Citation

Matlock WA. J. Engl. Ger. Philol. 2010; 109(4): 446-467.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, University of Illinois Press)

DOI

10.1353/egp.2010.0015

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The Owl and the Nightingale is an anonymous Middle English poem that was probably composed in or around Kent in the thirteenth century. The poem recounts a puzzling series of verbal exchanges between an owl and a nightingale as overheard by an anonymous first-person narrator. The birds engage in an apparent contest of wits with unclear rules and no discernible purpose beyond the implicit desire to vanquish the other bird. Their discussion is wide-ranging and touches on subjects as diverse as love and marriage, asceticism and pleasure, religion and worship, housekeeping and childrearing. The contest, however, ultimately remains unresolved, and the poem endorses neither bird’s position. The exchange ends only when the two birds depart for Dorset where they plan to repeat their argument before Master Nicholas of Guildford, who they agree will be an excellent and impartial arbiter. Because the poem addresses myriad topics and lacks a final verdict, many critics have viewed the poem as a code or riddle and sought an interpretive key by treating the birds allegorically as polar opposites such as didactic and courtly poetry or wisdom and fleshly love. Some have even read the birds as personifications of historical individuals. No scholarly consensus has emerged, but critical efforts to define the point of the characters’ opposition demonstrate that the most striking feature of the poem is the birds’ antagonism, an antagonism that overshadows the specific arguments they make in the poem. Each mostly anthropomorphized bird thinks the other has wronged her, and their hostility frequently threatens to erupt into physical violence; however, just as the poem defers any resolution of their conflict, so it also continually defers violence. In its artful construction of a vehement dispute that avoids violence by appealing to legal devices and formal arbitration