Interpreting Nightingales: Gender, Class and HistoriesA&C Black, 1997 M07 1 - 299 pages The poetic nightingale is so familiar it seems hardly to merit serious attention. Yet its ubiquity is significant, suggesting associations with erotic love, pathos and art that cross culture and history. This book examines the different nightingales of European literature, starting with the Greek myth of Philomela, the raped girl, silenced by having her tongue cut out, and then transformed into the bird whose name means poet, poetry and nightingale simultaneously. Moving from the classical to the Christian worlds, Jeni Williams discusses nightingales and nature in the early church and sees the emergence of the figure as an emotive emblem of the aristocracy in mediaeval vernacular debate poetry. Her final chapters use the nightingale and the myth to examine Elizabeth Barrett Browning's struggle for an active female voice in Victorian poetry. |
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Page 16
... Procne , in marriage . After several years and the birth of a son , Itys , Procne yearns to see her sister , Philomela , again and Tereus travels to Athens to bring her back . But on the homeward journey , he takes her to a wood , rapes ...
... Procne , in marriage . After several years and the birth of a son , Itys , Procne yearns to see her sister , Philomela , again and Tereus travels to Athens to bring her back . But on the homeward journey , he takes her to a wood , rapes ...
Page 17
... Procne ( the two daughters of the king of Athens ) thus emerges from an Athens destabilized both politically , by protracted war , and ideologically , by the ques- tioning and doubt of fifth - century rational philosophy and the ...
... Procne ( the two daughters of the king of Athens ) thus emerges from an Athens destabilized both politically , by protracted war , and ideologically , by the ques- tioning and doubt of fifth - century rational philosophy and the ...
Page 20
... Procne . In this context Philomela's rape is not an isolated act of violence , for it is incestuous at the same time as it is adulterous , and it leads to further distortions , the accumu- lated violations turning in on Tereus's own ...
... Procne . In this context Philomela's rape is not an isolated act of violence , for it is incestuous at the same time as it is adulterous , and it leads to further distortions , the accumu- lated violations turning in on Tereus's own ...
Page 26
... Procne , both her body and her voice are violated . The boundaries of the Greek community were defined through language : those outside the civilized world were barbarians and , like Philomela , they babbled as incomprehensibly as ...
... Procne , both her body and her voice are violated . The boundaries of the Greek community were defined through language : those outside the civilized world were barbarians and , like Philomela , they babbled as incomprehensibly as ...
Page 27
... Procne / Philomela , transformed into the night- ingale , sings from a place outside society though her voice refers to the tragedies within it , so Oedipus too may leave the past behind , no longer the scapegoat for his manipulative ...
... Procne / Philomela , transformed into the night- ingale , sings from a place outside society though her voice refers to the tragedies within it , so Oedipus too may leave the past behind , no longer the scapegoat for his manipulative ...
Contents
| 7 | |
| 9 | |
| 16 | |
| 34 | |
Medieval English Nightingales | 75 |
Victorian Nightingales | 142 |
Barrett Browning among the Nightingales | 169 |
Nightingales in Classical Literature | 226 |
Christian Latin Poems | 236 |
Notes | 247 |
Bibliography | 284 |
Index of Names and Titles | 294 |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic Alcuin ambiguity appears argument aristocratic Aristophanes associated attempts Aurora Leigh Barrett Browning Barrett Browning's Bianca bird boundaries C.S. Lewis Caterina century chapter Chaucer chivalric Christian classical conflict courtly critics Cuckoo cultural daisy debate defined denies desire discussion disruption Elizabeth Barrett Browning emblematic English erotic expressed female feminine figure Floure Flower Fulbert of Chartres gender genre Greek harmony hoopoe human identity ideology individual ingale Knight's Tale Lady language Latin Leaf Leaf company literature Lost Bower lover lyric male masculine medieval medieval literature Mermin narrator natural world night nightin nightingale Ovid passion past patterns Patterson Paulus Albarus Pecham's Philomela myth poem poet poetic voice points political Procne reader references relation religious repression role secular sexual significance silence social song Sophocles space speak stanza structure symbolic Tereus textual Thrush tion trans University Press verse victim Victorian poetry woman women writing