Spider

165 Pages·2010·6.97 MB·English

by  Katarzyna Michalski

Spider
Animal
Series editor: Jonathan Burt Already published
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Boria Sax Peter Coates John Sorenson
Ant Fox Pigeon
Charlotte Sleigh Martin Wallen Barbara Allen
Tortoise Fly Owl
Peter Young Steven Connor Desmond Morris
Cockroach Cat Snail
Marion Copeland Katharine M. Rogers Peter Williams
Dog Peacock Hare
Susan McHugh Christine E. Jackson Simon Carnell
Oyster Cow Penguin
Rebecca Stott Hannah Velten Stephen Martin
Bear Swan Lion
Robert E. Bieder Peter Young Deirdre Jackson
Bee Shark Camel
Claire Preston Dean Crawford Robert Irwin
Rat Rhinoceros
Jonathan Burt Kelly Enright
Snake Moose
Drake Stutesman Kevin Jackson
Falcon Duck
Helen Macdonald Victoria de Rijke
Whale Horse
Joe Roman Elaine Walker
Parrot Elephant
Paul Carter Dan Wylie
Tiger Eel
Susie Green Richard Schweid
Spider
Katarzyna and Sergiusz Michalski
REAKTION BOOKS
Published by
REAKTION BOOKS LTD
33 Great Sutton Street
London EC1V 0DX, UK
www.reaktionbooks.co.uk
First published 2010
Copyright © Katarzyna and Sergiusz Michalski 2010
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior
permission of the publishers.
Page references in the Photo Acknowledgements and
Index match the printed edition of this book.
Printed and bound in China
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Michalska, Katarzyna.
1. Spiders. 2. Spiders – Folklore. 3. Spiders – Mythology.
4. Spiders in art. 5. Spiders – Symbolic aspects.
6. Spiders – Psychological aspects.
I. Title II. Series III. Michalski, Sergiusz.
595.4′4-DC22
eISBN: 9781861898883
Contents
Introduction: Spiders on the Wall and Elsewhere
1 Some Basic Zoological Facts
2 Arachnophobia
3 Venom and Cold Intellect: The Spider and its Web in the European
Intellectual Tradition
4 The Femme Fatale and Eroticism
5 Oppressive Mothers, Dreams and Louise Bourgeois
6 Spiders in Art and Caricature
7 Myth and Folklore
8 Urban Legends
9 Spider Goes Hollywood

Timeline of the Spider
References
Select Bibliography
Associations and Websites
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index
Introduction: Spiders on the Wall and Elsewhere
This book attempts to describe an animal whose importance lies primarily in the
fact that it is – much more than most of the animals presented in this series – a
cultural and psychological construct. The spider is at first sight a hauntingly real
animal, never very far away from each inhabitant of the earth (save in the Arctic
and the Antarctic), and strewn all over the world in almost 40,000 spider species
and types, with some 500 new species still being discovered every year. Spiders
might have appeared on earth around 200 million years ago. A sensational find
on England’s chalk cliff coast at Hastings, Sussex in summer 2009 brought to
light a piece of amber in which a spider was encased. It has been dated by its
discoverers as being around 140 million years old: a sensational discovery that
was publicized all around the world.1
The fact that the myriad spiders on earth play an important role in the
ecosphere – devouring harmful insects – is also generally appreciated.
Nonetheless the negative attitude of most people towards the spider – though
tinged by a sort of admiration – is conditioned by psychology and culture. But it
is the spider’s prime product, the web, that has served in modern times in an
unrivalled way as a model for the organization of information and society.
Earlier epochs did not see it that way.
Thanks to its domestic presence the spider was always known to virtually
everybody. However, only a handful of aficionados, like the painter Odilon
Redon, the Reverend Muffet or the eccentric 12th Duke of Bedford – who spoke
in his memoirs, which contained a chapter entitled ‘Spiders I Have Known’,
about his favourite house spider having a daily preference for the Duke’s roast
beef and Yorkshire pudding2 – were able to build up something approaching a
personal relationship with one of the eight-legged creatures. Needless to say,
spiders sometimes played an important role in folktales and religious beliefs, but
in Europe, in contrast to other animals, spiders did so without acquiring a
distinct character of their own which might have led to a sort of
anthropomorphization (although in West Africa and among the Native American
tribes in North America the situation was a different one). As we shall however
try to show in this book, the symbolic and psychological meanings of the spider
have gained unexpectedly in stature during the course of the last century, in
contrast to earlier symbolically significant animals like wolves, snakes or
nightingales. All of these seem to have receded, if not faded, from the collective
cultural imagination, from the imagination of their children and – perhaps most
importantly – from their respective sets of animal comparatives. The very fact
that the European Society of Arachnology annually bestows the title of a
European Spider of the Year – in 2008 the title went to the so-called common
house spider (Tegenaria atrica), in 2009 to the triangle spider (Hyptiotes
paradoxus) – and that this information appeared on the front pages of major
European journals, vividly demonstrates the spider’s sudden rise to prominence.
The thousands and thousands of very different spider types do not lend
themselves to a brief discussion of their biological and zoological characteristics.
The astounding number of published spider books containing classificatory and
practical information, intended both for the specialist and the general public, is
another reason to pursue a different approach in this book. Spider types as such
are thus not discussed in a comprehensive way but only case-wise, when relating
in our discourse to some trait worth analysing or referring to.