The Dog and the Piece of Meat

¨A dog carrying a piece of meat in his mouth was crossing a river when he suddenly saw his own reflection in the water. Mistaking the image for another dog, he dropped his meat and jumped to the attack. His piece of meat fell in the water and was carried away by the current. And so the dog lost both what he had and what he didn't have.¨

In itself an amusing story, we know nevertheless that one of the purposes of this fable of Aesop--a Greek storyteller of the 6th century B.C.--is to teach a point about the dangers of greed and the importance of being happy with what we have. Although those points are not literally or explicitly made in the story, they are embedded in its symbolism. In this story, the animal and his actions are not to be taken literally but instead are to be understood as symbolic representations of certain kinds of human character and behavior. An important guide in literary study is the idea that one must always strive to go beyond the literal or the mere appearances of things and search instead for the "meat" of the story. Unlike the dog of Aesop's fable, we should not allow ourselves to be fooled by false appearances. In the reading you will do in this course, you will be engaging in a constant search for the ideas and values which, although often not explicitly mentioned in the texts, constitute the substance of literary works.