AARDVARK OR ADVISOR?

When you're thinking about texts from the middle east dating back to ancient times — however often that may be — it's pretty unlikely you'd suddenly find your mind drifting toward the overly colorful, simplistic children's cartoons of the twenty-first century. From Clifford the Big Red Dog to Curious George to Arthur, while they're certainly fun for the family, these kids' shows don't appear to have a place among the likes of long-standing Persian literary works, such as the tales of Kalila wa Dimna. But take a second look and the modern cartoon seems to sit, if not right next to these works, at least farther down the dinner table.

Take a look at this spinning wheel overviewing just some of the many similarities between Kalila wa Dimna and Arthur, one of the current biggest children's cartoons.

(Please let the carousels run on their own. Do not press the backward or forward arrows.)

From even just these matching categories, we can see how there is some sort of underlying connection between these old and new artistic creations. They are both colorful works teaching educational topics through short, loosely-connected stories that feature a cast of talking animals. In fact, you may have noticed this strangely specific yet oddly common description actually fits a number of kids' cartoons, including one I mentioned previously — Clifford the Big Red Dog and even its spin-off about Clifford's childhood.

Tales like Kalila wa Dimna, also known as the genre of mirror for princes, were written mostly for the benefit of rulers to improve their skills as a monarch. The short stories within Kalila are often presented as an answer to a specific tough situation a king might be in, but anyone reading through this text will find that a large number of them apply to everyday people, too. These texts left a gap that others, including educational cartoons, filled in. Shows like Arthur play the same role but just for kids instead, instructing them on the basics of the world instead of the intricacies of ruling. In a way, Arthur is a modern-day version of Kalila — an evolution of the genre.

The frame story of Kalila wa Dimna involves King Dabshalim asking a philosopher to advise him on how to better govern. Dabshalim asks for numerous different stories, each concerning a topic or conflict he expects to encounter as a ruler, and the philosopher replies with a tale that relates to that subject but imparts wisdom more indirectly instead of simply stating the moral (as opposed to a bestiary or fable, which are explicit about their themes).

Arthur is an aardvark. His character acts exactly like a human, but he is nonetheless an animal, which creates an interesting interaction with Kalila, where the educational stories use animal characters. But the cartoon Arthur, despite being led by an animal, does much the same; it places its large roster of anthropomorphic animals in various everyday situations and, through their actions, teaches children what is right and wrong.

Arthur (the character) is actually quite often not part of the episode's conflict. At times, the other characters interact around him while Arthur stands back as a spectator. Since we as an audience are pretty much looking into the show's world through Arthur's round, brown glasses, he is almost a parallel to Dabshalim's philosopher. We get our own advisor in the form of an animal character who sometimes takes part in the action but mainly helps to convey stories about improving yourself.