes riding by at the right moment and takes them both home with him. This twin, Valentine, grows up at court, to become a valiant prince, while the lost boy, Orson, or Bear Cub, grows up ‘a wild hairy man, doing great mischief to all that pass[ed] through the forest.’

The separated twins’ tumultuous legend tells how the brothers later meet and fight and how Valentine captures the Wild Man Orson. At Valentine’s side, Orson overcomes giants and even conquers the Green Knight himself. He receives baptism, but his wild nature persists: his pelt stands in for clothes, he’s shaggy, unkempt, and roars incoherently at the top of his voice. The pair, now sworn companions, sally forth on more adventures, and yet more, against the infidel. A magic oracle in the shape of a brazen head tells them who they are, and they realise their affinity runs deeper than mere comradeship, that they are twins by blood. At this point, Orson acquires the use of his tongue for other purposes besides great warcries. Trials of strength follow, doughty deeds, mighty battles against foes far and wide – until at last Valentine dies to leave Orson to retire back into the wilderness – but at this last stage of his turbulent career, in the form of a hermit.

The romance Valentine and Orson was translated from a lost French original by Henry Watson and printed by Caxton’s successor Wynkyn de Worde at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It was reprinted many times in different adaptations, including a dynamic full colour version by the pioneering Victorian children’s illustrator Walter Crane. But it seems to be almost forgotten today, even though the story of the twin brothers, one wild, one tame, gives precious clues to historical attitudes to nature and reveals the changing relationship between human and animal.

In Valentine and Orson, the bear child becomes civilised, attains rationality and humanity at the hands of his human brother.

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