Illustration Friday: BUZZ

The Battle of the Books is the name of a short satire written by Jonathan Swift and published as part of A Tale of a Tub. In this satire, there is an epic battle fought in a library when various books come alive and attempt to settle the arguments between modern and ancient authors. The battle is interrupted by the allegory of the spider and the bee. A bee, flying from the natural world and drawn by curiosity, wrecks the spider's web. This allegory illustrates the theme of the whole work. The bee is like the ancient author: it gathers its materials from nature and sings its drone song in the fields. The spider is like the modern author: it kills the weak and then spins its web from its own body.