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 17
... passion , violence and song . In particular it articulates the difficulties of women ( either erotic object or maternal figure , both defining the masculine principle ) , draws attention to the complex relationship between eroticism and ...
... passion , violence and song . In particular it articulates the difficulties of women ( either erotic object or maternal figure , both defining the masculine principle ) , draws attention to the complex relationship between eroticism and ...
Page 36
... passion of physical 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 ...
... passion of physical 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 ...
Page 44
... passion for men committed to institute rules and to control disruptive variation . Involved in a central role within the political state , Alcuin was equally concerned to bring order to the institution of the church through texts and ...
... passion for men committed to institute rules and to control disruptive variation . Involved in a central role within the political state , Alcuin was equally concerned to bring order to the institution of the church through texts and ...
Page 47
... Passion of Christ , is narrowed to an emotional identification with the Passion alone . As in the Carmen Paschale , her voice serves to illustrate the body of a material church ( itself increasingly conceptualized as the ' Bride of ...
... Passion of Christ , is narrowed to an emotional identification with the Passion alone . As in the Carmen Paschale , her voice serves to illustrate the body of a material church ( itself increasingly conceptualized as the ' Bride of ...
Page 48
... Passion of Christ.'34 When nature is used directly to express the human instead of providing the defining boundary of the political society ( as in the pastoral or the early Christian lyrics ) , it becomes the vehicle for fables , where ...
... Passion of Christ.'34 When nature is used directly to express the human instead of providing the defining boundary of the political society ( as in the pastoral or the early Christian lyrics ) , it becomes the vehicle for fables , where ...
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