This is National Farm Animal Awareness Week, a good time for us to turn our attention to the literary place of various beasts of the barnyard.

Farm animals are important symbols for language lovers. For example, although swineherds consider hogs to be clean, smart, and friendly beasts, a look at literature suggests otherwise. John Stuart Mill believed, "It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied," and Mishima Yukio wrote, "My solitude grew more and more obese, like a pig."

The symbolic gluttony of pigs is matched by the meekness and stupidity of sheep. Aesop told the tale of the lamb who followed the wolf disguised in sheep's clothing, the Bible praises men as the sheep of God's hand, and Dostoyevsky described men "rejoic[ing] that they were again led like sheep."

The timidity of the gentle ruminants contrasts with the cocksureness, courage and virility symbolized by the strutting rooster. Anthony Trollope recalled "the cock who crowed louder in his own farmyard than anywhere else," and George Eliot made a comparison to a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.

Why do all these animals turn up in literature? Although all words can be considered symbolic, our barnyard friends have transcended their pens and their chicken wire and established a home in the field of metaphors, the motherland of language.