SOURCE: Hieatt, Constance B. “The Subject of the Mock-Debate between the Owl and the Nightingale.” Studia Neophilologica 40 (1968): 155-60.

[In the following essay, Hieatt describes The Owl and the Nightingale as a “gentle satire” on a broad range of subjects both serious and mundane, suggesting that the work avoids any specific conclusions in order to remain a light, humorous parody of lively debate.]

The meaning of The Owl and the Nightingale is a subject on which many critics have voiced opinions, but on which no two appear to agree. Wells felt that it is “beneath all didactic”,¹ and, while he was not entirely clear as to what it is didactic about, he saw the poem as presenting a serious and a joyous view of life, and attempting to show the need for both aspects: “God made the world not merely for lamenting and for consoling distress, but as well for rejoicing and for sympathy with joy” (p. xliii). Stanley, in the introduction to his edition of the poem, expresses a similar view, seeing the birds as representatives, respectively, of “solemnity and lightheartedness”.²

Others have seen in the poem more specific and limited subject matters. Atkins, for example, saw it as a consistent allegory which depicts “the challenging of religious poetry of the old tradition by the secular love-poetry of the new”.³ The most recent such suggestion would seem to be that of Bertram Colgrave, who thinks that “the birds are debating about old and new types of music and the growing tendency to introduce the more elaborate forms of music”.⁴ Others, on the other hand, tend to dismiss any and all allegorical interpretations. One such critic, Paull Baum, suggests that the real subject is “just an exhibit of two talkative ‘birds’ hopping from branch to branch, enjoying themselves because they liked to argue”.⁵

There are serious objections to each of these points of view. If Wells is right, why does he have to tell us the moral? Certainly, the poet does not tell us what conclusions are to be drawn. Didactic and allegorical meanings can only be found in the poem by wrestling sections out of context and consigning to them meanings not actually stated by the poet. There is, for example, not a single reference to religious poetry or to secular love poetry per se in the poem, as one would expect to be the case if an allegory on the topic was the purpose of the poem. Such matters may well be part of the background of the poem, but so are a number of other things. As Baum remarks, “we seem to have a whole anthology of themes” (p. xiii).

Nevertheless the very existence of the “anthology of themes” stands in the way of our dismissing the poem as nothing more than a playful bit of nonsense about two birds enjoying an argument, even though, as John Gardner says, “the birds are not saying anything very important about” their grave and weighty themes.⁶ We must consider what the argument is about—since the one thing everyone agrees on is that there is an argument—and, in fact, what, if anything, the poem actually says.

The dispute is, to begin with, not about anything in particular. The nightingale, with no apparent provocation, speaks very rudely to the owl, saying that the owl is offensive to her and she wishes she would go away. The owl quite naturally takes umbrage and says she wishes she could get her claws on the nightingale. The nightingale, from her secure perch, taunts the owl further, laying forth various complaints or charges: that the owl is disliked by all, repulsive in appearance and song, a bully, an eater of foul food, a bird who flies only by night. She adds the charge that the owl's young foul their nest. The owl's answer to this invective is a challenge to come out into the open, so that it can be seen who is most attractive. Naturally, the nightingale rejects this dubious suggestion. She then proposes a formal debate, and the owl agrees, both to the debate and to the judge suggested by the nightingale.

These are the preliminaries. Obviously, there is nothing much at issue except personal animosity. The only question is, is, or is not, the nightingale justified in her dislike of the owl? Any triumph in the argument can only be of a theoretical nature, for, clearly, the nightingale is not likely to have a change of heart, no matter who “wins” the argument.

The actual debate extends from line 215 to line 1716, and seems to fall into three distinct stages. In lines 215 to 548 the nightingale is on the offensive. She states her case against the owl and the owl defends herself, although there is some parrying on both sides. In lines 549-1160 the owl takes her turn to attack her accuser, and the nightingale is, for the most part, on the defensive. From line 1111 to line 1717, where the wren interrupts the combatants, both marshall and parry arguments as fast as they can.

The accusations made by the nightingale in her more or less formal statement are at first those with which she originally challenged the owl. The owl takes two lines of defense: explanation and refutation. The only trouble is that she is not particularly consistent. She maintains that her song is better than the nightingale's:

Mi stefne is bold & noȝt unorne;
Ho is ilich one grete horne,
& þin is ilich one pipe
Of one smale wode unripe.(7)

But she goes on to say that the nightingale sings too much and satiates men's ears with too much sweetness! One argument would appear to cancel out the other.

This is the sort of thing which seems to happen throughout the poem. Both birds are given to mutually exclusive lines of argument. The owl says that the nightingale's song is worthless, in regard to leading men to thoughts of heaven:

Al þat þu singst is of golnesse,
For nis on þe non holinesse;

(ll. 899-900)

yet she adds that the nightingale does not sing where her song might be of benefit, in forlorn countries such as Norway and Galaway (ll. 905-920). The nightingale, with equal inconsistency, accuses the owl of withcraft in lines 1298-1308, but then proceeds to say that the owl does not really have any prophetic abilities at all, since she is quite ignorant of astrology (ll. 1317-1330). It is possible that the nightingale considers astrology a legitimate source of knowledge and witchcraft an illegitimate one; but in any event she makes two incompatible implications, that the owl does and does not know how to prophesy.

