Animals in Literature Pretty Little Cages Songbirds and
Animals in Literature Pretty Little Cages: Songbirds and Freedom from Chaucer to Skelton Brendan O’Connell 14 Feb 2017
Chaucer, The Parliament of Fowls (c. 1380 -82) Probably written during the negotiations around the marriage of Richard II to Anne of Bohemia (m. 1382) Centres on a debate about which of three noble eagles the female eagle should choose One of the earliest Valentine’s Day poems
Chaucer, The Parliament of Fowls, 309 -15 For this was on Seynte Valentynes day, Whan every foul cometh there to chese his make, Of every kynde that men thynke may, And that so huge a noyse gan they make That erthe, and eyr, and tre, and every lake So ful was that unethe was there space For me to stonde, so ful was al the place.
Birds and Humans [Birds] can be permitted to resemble men for the very reason that they are so different. They are feathered, winged, oviparous, and they are also physically separated from human society by the element in which it is their privilege to move. As a result of this fact, they form a community which is independent of our own but, precisely because of this independence, appears to us like another society, homologous to that in which we live: birds love their freedom; they build themselves homes in which they live a family life and nurture their young; they often engage in social relations with other members of their species; and they communicate with them by acoustic means recalling articulated language. Claude Levi Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago, 1966), p. 204
Why the caged bird sings I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, When he beats his bars and would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings – I know why the caged bird sings Paul Laurence Dunbar, ‘Sympathy’
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy (AD 523) Massively influential: translated by Alfred the Great (? ), Geoffrey Chaucer, Elizabeth I Written towards the end of his life, while he in prison awaiting execution Lady Philosophy reminds him that all created things seek to fulfil their own nature Provides examples of nature asserting itself: the tamed lion, the caged bird
Boethius: the caged bird sees the wood And the janglynge brid that syngeth on the heghe braunches (that is to seyn, in the wode), and after is enclosed in a streyte cage, althoughe that the pleyinge bysynes of men yeveth [hym] honyed drynkes and large metes with swete studye, yit natheles yif thilke bryd skippynge out of hir streyte cage seith the agreables schadwes of the wodes, sche defouleth with hir feet hir metes ischad, and seketh mornynge oonly the wode, and twytereth desyrynge the wode with hir swete voys. Chaucer, Boece, III. m. 2, 21 -31
Chaucer, The Manciple’s Tale Last of the Canterbury Tales told in verse Tale of the Crow, adapted from Ovid’s Metamorphoses Phebus Apollo, god of eloquence, jealously guards his wife Keeps a snow-white crow with a beautiful singing voice and the ability to mimic human speech
Chaucer, The Manciple’s Tale, 130 -35 Now hadde this Phebus in his hous a crowe Which in a cage he fostred many a day, ‘One could scarcely find a better way of summing up Chaucer’s own method in the Tales. ’ And taughte it speken, as men teche a jay. Whit was this crowe as is a snow-whit swan, And countrefete the speche of every man He koude, whan he sholde telle a tale. Helen Cooper, The Structure of ‘The Canterbury Tales (Athens, GA, 1983), p. 238.
Chaucer, The Manciple’s Tale, 163 -71 (The Manciple compares Apollo’s wife to a caged bird) But God it woot, ther may no man embrace As to distreyne* a thyng which that nature *restrain Hath natureely set in a creature. Taak any bryd, and put it in a cage, And do al thyn entente and thy corage* *vigour To fostre it tendrely with mete and drynke Of alle deyntees that thou kanst bithynke, And keep it al so clenly as thou may, Although his cage of gold be never so gay, Yet hath this brid, by twenty thousand foold, Levere* in a forest that is rude and coold Goon eten wormes and swich wrecchednesse. *Rather
Chaucer, The Manciple’s Tale, 240 -43 (The crow witnesses the wife’s infidelity and sings ‘Cuckoo’! when Apollo returns) The white crow, that heeng ay in the cage, Beheeld hire werk, and seyde never a word. And whan that hoom was come Phebus, the lord, This crowe sang ‘Cokkow!’
