Read complete books and articles on: Birds in Literature

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: Birds in Literature

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Birds in Literature » Read Now
by Leonard Lutwack. 286 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Although they are as commonplace as our backyards, birds remain wild, unpossessed by humans, living "beside us, but alone", as Matthew Arnold observes and as Leonard Lutwack explores in this study of the depiction of birds in literature. The very attributes that make birds so familiar - their flight...
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Although they are as commonplace as our backyards, birds remain wild, unpossessed by humans, living "beside us, but alone", as Matthew Arnold observes and as Leonard Lutwack explores in this study of the depiction of birds in literature. The very attributes that make birds so familiar - their flight and song - retain an air of mystery that sets them apart from other animals. They appear to exist effortlessly in a state of mixed animal and spiritual being that humans long to attain. This simultaneous familiarity and transcendence gives birds a wide range of meaning in the works that Luwack describes. His examples - both expected and surprising - come in some measure from Greco-Roman writers but primarily from the poetry and prose of American and British writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Lutwack divides his material into five sections: birds in poetry and as metaphor, including the classical nightingale and the swan and the birds of such poets as Dickinson, Whitman, and Stevens; birds and the,supernatural, including ancient beliefs in birds as images and disguised gods as well as some interesting modern revivals of bird-gods - the quetzal in Lawrence, the crow in Ted Hughes, and the hawk in Jeffers; birds that are trapped, hunted, or killed in sacrifice, such as Coleridge's albatross, Ibsen's wild duck, Chekhov's seagull, and Kosinski's painted bird; birds and the erotic, with special emphasis on Lawrence's juxtaposition of birds and lovers, the association of white birds with chastity, and the traditional identification of women with docile birds and men with raptors; and a section on literature and the future of birds that includes strategies for dealing with theincreasing threat to real birds posed by humans. Literature has made and must continue to make the reading public sensitive to nature, Lutwack writes, and literary birds may prove to be our best link to it.
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2.

Aristophanes, Birds » Read Now
by Nan Dunbar. 542 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Birds is generally recognized as one of Aristophanes' masterpieces, for its imaginative plot (it is the source of the word "Cloudcuckooland"), and its charming and original lyrics. This abridgement of Nan Dunbar's widely acclaimed edition of Birds, published in 1995, preserves all the material...
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Birds is generally recognized as one of Aristophanes' masterpieces, for its imaginative plot (it is the source of the word "Cloudcuckooland"), and its charming and original lyrics. This abridgement of Nan Dunbar's widely acclaimed edition of Birds, published in 1995, preserves all the material designed to help the less advanced student of Greek or the non-specialist to translate, understand, and enjoy the play. It also retains the notes on staging, but the metrical, textual, and ornithological problems are dealt with more summarily, and purely illustrative parallels are omitted.
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3.

The Birds' Christmas Carol: Dramatic Version (1914) » Read Now
by Kate Douglas Wiggin, Helen Ingersoll. 106 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...CAROL A PLAY The Birds Christmas Carol...Kate Douglas Wiggin In collaboration with...ACT II. Some Other Birds are taught to fly Christmas Day in the Ruggles...
4.

The Little White Bird (1913) » Read Now
by J. M. Barrie. 290 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...of London were once birds in the Kensington Gardens...you will see the birds boarding it and hopping...from pillow to blanket in a twitter of excitement...names, not...
5.

The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts (1911) » Read Now
by Maurice Maeterlinck, Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. 278 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...one that can live in the light of day...here, among the blue birds of the dreams that...me! ... Darting in among the birds . You can catch them...But already the birds...
6.

The Betrothal: A Sequel to the Blue Bird (1918) » Read Now
by Maurice Maeterlinck, Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. 222 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...each of you sought is waiting for you by your own fire side, in your own home, or at least will be there very soon.... So do...The hour grows late; soon the cocks will be...
7.

The Nightingale » Read Now
by Hans Christian Andersen, Eva Le Gallienne, Nancy Ekholm Burkert. 37 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...Nightingale sang in her own free way, while the artificial birds song was stilted...better of the two birds!" they said. So the...music master was loud in his praise of...
8.

The Bird Who Cleans the World and Other Mayan Fables » Read Now
by Victor Montejo, Wallace Kaufman. 130 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
9.

How the King of Birds Was Chosen: And Other Mayan Folk Tales, in International Wildlife » Read Now
by Anne LaBastille. 6 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...and appreciation. Long ago, in Maya Land, flowers, birds, trees, butterflies and mammals...chatter and fighting among the birds. At a meeting in the center of the forest...
10.

How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers: A Manual of Flornithology for Beginners (1917) » Read Now
by Robert Williams Wood. 49 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...Storks, and Phlox of birds. With some explanatory...strange homologies Are in most flornithologies...Cat-nip. The Cat-birds call resembles that...And throws them in...
11.

Innocent Merriment: An Anthology of Light Verse (1945) ("Ode to the Nightingale" begins on p. 277) » Read Now
by Franklin P. Adams. 523 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...melody of woodland birds is stirring in the air; The river...splendor dazzles in vain! Oh, give me...cottage again! The birds singing gaily that...Low eaves, where birds...
12.

Keats's Ode to a Nightingale, in Explicator » Read Now
by Charlsie Bray Park. 3 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...vintage! that hath been Coold a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora...sonnet stanza (Bate 496). With the odes, in a way, he did. Basically, he took a...
13.

The Thrush and the Nightingale, in Explicator » Read Now
by R. T. Lambdin. 4 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...Nightingale" (c. 1200). It may be seen that in the conclusion of "The Thrush and the Nightingale...Her theses, that women are kind, good in bed, and make good companions...
14.

The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems (1917) » Read Now
by Vachel Lindsay. 127 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...the lightning ran. Love-cries with the birds she sung, Birdlike In the grape-vine swung. The Forest, arching...Heavens mass is sung, Tomorrows mass is sung In a spirit...
15.

Messenger of Spring and Morality: Cuckoo Lore in Chinese Sources, in The Journal of the American Oriental Society » Read Now
by C.M. Lai. 13 pgs.

Collections: History, Literature, Entire Library

...also maps of distributional ranges for many of the birds. Chengs first list in 1947 was revised in 1976, recording 1166 species...representations. Early textual sources...
16.

Avian Identification of Jiu in the Shijing, in The Journal of the American Oriental Society » Read Now
by C.M. Lai. 3 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...avian images in ancient literature is a challenge. In the Shijing it is virtually...nine," the sense "nine birds," because the left...metaphorical power of jiu in Chinese...