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Where the Wild Things Are
It’s been a long time since Connecticut was a wilderness. But it’s still a jungle out there.
November/December 2003
by Mark Alden Branch ’86
Yalies like to think of Yale as an Enlightenment kind of place, rational and scientific. But our architecture betrays our pre-rational, mysterious side. Some of the animals that adorn Yale buildings are straightforward enough: Trumbull’s three bulls derive from Jonathan Trumbull’s own family crest, the bulldogs speak for themselves, and the ubiquitous owls are a well-worn metaphor for collegiate wisdom. But what to make of the rest of the menagerie?
Scholars of medieval architecture say that the grotesques and gargoyles seen on cathedrals and churches may have been designed to scare off evil spirits. “The notion of a protective device is something one can entertain,” says Walter Cahn, the Carnegie Professor Emeritus of the History of Art. “But nobody knows for sure.” Such a theory would explain the various bats, lions, and dragons—not to mention the face (6) that was surely the prototype for Hollywood’s Creature from the Black Lagoon. And if you were a turkey, you'd be wise to take one particular carving (13) as fair warning. But just who is likely to be scared away by a herd of cheerful, dangling hippos (16)?
Only at Yale can you take a stone safari like this one. Consider this a field guide to our own wildlife, which—with the exception of the wily and elusive hand puppet (25)—has the common courtesy to stay in one place.  |