Occasionally the birds note such flaws in each other's arguments, as, for example, when the owl, bearing in mind the nightingale's statement that she eats “fule wiȝte” (l. 87) such as snails and mice, counters with the fact that the nightingale's diet is equally foul, consisting of spiders and flies (l. 600). Neither of them, however, seems to be in any way systematic in refuting the other's arguments. Frequently, the answer to a particular accusation comes after several speeches have intervened, as when the nightingale replies in lines 955-970 to the accusation made by the owl in lines 584-590, after two long intervening speeches. It seems that the birds themselves have a difficult time keeping the items under dispute clearly in mind.

Many of the defensive remarks of both birds are sheer opportunism. The owl, who has claimed to be a guardian of morals, and who has reviled the nightingale for singing about “golnesse”, takes a startling turn when she defends unfaithful wives in lines 1519-1570. Apparently her main purpose is simply to confute the nightingale: whatever the nightingale may say, the owl is bound to disagree. By this point in the arguments, however, things have become somewhat of a free-for-all. It is not long after this point that the nightingale claims victory on the grounds that the owl has admitted the truth of the original charges. Of course, the owl has done nothing of the kind; she has simply tried to turn a derogatory statement into one reflecting credit on herself, which has been the dominant procedure of both parties all along.

The argument really starts nowhere and ends nowhere. No point is proved, but dozens of issues are raised along the way. Miss Huganir points out some of the philosophical issues involved: “the Seven Deadly Sins, woman the weaker vessel, the winning of heaven by suffering penance rather than by mystical anticipation of its joy.”⁸ There are many others, even a suggestion of that favorite medieval topic, free will vs. God's foreknowledge, when the owl defends herself from the nightingale's implication that she brings men bad luck with the remark:

Þat eni man beo falle in odwite,
Wi shal he me his sor atwite?
Þah ich iseo his harm biuore
Ne comeþ hit noȝt of me þaruore.

(ll. 1233-1236)

Love and marriage come in for a large share of attention, and legal procedures are wittily noted. These are just a few of the great range of human problems and activities which are dealt with, although no problems are settled.

But then, how could two birds settle the problems of humanity? The owl and the nightingale, humanized as they are, are always still birds. Like Chauntecleer and Pertelote, they think in bird terms, as for example, when the nightingale, in her diatribe against adultery, remarks:

Wunder hit is þat heo nawedeþ—
An swo heo doþ, for heo beoþ wode
Þe bute nest goþ to brode.

(ll. 1384-1386)

The simultaneously human and bird-like characteristics of the disputants are, of course, absurd. But isn't this absurdity a key to the intention of the poet? The whole situation is absurd, and reflects on the absurdity, irrationality, and rationalizing of mankind. The poem satirizes the many aspects of human life on which it touches. The most serious topics (free will, for example) are handled in a slyly humorous fashion. What could be more outrageous than an owl who sounds like Boethius explaining that God's foreknowledge does not impair man's free will?

The very conduct of the “formal” debate is delightfully absurd. A debate about nothing in particular which gets nowhere at a furious rate, the poem can certainly be called a mock-debate. This is not to say that it is a mere jeu d'esprit, or nonsense for nonsense's sake. While in a sense it is, as Gardner says, a burlesque, a parody of a debate, it is more than that, for it is not just a parody of the form but a satire on human nature. Chaucer would no doubt have enjoyed and understood it, for the Nun's Priest's Tale (and not Sir Thopas) is the closest parallel to it in a great many ways.

There we also find central characters who are simultaneously (and comically) birds and people, debating hotly over some of the same topics, including women, diet, and the possibility of foretelling future events. Chaucer might have noted in the implications of the remarks about the worthy, scandalously unappreciated Nicholas, an author⁹ whose use of himself as a character in his own work is similar to his own. And just as the Nun's Priest (and Chaucer) refused to end his tale with one explicit moral, or to offer any real resolution of the multiple problems raised, so Nicholas would seem to have found it better not to commit himself to the resolution of any of the issues debated by his birds.

Like The Owl and the Nightingale, the Nun's Priest's Tale has a good many elements of parody and burlesque. Still, to classify it as a burlesque without further qualification would probably not satisfy many Chaucerians. Both of these bird fables are, rather, satire, if gentle satire, laughing at the vagaries of man—and bird.

Notes

1. The Owl and the Nightingale, ed. J. E. Wells, Boston, 1907, p. xxxvii.

2. The Owl and the Nightingale, ed. Eric Gerald Stanley, London, 1960, p. 24; cf. p. 22 et passim.

3. The Owl and the Nightingale, ed. J. W. H. Atkins, Cambridge, 1922, p. lxxxi. For a summary of some of the theories on what is represented, cf. R. M. Lumiansky, “Concerning The Owl and the Nightingale”, Philological Quarterly, XXXII, 1953, 411-17.

4. ELN, IV, 1966, p. 1.

5. Introduction to The Owl and the Nightingale, trans. Graydon Eggers, Duke University, 1955, pp. xiii-xiv.

6. “The Owl and the Nightingale: A Burlesque”, Papers on Language and Literature, II, 1966, p. 5.

7. The Owl and the Nightingale, ed. Stanley. All references to the poem in my text are to the Cotton MS. as given in this edition.

8. Kathryn Huganir, The Owl and the Nightingale: Sources, Date, Author, Philadelphia, 1931, p. 60.

9. If he is the author, of course; cf. Gardner, esp. pp. 8-10, for a consistent case for this identification.