Nightingale: Ecology and History
To truly understand the significance of the function of the nightingale in Romantic poetry, it’s necessary to look at its history with not only the English, but the contemporary world at the time of the eighteenth century, and the ecological explanations on why this particular, yet incredibly common, bird was chosen as the poetic token for the Romantic era.
In the eighteenth century, Not much was understood about this common migratory Old World bird; in fact at the time no one understood where this 6 ½ inch long bird traveled to during the winter months; what was known was that the birds always returned, without fail, to England in mid-April (McKusick 37). According to James McKusick in The Return of the Nightingale, there were two prime theories on where these birds went: one was that the birds migrated somewhere to the south; the second theory was, that instead of migrating, the birds hibernate- but where it was not clear (37). Some believed the birds found homes in hollowed trees, and brushes near lakes; only recently nightingales have been tracked migrating 3,000 miles to West Africa.
In ancient Greek, the word “nightingale” translates into “poet” or “night singer”- which plays particular significance to the bird itself, not only in actual life but in poetic representation as well. The nightingale is known as being a nocturnal creature, but they are known to sing both at night and during the day; each nightingale’s song is distinct, no two nightingale’s song is ever alike; the melody is completely individualized and differs day-to -day, moment to moment, based on a particular spontaneous mood or feeling (McKusick 34). What is important to note, however, is that only the male nightingale...
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...ne of a host of contradictions that outline Keats’s poem.
Like “On the Departure of the Nightingale”, the flight of the bird also symbolizes the removal of the song, and the loss of the creative force for the poet; the nightingale is free to escape from a world of decay and death, while the poet is forced to suffer in it.
Works Cited
Doggett, Frank. "Romanticism's Singing Bird." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 14 (Autumn, 1974): 547-61.
Feldman, Paula R. British women poets of the Romantic era: an anthology. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 2000. 68, 683.
McKusick, James C. "The Return of the Nightingale." The Wordsworth Circle 38 (Winter/ Spring 2007): 34-38.
Whiting, George W. "Charlotte Smith, Keats, and the Nightingale." Keats-Shelley Association of America 12 (Winter, 1963): 4-8.
Whenever the narrator questions the Raven on when his deceased love will return, or when he will stop grieving, the Raven responds with the repeated word “Nevermore” (Poe 102). The bird’s incessant reminders signify that since Lenore’s death is eternal, the narrator’s consequent anguish from it must be as well, which is why the narrator is incapable to ever recover from the Raven’s words on his loss. For, this leaves an everlasting impression on the narrator, prompting him to demand the bird, “‘Take thy beak out of my heart’” (Poe 101). In this metaphor, the author alludes that the Raven’s ‘beak’ is the words it is saying to the narrator, and the ‘heart’ is not representative of the narrator’s physical heart, because the bird is not physically attacking the speaker, but is making him aware of his eternal loss and irreversibly breaking him down emotionally. Therefore, Poe’s use of repetition and metaphor aid him in expressing the loss induced anguish of the
The tile of the poem “Bird” is simple and leads the reader smoothly into the body of the poem, which is contained in a single stanza of twenty lines. Laux immediately begins to describe a red-breasted bird trying to break into her home. She writes, “She tests a low branch, violet blossoms/swaying beside her” and it is interesting to note that Laux refers to the bird as being female (Laux 212). This is the first clue that the bird is a symbol for someone, or a group of people (women). The use of a bird in poetry often signifies freedom, and Laux’s use of the female bird implies female freedom and independence. She follows with an interesting image of the bird’s “beak and breast/held back, claws raking at the pan” and this conjures a mental picture of a bird who is flying not head first into a window, but almost holding herself back even as she flies forward (Laux 212). This makes the bird seem stubborn, and follows with the theme of the independent female.
Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy on May 12, 1820. Even in her early life, Florence would find it necessary to help the sick people in her community. As the years went on Florence realized nursing was her future because it was her divine purpose. Her parents were not enthused by her plans to become a nurse and even prohibit her to pursue nursing. It was frowned upon in this time period of a woman with her social background to become a nurse. It was actually in the rights for her to marry a man of means, but when Florence was seventeen she declined to marry the man who offered her hand in marriage. She had her reasons for not accepting the proposal, she new she did not have time for a marriage at this time in her life. Despite the disapproval from her parents Florence set out to chase her dreams of becoming a nurse and enrolled as a nursing student at the Lutheran Hospital of Pastor Fliedner in Kaiserswerth, Germany.
