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 40
Page 13
... tion of the symbol of that love by their particular genres . In a thirteenth - century debate poem the nightingale's association with the poetry and values of a refined aristocracy is set against the pedantic cleric figured by her ...
... tion of the symbol of that love by their particular genres . In a thirteenth - century debate poem the nightingale's association with the poetry and values of a refined aristocracy is set against the pedantic cleric figured by her ...
Page 14
... the form of silencing differs in terms of overt and covert coercion . A more direct reference seems indicated in The World according to Garp a text which significantly examines the American polariza- tion. 14 Interpreting Nightingales.
... the form of silencing differs in terms of overt and covert coercion . A more direct reference seems indicated in The World according to Garp a text which significantly examines the American polariza- tion. 14 Interpreting Nightingales.
Page 15
... tion of gender identity — in which a girl who has been raped and has had her tongue cut out becomes the centre of a cult whose followers cut out their own tongues and move to live by the boundary of the sea . These texts seem a long way ...
... tion of gender identity — in which a girl who has been raped and has had her tongue cut out becomes the centre of a cult whose followers cut out their own tongues and move to live by the boundary of the sea . These texts seem a long way ...
Page 23
... tion of looms and lyres on vase paintings show structural similar- ities both between the stringed ' instruments ' and between their respective tools , shuttle and plectrum , a similarity which is ex- ploited in representation.26 In ...
... tion of looms and lyres on vase paintings show structural similar- ities both between the stringed ' instruments ' and between their respective tools , shuttle and plectrum , a similarity which is ex- ploited in representation.26 In ...
Page 30
... tion on a personal level : the purified voice of pastoral lament speaking self - reflexively of the loss of the perfect poetic voice . Violation and reconstitution thus form a shadowy backdrop to the elegy and it is unsurprising that ...
... tion on a personal level : the purified voice of pastoral lament speaking self - reflexively of the loss of the perfect poetic voice . Violation and reconstitution thus form a shadowy backdrop to the elegy and it is unsurprising that ...
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