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 11
... woman question ' , but the mixture of elements in the figurative bird means that at different times different configurations emerge , complicating the ' woman question ' with both issues of power relations and major shifts in the very ...
... woman question ' , but the mixture of elements in the figurative bird means that at different times different configurations emerge , complicating the ' woman question ' with both issues of power relations and major shifts in the very ...
Page 14
... woman ( Susan Barton ) and the enslaved black ( Friday ) : in the former the woman's tongue is appropriated by the male writer and her story made exotic and tempting ; in the latter the tongue is cut out alto- gether . Mutilation means ...
... woman ( Susan Barton ) and the enslaved black ( Friday ) : in the former the woman's tongue is appropriated by the male writer and her story made exotic and tempting ; in the latter the tongue is cut out alto- gether . Mutilation means ...
Page 19
... woman — Patricia Klindiest Joplin , ' The Voice of the Shut- tle Is Ours ' . Each interpretation can be accused of omission— Hartman of the voice of woman ; Joplin of that of art ; both per- haps of history — but it is testimony to ...
... woman — Patricia Klindiest Joplin , ' The Voice of the Shut- tle Is Ours ' . Each interpretation can be accused of omission— Hartman of the voice of woman ; Joplin of that of art ; both per- haps of history — but it is testimony to ...
Page 20
... ( woman ) , for if Philomela's rape transforms her into her sister's rival , it also points to a duplication of roles : both are possessed by Tereus , Philomela sends and Procne receives the woven message which lays bare the truth of ...
... ( woman ) , for if Philomela's rape transforms her into her sister's rival , it also points to a duplication of roles : both are possessed by Tereus , Philomela sends and Procne receives the woven message which lays bare the truth of ...
Page 21
... woman's weaving at the centre of the plot , on the ' the voice of the shuttle ' , omits the ambiguity of an art which is gendered and thus caught up itself in the power structures of its society14 and leads to a silencing of Joplin's ...
... woman's weaving at the centre of the plot , on the ' the voice of the shuttle ' , omits the ambiguity of an art which is gendered and thus caught up itself in the power structures of its society14 and leads to a silencing of Joplin's ...
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