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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 83
Page 11
... desire , or a masculine fear of and simulta- neous fascination with sensuality — though this is part of its signifi- cance . Nightingales were associated with poetry long before the Renaissance — and in Mechthild's poem the associations ...
... desire , or a masculine fear of and simulta- neous fascination with sensuality — though this is part of its signifi- cance . Nightingales were associated with poetry long before the Renaissance — and in Mechthild's poem the associations ...
Page 29
... desire should draw its title from a line by Sappho41 which presents erotic love in terms of ' the bittersweet ' , always pursued and never achieved . Sappho's other love poetry expresses the same ambiguous mixture of sadness and joy ...
... desire should draw its title from a line by Sappho41 which presents erotic love in terms of ' the bittersweet ' , always pursued and never achieved . Sappho's other love poetry expresses the same ambiguous mixture of sadness and joy ...
Page 36
... desire . As a vigorous daytime singer , a male bird which actively interacts with the human world , the nightingale of oral verse is almost a mirror image of the lamenting Philomela . This difference reflects differ- ent class ...
... desire . As a vigorous daytime singer , a male bird which actively interacts with the human world , the nightingale of oral verse is almost a mirror image of the lamenting Philomela . This difference reflects differ- ent class ...
Page 39
... , they seem unable to achieve a secure place and a separate literature from which and with which they can counter the almost physical desire for classical texts which ,. Christian Nightingales : The Sacred to the Erotic 39.
... , they seem unable to achieve a secure place and a separate literature from which and with which they can counter the almost physical desire for classical texts which ,. Christian Nightingales : The Sacred to the Erotic 39.
Page 40
Gender, Class and Histories Jeni Williams. counter the almost physical desire for classical texts which , in their ... desires to sing like the spring bird , implicitly comparing the voices of poem and nightingale ( ales ) , a ...
Gender, Class and Histories Jeni Williams. counter the almost physical desire for classical texts which , in their ... desires to sing like the spring bird , implicitly comparing the voices of poem and nightingale ( ales ) , a ...
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 |
Other editions - View all
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