SOURCE: Atkins, J. W. H. Introduction to The Owl and the Nightingale, edited by J. W. H. Atkins, pp. xi-xc. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922.

[In the following excerpt, Atkins surveys the form, structure, and themes of The Owl and the Nightingale, appraising its effectiveness as allegorical verse and summarizing its outstanding stylistic features.]

THE FORM OF THE POEM

The type of literature to which The Owl and the Nightingale belongs, namely, the debate, was one which was specially characteristic of the 12th and early 13th centuries. Together with the Chansons de geste, the fabliaux and the Provençal lyrics, the debate may be regarded as the natural expression of the medieval genius at that particular period: and of the works that have come down, The Owl and the Nightingale represents not only the earliest poem of the kind in English, but also one of the greatest, if not actually the greatest, of all the medieval debates. Its form is therefore of considerable interest: and the origin and development of that form are also matters of the greatest importance. From the Carolingian era onwards, poems of the kind had been constantly appearing, in Latin for the most part, though occasionally in the vernaculars as well: and while the 12th and early 13th centuries witnessed the greatest popularity of the form, it is represented intermittently right on to the end of the Middle Ages. The debate had thus an extensive vogue: and it was known under a variety of names—the conflictus, certamen, contentio, disputatio, altercatio, estrif, plet, disputoison. But in every case, the essential element was the same: there was always a spirited contest in verse between two or more disputants, each of whom claimed supremacy for the views he held.

For the origin of this medieval form we must therefore go back at least to the Carolingian era, to those scholarly activities associated with the name of Alcuin, which had for their object the study of Latin as the key to the vast library of patristic thought. And among the literary works which have come down from that distant period are two Latin poems of great historical value: one the Conflictus veris et hiemis, ascribed to Alcuin or to some member of his school (8th century), the other, De rosae liliique certamine, due to Sedulius Scotus, an Irish-Scot grammarian who flourished in Lorraine during the 9th century. With these two poems the vogue of the medieval debate may be said to have begun. But they themselves were representative of a yet earlier tradition which went back to the pastoral eclogues of Theocritus and Virgil, and more particularly to those Virgilian eclogues consisting of a contest between two singers and concluding with a judgment pronounced by a third party¹. To this class of work belonged, for example, the third and the seventh Eclogues of Virgil: and similar contests are to be found in the works of early imitators—Calpurnius (1st century) and Nemesianus (3rd century) for instance: still later in Vespa's Judicium Coci et pistoris, judice Vulcano (4th century), as well as in that famous Eclogue of Theodulus which, in the 12th century, appeared in the text-books of the schools. This, then, was the Latin tradition which more immediately led up to the medieval debate². And it is important to note that the earliest examples (i.e. the Conflictus of Alcuin and the certamen of Sedulius Scotus) were, as their subjects suggest, little more than literary exercises of the schools, pedagogic efforts similar in kind to the declamationes, the riddles, and the nugae poeticae cultivated by scholars of that age.

How then are we to account for the great popularity of the debate in the 12th and early 13th centuries, for the fact that it then becomes, throughout all Western Europe, one of the characteristic forms of literary expression? The explanation is to be sought in the intellectual life of the times: and the key seems to lie in the activities of Abelard, who, dominating the 12th century with his personality and force, gave to medieval thought a new direction and a new method. He it was who set out on a search for truth amidst the conflict of authoritative doctrines current at the time. And in his famous Sic et Non his method is explained and illustrated. He held, to begin with, that an attitude of doubt should precede all scientific search for truth, since doubt led to inquiry and inquiry to truth³; moreover that this healthy scepticism was best induced by collating discordant opinions drawn from recognised authorities, thus setting the question at issue in the clearest light. To provide a solution, however, was no part of his method. In fact, it was essential that no solution should be given. The main objects of the method were said to be, firstly, to encourage beginners to search for truth; secondly, to put them in a position to acquire truth for themselves, and thus to sharpen their wits as a result of their search. In short, the first key to wisdom, Abelard defined as “untiring and persistent inquiry⁴”: and on this basis was erected that study of dialectic which, introduced by Abelard to 12th century scholars, took the place of grammar as the mistress-study of the age. Of the subsequent developments of this method there is no need to speak. It was at once applied to the study of theology⁵ and law⁶: it was the instrument employed in the Summae Theologiae of the 13th century—those encyclopaedic works in which Scholasticism reached its highest point. And in all these applications of the method there was present the collating of discordant opinions as recommended by Abelard⁷. But attempts were also made to reconcile the contradictions, to arrive in the end at some positive truth—a process which involved a departure from the original method. In Abelard's Sic et Non no such harmonising had been attempted: the author had aimed, not so much at the imparting of truth, as at the sharpening of the wits of beginners in philosophy. And this was the method that influenced for the most part the intellectual activities of 12th century scholars. It everywhere developed the taste for argument and formal discussion, and it established incidentally the vogue of the 12th century debate. Written at first as a mere exercise in the new study of dialectics, the debate soon became one of the most popular of literary forms. Before the end of the 12th century it had rapidly developed and had become one of the most characteristic types in the literature of the period.

