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S p i d e r K a S pider t a r z y n Katarzyna & Sergiusz Michalski a & S e r g i u s z M i c h a l s k i Animal series Spider Animal Series editor: Jonathan Burt Already published Crow Salmon Ape 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 33Great Sutton Street London ec1v 0dx, uk www.reaktionbooks.co.uk First published 2010 Copyright © Katarzyna and Sergiusz Michalski2010 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. 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 isbn: 978 1 86189 775 6 Contents Introduction: Spiders on the Wall and Elsewhere 7 1 Some Basic Zoological Facts 19 2 Arachnophobia 44 3 Venom and Cold Intellect: The Spider and its Web in the European Intellectual Tradition 54 4 The Femme Fatale and Eroticism 93 5 Oppressive Mothers, Dreams and Louise Bourgeois 115 6 Spiders in Art and Caricature 127 7 Myth and Folklore 164 8 Urban Legends 177 9 Spider Goes Hollywood 184 Timeline of the Spider 200 References 202 Select Bibliography 214 Associations and Websites 217 Acknowledgements 218 Photo Acknowledgements 219 Index 221 No digital rights 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 40,000spider species and types, with some 500new 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 2009brought to light a piece of amber in which a spider was encased. It has been dated by its discoverers as being around 140million 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, 7 like the painter Odilon Redon, the Reverend Muffet or the eccen- tric 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 some- thing 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 2008the title went to the so-called common house spider (Tegenaria atrica), in 2009to 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 Anillustration ofspidersofthe do not lend themselves to a brief discussion of their biological and genusNeriene, zoological characteristics. The astounding number of published fromJohn spider books containing classificatory and practical information, Blackwall’s1864 AHistoryofthe intended both for the specialist and the general public, is another SpidersofGreat reason to pursue a different approach in this book. Spider types BritainandIreland. 8