Chaucer, The Manciple’s Tale, 248 -56 ‘By God’, quod he, ‘I synge nat amys. Phebus, ’ quod he, ‘for al thy worthynesse, For al thy beautee and thy gentilesse, For al thy song and al thy mynstralcye, For al thy waiting*, blered is thyn ye* watching / blinded is your eye With oon of litel reputacioun, Noght worth to thee, as in comparisoun, The montance of* a gnat, so moote I thryve! For on thy bed thy wyf I saugh hym swyve. ’ (i. e. as much as)
Chaucer, The Manciple’s Tale, 292 -7 (Apollo punishes the crow for his tale) And to the crowe, ‘O false theef!’ seyde he, ‘I wol thee quite anon thy false tale. Thou songe whilom lyk a nyghtyngale; Now shaltow, false theef, thy song forgon, And eek thy white fetheres everichoon, Ne nevere in al thy lif ne shaltou speke. ’
The caged bird and the discourse of power ‘My sone, be war, and be noon auctor newe Of tidynges, wheither they been false or trewe. Whereso thou come, amonges hye or lowe, Kepe wel thy tonge and thenk upon the crowe. ’ Manciple’s Tale, 359 -62 Having admitted the problem of constrained speech, Chaucer’s tale decides against the bird and against freedom of expression… It appears that Chaucer did what he could to neutralize the fable’s potential for protest or resistance… Anabel Patterson, Fables of Power, p. 49
John Lydgate, The Churl and the Bird The ‘Monk of Bury’: c. 1370 – c. 1451 Deeply influenced by Chaucer The Churl and the Bird draws on Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s and Manciple’s tales Poem tells of a peasant who captures a bird he has heard singing in a tree and places her in ‘a praty litel cage’
Lydgate, The Churl and the Bird And though my cage forged were of gold, I am now take & stond undir daungeer, Holde streite, & I may not flee; Adieu my song & al my notis cleer Now I am thral, and sometime I was fre, And truust weel now I stonde in distresse, I can-nat syng, nor make no gladnesse. And the pynaclis of beral & cristall, I remember a proverbe seid of old, ‘Who lesith his fredam, in soth, he leseth all; For I have lever upon a braunche small, Meryly to syng among the woodis grene, Than in a cage of silver briht and shene. Song and prisoun have noon accordaunce, Trwistow I wole syngen in prisoun?
Lydgate and the political fable It seems inarguable to me that Lydgate established an English tradition of political fabling as a form of resistance to unjust power relations, which ran continuously alongside (or beneath) the more conventional and conservative notion that the content of fables was merely ethical, and that they could, therefore, serve as benign texts in the elementary education of children. Anabel Patterson, Fables of Power, p. 47
The Parliament of Birds (printed by Wynkyn de Worde, 1520 s) Insists on freedom to critique powerful, and bring complaints to the king (eagle) Complaints against the hawk, and against the crow in borrowed plumage Stripping of crow’s red feathers may allude to Cardinal Wolsey
The Parliament of Birds as attack on Cardinal Wolsey (1473 -1530)? ‘Then was plucked fro the crowe anone All his feders by one and by one, And lefte in blacke instede of reed. ’
John Skelton, Speke, Parott c. 1460 -1529 ‘Laureate Poet’ Huge animosity towards Wolsey ‘Speke Parott’ savagely satirises Wolsey and also skewers rote learning in contemporary humanist education
The Parrot The parrot is a bird found in India that can be taught to speak like a man. It learns better when it is young, but if it will not learn one must hit it over the head with an iron bar. It can say ave by nature, but must be taught all other words. Medieval Bestiary definition of parrot
Skelton, Speke, Parott The Parrot begins by speaking nonsensically, in an impenetrably coded critique of Wolsey Highlights danger of speaking truth to power Parott is persuaded to speak directly and offers a stinging and barely concealed critique Skelton here tests the limits of politically charged beast literature ‘Speke, Parott is a tour de force of vituperation directed against Cardinal Wolsey, in which the conceit of a truly talkative bird who is nevertheless a court pet and learns by rote permitted Skelton to encode some of his most violent accusations in a seemingly random medley of foreign tongues. ’ (Patterson, p. 49)
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