Sarah Orne Jewett’s “The White Heron” is a timely piece that depicts the struggle between nature and civilization, between the wild and the modern. The bright, beautiful forests and waters of Northern New England clash with the modern scientific advancements of man. Within her story, she describes a young girl named Sylvie whom is very closely connected with nature itself, grow up in the New England countryside far away from other people, even being described as, “afraid of folks” (670). One of her only friends is a cow named Mistress Moolly, and she often submerges herself within the delicate yet intriguing wildlife around her home. She loves being one with nature and she has even become seriously familiar with the lay of the land as well as most if not
As a way to end his last stanza, the speaker creates an image that surpasses his experiences. When the flock rises, the speaker identifies it as a lady’s gray silk scarf, which the woman has at first chosen, then rejected. As the woman carelessly tosses the scarf toward the chair the casual billow fades from view, like the birds. The last image connects nature with a last object in the poet's
Mrs. Hale: “No, Wright wouldn’t like the bird – a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that too” (Glaspell 1393).
In Dickinson’s Hope is a thing with feathers she describes the bird to be singing, or chirping, constantly but ever so sweetly. The bird is a metaphor for hope but how the bird is described
In a Laustic, the birds are depicted here as being joyful, sweet but the married wife uses a nightingale to send out messages to her loved one. The usage of the nightingale suggests that she does not know the joys of the world, that she has been unfortunate to be relieved of pain. A nightingale usually symbolizes yearning and pain and in Christianity it symbolizes longing for heaven. In which case would be the love she holds for another.
Sound carries different moods, and in the poem it carries the beauty of thriving nature. “Swallows circling with their shimmering sound;” (2) gives off a bright tone of swallows dancing with content. When speaking about robins, the author mentions the birds go “Whistling their whims on a low-fence wire;” (6), seemingly without a care. The birds find freedom and joy in their utopia
In Laurence Dunbar’s poem, “Sympathy” he points out the lifestyle of a caged bird and the bird’s desire for freedom. For example, Dunbar neglects in the second stanza, “I know why the caged bird beats his wing… Till it’s blood is red on the cruel bars.” The caged bird has to stay in his cage when he could be perched on a swinging tree branch. The sights the caged bird sees
The story of this poem is about a man who is sitting in his home pondering the time that he had shared with the woman he loved, Lenore. While he is sitting in his throne of depression, he hears a knocking at his door, and when he opens it, nothing but darkness is there to greet him. Thinking that it is the wind, he sits down and continues to miss his lady until he hears the knocking again, only louder this time. Instead of reopening the door he opens the window, and as he does, in flies a raven. The raven takes perch above the door and sits gazing at the narrator who is very relieved that it was only a bird. Now somewhat at ease the narrator begins to talk to the bird and to his surprise, the bird talks back. Obviously wanting to have a conversation
Lines 29-32, The author now dwelling on the world being a bad place, where beauty and love vanish after a short period of time. He also discusses how he want to get away and need to come up with a plan to join the nightingale.
The Old English story “Yonec”, written by Marie De France portrays how love and symbolism can be displayed through a woman and a bird. “Yonec” is astonishing love story, because the woman was sent a knight to love and cherish her, yet devastating because knight died for their love. The woman in “Yonec” desired to be loved and was distraught that she had been constrained to a tower, and was saddened about her life and spoke of how “knights would find maidens to their liking, noble and beautiful, and ladies found lovers who were handsome and courtly and valiant” (de France 96- 99). Right after that moment of expressing her melancholic feelings, a hawk flew through the window and transformed into a handsome knight whose name was Muldumarec. The
Keats, John. "Ode to a Nightingale." Romanticism: An Anthology. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. 1058-1060.
The least realistic story explaining the development of Valentine’s Day involves birds. However, one of the most recognized symbols of Valentine’s Day is a lovebird. “Geoffrey Chaucer, an English poet of the 1300’s, wrote in The Parliament of Fowls, “For this was on St. Valen...