A Twenty-Firet Century Griffin: Wescott, Roger W.: The Divine Animal. New York:  Funk and Wagnalls, 1969,  xii + 340 pp.

Roger Wescott has written a mythology of man in many “languages.” Some of his language is poetic, some scientific, and some is delightfully his own invention. The product is a novel kind of poem-essay that makes its contributions to literature, psychology, and linguistics. The Divine Animal places man in relation to the other animals, and compares him to a twenty-first century Griffin, Wescott's perfectly adapted animal. Here, Everyman's Strength and Wisdom are seen as his obsolete adaptations, and the ever-faithful Good Deeds his pedomorphic properties.

Wescott summarizes his thesis in the following:

“The Divine Animal… is neither a history of man nor an anatomization of his works. It is rather a vision of humanity—man past, or passing, or to come: at best, perhaps, a poem, and at worst a dream …

Because this is in a sense a book about its author, it is also a book about its readers—and about all those who have ever dreamed of writing books or thought of reading them. It is a drama of ideas, whose hero is man, its stage the biosphere, and its goal the reclamation of the alienated life in each of us. Its aim is to call us back to ourselves.” (p. 13)