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 45
Page 17
... structure . The Philomela myth fits into the latter pattern by emphasizing the power of passion , violence and song . In particular it articulates the difficulties of women ( either erotic object or maternal figure , both defining the ...
... structure . The Philomela myth fits into the latter pattern by emphasizing the power of passion , violence and song . In particular it articulates the difficulties of women ( either erotic object or maternal figure , both defining the ...
Page 18
... structure of meaning indicates that Philomela appears to lose her place in the defining structures of family or social grouping : she is neither married nor unmarried ; she is a rival to her own sister ; she is shut up in a forest hut ...
... structure of meaning indicates that Philomela appears to lose her place in the defining structures of family or social grouping : she is neither married nor unmarried ; she is a rival to her own sister ; she is shut up in a forest hut ...
Page 20
... structure of the myth , rather it investigates the relations between them . What is central is the defi- nite association of the nightingale with betrayed women and etry : the Greek word aedon is used for the bird , poet and poetry . In ...
... structure of the myth , rather it investigates the relations between them . What is central is the defi- nite association of the nightingale with betrayed women and etry : the Greek word aedon is used for the bird , poet and poetry . In ...
Page 21
... structures of its society14 and leads to a silencing of Joplin's own : that of the nightingale , of art . By trans- lating the vindictive oppositional frame she sees inscribed in social relations directly into the structure of the myth ...
... structures of its society14 and leads to a silencing of Joplin's own : that of the nightingale , of art . By trans- lating the vindictive oppositional frame she sees inscribed in social relations directly into the structure of the myth ...
Page 22
... structure but the very inscription of that myth points outwards to other readings and possibilities.17 The nightingale's voice in the woods is not the fearful voice of vio- lence , but the voice that commemorates the expulsion of each ...
... structure but the very inscription of that myth points outwards to other readings and possibilities.17 The nightingale's voice in the woods is not the fearful voice of vio- lence , but the voice that commemorates the expulsion of each ...
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