The history of that development has yet to be written and to deal with it at all fully would be out of place here. Yet some knowledge of its main features is needed for an appreciation of our poem: and in general it may be said that the debate in the 12th and early 13th centuries became everywhere a favourite literary device, and that many of its themes circulated throughout Western Europe, both in Latin and in the vernaculars, as freely as the romances, the chansons and the fabliaux. Among the most familiar were the debates between the Soul and the Body, between Summer and Winter, Water and Wine, Phillis and Flora: all of which appeared in several versions. Others again were possessed of special significance. The growing popularity of the form, for instance, was illustrated by the Visio Philiberti, in which the O.E. (and Latin) Address of the Soul to the Body was transformed from a dialogue into regular contentio form. Traces of a pastoral origin are found in the obscene Altercatio Ganymedis et Helenae: while the Carolingian use of the debate as a literary exercise is illustrated in the charming dispute between the Violet and the Rose. In the 11th century Conflictus ovis et lini a fresh variety of theme had become visible: whereas the Goliardic note is heard in the satirical Goliae Dialogus inter aquam et vinum. As for the themes themselves, they are as varied as they are numerous. Some, for instance, were of a personal kind: and, as an example, might be taken the dispute between Urban II and Clement II with regard to the possession of the triple crown (1091). Others, moreover, like the Disputatio inter cor et oculum or Chardry's Petit Plet were of a purely didactic kind: the former dealing with the question whether the heart or the eye were the greater cause of sin, the latter with the old contest between optimistic youth and a despairing old age. In the Goliardic De Clarevallensibus et Cluniacensibus, on the other hand, may be heard echoes of earlier monastic differences, while in De Mauro et Zoilo and De Presbytero et Logico are discussed further matters of interest to contemporary clerics. Nor was the theme of love without a place in these debates. In one case, the dispute was concerned with the rival claims of Love and Gold: elsewhere (in the Altercatio Ganymedis et Helenae) it is a question of the love of youth as opposed to the love of women: while in the famous De Phillide et Flora and in the later versions of that debate⁸, it is the respective merits of the cleric and the knight as lovers that are under debate.

But if the themes were of this varied kind, so were also the form and the conduct of the debate, which, in general, consisted of (1) a short introduction descriptive of the scene and circumstances of the dispute, (2) a spirited discussion with some amount of dramatic incident, and (3) a brief judgment pronounced by an appointed judge, though the judgment was not by any means always given. Into this framework, however, might be woven a great variety of detail, the most elaborate and picturesque results being present in the later, i.e. the vernacular, forms. Between the Latin and the vernacular types, indeed, many broad differences are visible. The latter, as a rule, are less stiff and conventional: they omit the classical allusions and references that abound in the Latin works, they elaborate the narrative and the dramatic elements, they introduce some amount of local colour, and aim altogether at a more colloquial style. It was but seldom that a Latin debate opened without a descriptive introduction of some sort or other, though this is the case in the Disputatio inter cor et oculum. More regularly the scenes are sketched in considerable detail. It is generally spring-time: the dispute takes place under a shady tree⁹, with the earth clad in its many-coloured robe¹⁰; or the scene might be a meadow near a shady brook¹¹, or a garden full of fragrant flowers¹², or else a wood containing all the trees known to classical story¹³. Then, too, the poet might be represented as overhearing the debate from a place of concealment, or the disputants might appear before him in the course of a vision¹⁴: and in one such vision the poet is wafted up to the third Heaven, where he hears the case argued before the divine tribunal¹⁵. After these preliminaries, the dispute would be carried on with but a minimum of narrative or dramatic incident. It is but seldom in these Latin altercationes that any circumstantial detail accompanies the dialogue, though an exception must be made in the case of De Phillide et Flora, where elaborate descriptions of the young girls and their equipment are found, as well as of the Court of Love to which they turn for a decision of their quarrel. For the most part, however, the arguments of the disputants follow on without interruption, each argument being comprised in a fixed number of lines, and all being drawn from Biblical or classical sources. And, in this regular fashion, the debate would move to a conventional close with the verdict of the appointed judge, who might represent either some personality such as Palaemon, the poet, the Pope or the Deity, or else certain abstractions like Reason, or Usus et Natura.

