Gogol's pig snouts

Wed Feb 13 22:07:20 UTC 2008

In the House on the Borderland William Hope Hodgson evokes a very effective
atmosphere of terror/horror with the image of a "swine-thing", part-pig,
part-human.  Maybe some literary antecedents.....

Incidentally, the text can be found at

 http://gordon-fernandes.com/hp-lovecraft/other_authors/borderland.htm

and one can check and see that the word "snout", only appears once, in the
initial description, but even so .....

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Deborah Hoffman lino59 at AMERITECH.NET
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:55:54 -0800
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Gogol's pig snouts

Ironically (?) the Jews also use the image of the pig to indicate falsehood
and hypocrisy, comparing individuals engaged in deception with a pig who
can pretend to be kosher by stretching out its cloven hooves (one of the
two required signs for a kosher animal) even though it does not possess the
second sign of chewing its cud. The original source (I believe) is Rashi (a
medieval commentator) but the idea shows up over and over again in
subsequent rabbinic literature.

  The Koran also associates Jews with pigs (Suras 5:60-65, 2:65 and 7:166).
To be fair Sura 2:65 only speaks of Sabbath-breakers, and it is a later
commentator who understands it as a reference to Jews, an image that still
shows up in sermons in modern times. Though it is difficult to say which
group inspired the other in this matter.

  Not perhaps directly on point but I thought you might find it interesting.

>Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:44:32 +0000
>From: Will Ryan 
>Subject: Re: Gogol's pig snouts
>
>The literature on the association of Jews and pigs and the devil in 
>European polemic literature is, regrettably, fairly large. A classic 
>study is Isaiah Shachar, The Judensau : a medieval anti-Jewish motif and 
>its history, London : Warburg Institute, 1974. Try Google with 'Judensau 
>devil' for a depressing list of shameful references. Specifically on 
>snouts try Van Welie-Vink, W.A.W., Pig Snouts as Sign of Evil in 
>Manuscripts from the Low Countries, Quaerendo 26, 1996, 213-228.
>Will Ryan
>>Dan Newton wrote:
> >Richard Taruskin says that the pig snouts in Gogol's "Sorochinskaia
> >iarmarka" are evidence of Gogol's antisemitism (the first one appears to
the
> >Jewish pawnbroker who has cheated the devil out of his red jacket), and
by
> >extension, of Musorgskii's (the opera).
>> 
> >Do you know of any other instances of pig snouts as manifestations of the
>> devil? Of antisemitism? Both? Any ideas as to origin?
>> 
> >Big thanks in advance.
> >Dan
> 

Deborah Hoffman, Esq.
Russian > English Legal and Literary Translations

A man ceases to be a beginner in any given science and becomes a master in
that science when he has learned that he is going to be a beginner all his
life. -- R. G. Collingwood

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