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
... hoopoe , Procne , a nightingale , Philomela , a swallow , and Itys , a goldfinch . Philomela's Loss The philomel moment of English poetry is ... the postprophetic moment , when the theme of loss merges with that of voice — when , in ...
... hoopoe , Procne , a nightingale , Philomela , a swallow , and Itys , a goldfinch . Philomela's Loss The philomel moment of English poetry is ... the postprophetic moment , when the theme of loss merges with that of voice — when , in ...
Page 22
... hoopoe is associated with treachery , the tongueless swallow chatters around the eaves of houses , warning women of masculine betrayal , the goldfinch comes to signify the maternal breast in the iconography of me- dieval paintings of ...
... hoopoe is associated with treachery , the tongueless swallow chatters around the eaves of houses , warning women of masculine betrayal , the goldfinch comes to signify the maternal breast in the iconography of me- dieval paintings of ...
Page 24
... hoopoe , the nightingale and swallow are migratory birds.30 Such birds , in their sudden and almost magical reappearance in spring , attract particular attention in those cultures which are dependent on the cycle of the seasons , and ...
... hoopoe , the nightingale and swallow are migratory birds.30 Such birds , in their sudden and almost magical reappearance in spring , attract particular attention in those cultures which are dependent on the cycle of the seasons , and ...
Page 28
... hoopoe and the nightingale ... remember their human stories , but no bitterness remains in their hearts.40 But the comedy of The Birds is rooted in a bitter reality and its riotous laughter conceals a sharp edge at the expense of ...
... hoopoe and the nightingale ... remember their human stories , but no bitterness remains in their hearts.40 But the comedy of The Birds is rooted in a bitter reality and its riotous laughter conceals a sharp edge at the expense of ...
Page 229
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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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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