Editing Caterpillar (section)

== In popular culture ==
[[File:For Children The Gates of Paradise copy D object 1.jpg |thumb|right| [[William Blake|William Blake's]] illustration of a caterpillar overlooking a child from his illustrated book ''For Children The Gates of Paradise''.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=gates-child.d.illbk.01&java=no | publisher = [[William Blake Archive]]| title = For Children: The Gates of Paradise, copy D, object 1 (Bentley 1, Erdman i, Keynes i) "For Children: The Gates of Paradise" | editor1 = Morris Eaves | editor2 =Robert N. Essick | editor3 =Joseph Viscomi| access-date = January 31, 2013}}</ref>]]
[[File:Alice in Wonderland by Arthur Rackham - 05 - Advice from a Caterpillar.jpg|thumb|right|A 1907 illustrations by [[Arthur Rackham]] of [[Caterpillar (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)|the Caterpillar]] talking to Alice in [[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]]]

Caterpillars became a symbol for social dependents. [[Shakespeare]]'s Bolingbroke described [[Richard III (play)|King Richard]]'s friends as "The caterpillars of the commonwealth, Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away". In 1790 [[William Blake]] referenced this popular image in [[The Marriage of Heaven and Hell]] when he attacked priests: "as the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lay his curse on the fairest joys".<ref>{{Cite book|title=A Dictionary of Literary Symbols|author=Michael Ferber|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2017|isbn=9781316780978}}</ref>

The role of caterpillars in the life stages of butterflies was badly understood. In 1679 [[Maria Sibylla Merian]] published the first volume of ''The Caterpillars' Marvelous Transformation and Strange Floral Food'', which contained 50 illustrations and a description of insects, moths, butterflies and their [[larvae]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Women and Science, 17th Century to Present: Pioneers, Activists and Protagonists|editor1=Donna Spalding Andréolle |editor2=Veronique Molinari|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|year=2011|isbn=9781443830676|page=36}}</ref> An earlier popular publication on moths and butterflies, and their caterpillars, by [[Jan Goedart]] had not included eggs in the life stages of European moths and butterflies, because he had believed that caterpillars were generated from water. When Merian published her study of caterpillars it was still widely believed that insects were spontaneously generated. Merian's illustrations supported the findings of [[Francesco Redi]], [[Marcello Malpighi]] and [[Jan Swammerdam]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Women and Science, 17th Century to Present: Pioneers, Activists and Protagonists|editor1=Donna Spalding Andréolle |editor2=Veronique Molinari|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|year=2011|isbn=9781443830676|page=40}}</ref>

Butterflies were regarded as symbol for the human soul since ancient time, and also in the Christian tradition.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Serpent and the Swan: The Animal Bride in Folklore and Literature|author=Boria Sax|publisher=Univ. of Tennessee Press|year=1998|isbn=9780939923687|pages=[https://archive.org/details/serpentswananima00saxb/page/70 70]|url=https://archive.org/details/serpentswananima00saxb/page/70}}</ref> Goedart thus located his empirical observations on the transformation of caterpillars into butterflies in the Christian tradition. As such he argued that the metamorphosis from caterpillar into butterfly was a symbol, and even proof, of Christ's resurrection. He argued "that from dead caterpillars emerge living animals; so it is equally true and miraculous, that our dead and rotten corpses will rise from the grave."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Early Modern Zoology: The Construction of Animals in Science, Literature and the Visual Arts|author1=Karl A. E. Enenkel |author2=Mark S. Smith|publisher=BRILL|year=2007|isbn=9789047422365|page=157}}</ref> Swammerdam, who in 1669 had demonstrated that inside a caterpillar the rudiments of the future butterfly's limbs and wings could be discerned, attacked the mystical and religious notion that the caterpillar died and the butterfly subsequently resurrected.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Early Modern Zoology: The Construction of Animals in Science, Literature and the Visual Arts|author1=Karl A. E. Enenkel |author2=Mark S. Smith|publisher=BRILL|year=2007|isbn=9789047422365|page=161}}</ref> As a militant [[Cartesianism|Cartesian]], Swammerdam attacked Goedart as ridiculous, and when publishing his findings he proclaimed "here we witness the digression of those who have tried to prove Resurrection of the Dead from these obviously natural and comprehensible changes within the creature itself."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Early Modern Zoology: The Construction of Animals in Science, Literature and the Visual Arts|author1=Karl A. E. Enenkel |author2=Mark S. Smith|publisher=BRILL|year=2007|isbn=9789047422365|page=162}}</ref>

Since then the metamorphoses of the caterpillar into a butterfly has in Western societies been associated with countless human transformations in folktales and literature. There is no process in the physical life of human beings that resembles this metamorphoses, and the symbol of the caterpillar tends to depict a psychic transformation of a human. As such the caterpillar has in the Christian tradition become a metaphor for being "born again".<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Serpent and the Swan: The Animal Bride in Folklore and Literature|author=Boria Sax|publisher=Univ. of Tennessee Press|year=1998|isbn=9780939923687|pages=[https://archive.org/details/serpentswananima00saxb/page/71 71]|url=https://archive.org/details/serpentswananima00saxb/page/71}}</ref>

[[Lewis Carroll]]'s [[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]] includes [[Caterpillar (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)|the Caterpillar]] as a character. When Alice comments on the caterpillar's inevitable transformation into a butterfly, the caterpillar champions the position that in spite of changes it is still possible to know something, and that Alice is the same Alice at the beginning and end of a considerable interval.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Behind the Looking Glass|author=Sherry Ackerman|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|year=2009|isbn=9781443804561|page=103}}</ref>