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
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Page 14
... Nightingale in Poetry ' ( though he really meant canonical Euro- pean and English verse ) . This book will draw ... nightingale is the same — aedon ) ; and between sensuality and the coming of Spring ( the migratory nightingale ...
... Nightingale in Poetry ' ( though he really meant canonical Euro- pean and English verse ) . This book will draw ... nightingale is the same — aedon ) ; and between sensuality and the coming of Spring ( the migratory nightingale ...
Page 15
... nightingale . Looking for the roots of his poetry , the Anglo - Welsh poet Leslie Norris chooses to turn to the nightingale as a figure for both his own childhood and his verse . As a modern Romantic it is fitting that he takes on the ...
... nightingale . Looking for the roots of his poetry , the Anglo - Welsh poet Leslie Norris chooses to turn to the nightingale as a figure for both his own childhood and his verse . As a modern Romantic it is fitting that he takes on the ...
Page 23
... nightingale ( ' Pandarus's daughter'25 ) ( see p . 226 ) . The depic- tion of looms and lyres on vase paintings show structural similar- ities both between the stringed ' instruments ' and between their respective tools , shuttle and ...
... nightingale ( ' Pandarus's daughter'25 ) ( see p . 226 ) . The depic- tion of looms and lyres on vase paintings show structural similar- ities both between the stringed ' instruments ' and between their respective tools , shuttle and ...
Page 24
... nightingale's mourning of a dead boy is significant . Like the 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 ...
... nightingale's mourning of a dead boy is significant . Like the 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 ...
Page 25
... nightingale is attacked by a powerful male hawk : in the former the bird is pierced by the talons of a vicious predator who drags her out of her element ; in the latter the nightingale's status as a mother bird is reinforced as the hawk ...
... nightingale is attacked by a powerful male hawk : in the former the bird is pierced by the talons of a vicious predator who drags her out of her element ; in the latter the nightingale's status as a mother bird is reinforced as the hawk ...
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