''The Pig War'' (original Latin title: '' Pugna Porcorum'') is a Latin

poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

written by John Placentius ( Jan Leo Struyven), a

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

Dominican

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the ...

, under the pseudonym ''Publius Porcius''. The text was first printed in Antwerp in

1530 Year 1530 ( MDXXX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar, the 1530th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 530th year of the 2nd millennium, the 3 ...

. The poem consists of 248

dactylic hexameter Dactylic hexameter (also known as heroic hexameter and the meter of epic) is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The scheme of the hexameter is usually as follows (writing – for a long syllable ...

s, every single word of them beginning with the letter ''p''. As such, the poem is a tautogram. The poem is a satirical epic telling of an intergenerational conflict between the corrupt hogs (''porci'' in Latin), who are hogging all the privileges, and the piglets (''porcelli''), who want in on them. Their conflict devolves into open war, and the poet uses pigs to allegorize human corruption, conflict, and revolutionary violence in a simple and transparent way.

''Paraclesis pro Potore''
''Perlege porcorum pulcherrima proelia, Potor,''
''Potando poteris placidam proferre poesin.'' ''A Summons to the Drinker''
Peruse the pigs' glorious battles, my drinker!
Drinking lets you produce placid poetry.
— John Placentius, epigraph to ''The Pig War''

Publication and reception history

''The'' ''Pig War'' started out as a satire of student life in Leuven and was initially meant for a local audience in Catholic Belgium but, soon after being published, it also achieved popularity in Germany and elsewhere. Placentius revised and reissued his book in

1533 __NOTOC__ Year 1533 ( MDXXXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events January–June * January 25 – King Henry VIII of England formally but secretly marrie ...

. In the late 19th century, English literary journals periodically rediscovered ''The Pig War'', and it is possible that, in the 20th century, George Orwell knew or knew of it when he set out to write ''

Animal Farm ''Animal Farm'' is a beast fable, in the form of satirical allegorical novella, by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. It tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to c ...

'', an allegorical novella with many similarities with ''The Pig War''. A new edition of ''The Pig War'' by Michael Fontaine appeared in 2019, published by the Paideia Institute Press and accompanied by an English translation. In 2021, Sebastian Maskell Andersen translated the poem into Danish. In 2021, the Dutch write
Gerard Stout
adapted ''The Pig War'' into a chapter of his novel ''Joseph: boetprediker: E.J. Potgieter opnieuw gelezen''.

References

External links

Text of ''Pugnae Porcorum''
on Google Books. Latin poems 16th-century Latin books Satirical poems Narrative poems Constrained writing Pigs in literature {{poem-stub