It is to the vernacular group of these medieval debates that The Owl and the Nightingale obviously belongs: from the Latin type it is marked off by certain clear differences. Its framework, it is true, remains much the same: there is still the introductory description, the dispute, and the closing reference to a formal judgment. But the treatment is modified in various particulars, and the ultimate form is something quite different from that of the Latin Conflictus. Some of the more general points of distinction have already been hinted at. In The Owl and the Nightingale there is, for instance, an absence of classical phrase and allusion, of those numerous references to Virgil, Ovid, Tibullus, found in the Latin works. Then, too, from time to time, the dialogue is enlivened by the introduction of narrative and dramatic details¹⁶: it becomes less stiff and formal, by reason of the varied length and tone of the several arguments. Fresh colour, again, is added by the numerous references to contemporary life and scenes: and while the dispute gains in vivacity in consequence of its more familiar style, it is also worth noting that the arguments are now supported, not by Biblical or classical authority, but by reference to that medieval fount of wisdom known as The Proverbs of Alfred¹⁷. But these departures from the Conflictus type do not altogether account for the novelty in the form of The Owl and the Nightingale. There are still points of difference, some of which suggest the influence of the Old French lyric. Such at least is highly probable in connection with the opening description, the realistic details of which are common to the aubes, the pastourelles and the chansons dramatiques, which sprang from the popular dance-songs of the May-day festivities. Then, too, the fact that the protagonists are birds is also suggestive of the same influence: the nightingale in these May festivals, and also in contemporary French lyrics, was frequently endowed with a symbolical meaning, and stood, as in the present poem, for the advocate or messenger of love. Whether the form of The Owl and the Nightingale owed anything to the influence of the courtly tençons or jeux-partis is perhaps more difficult to say: it is not unusual in such disputes to find a contemporary personality nominated as judge, and also to find judgment withheld at the end of the debate. These features are present in The Owl and the Nightingale and they represent departures from the Latin tradition. On the other hand, it would require no great measure of originality on the part of the poet to have devised these details for himself.

There yet remains, however, one other characteristic feature in the form of the poem, a feature which is perhaps the most distinctive and interesting of all. And that feature has reference to the formal procedure of the debate, which follows very closely the lines of a 13th century law-suit¹⁸. It was commonly characteristic of the vernacular debates¹⁹, that in them the language of legal procedure should, in a general way, be adopted: and indeed the terms altercatio and plet (plait), as applied to such poems, are significant in themselves. In The Owl and the Nightingale, however, the poet not only uses the word plait, plaid (= plea), ll. 5, 1737, to describe his particular debate, he not only creates a legal atmosphere by introducing reminiscences of a legal kind, but he consistently employs both the terminology²⁰ and the procedure of contemporary advocates, so that the dispute throughout its various stages is closely modelled on the form of a 13th century law-case.

Thus the Nightingale as plaintiff begins the proceedings by stating the charge²¹ (= tale, see note, l. 140) she wishes to bring against the Owl. But since her mere statement will not suffice, for no litigant could claim an answer to a bare assertion (nude parole, l. 547), it is therefore necessary that she should bring forward some witness (= oath-helper, compurgator) on her behalf, and this she does by quoting in support of her statements certain proverbs of Alfred²². In the meantime, the Owl as defendant has denied the charge, and according to the usual practice has declared her willingness to defend her case by force of arms²³. The wager of battle, however, is not accepted, and the Owl therefore proceeds with the statement of her defence²⁴, also citing in her support the proverbs of Alfred²⁵. Now, according to present-day practice, the case would be at an end, and the verdict would forthwith be given. In the 13th century, however, it was competent to the defendant at this stage of the proceedings to claim the right of exceptio²⁶, i.e. to show cause why the action should proceed no further: and the Owl consistently puts forward her claim²⁷, pointing out that the plaintiff has formally stated her case (bicloped, l. 550), and that it is now her turn to cross-examine her opponent. In virtue of this right, the Owl takes up the attack, and in the exceptio²⁸ she charges the plaintiff with many misdemeanours. The Nightingale follows with her “replication²⁹,” in which she defends herself against the charges of the Owl: and then the case degenerates, as frequently happened, into a loose irregular dispute in which the pleaders accuse one another in strenuous terms, each one striving to confute the other, so as to win in the end a judgment in her favour. This is why in the latter half of the poem we find the argument less clear and coherent. The Nightingale, it is true, expresses certain views as to the love-themes then current, and the question of superiority is never allowed to recede quite into the background. But the proceedings are now conducted with a less punctilious regard for formalities, and towards the end there are passages of indiscriminate revilings.

And while, in its broad outline, the debate thus follows the lines of a contemporary law-suit, equally close is the resemblance when we consider the method and the spirit in which the dispute is conducted. Throughout the action both pleaders are animated with one and the same object: each strives to catch her opponent tripping, and endeavours to point to some technical error in her pleading. A mistake in pleading would be likely to have very serious results. “Every mistake in pleading, every miskenning or stultiloquium brought an amercement on the pleader, if the mistake was to be retrieved³⁰”: and both of the disputants are evidently aware of that fact. Hence their pleading is like a fencing-bout between two wary and seasoned swordsmen: there are lunges, ripostes and feints, and each one remains on guard against the familiar tricks of legal debate (plaites wrenche, l. 472). Among the recognised tricks of pleading was the attempt to show that the charge was not a bona fide appeal, but was, on the other hand, the outcome of malice and hatred (odium et atia)³¹. To establish this point would mean the break-down of the case, and the Owl resorts to these tactics in l. 1183 where she accuses her opponent of alde niþe (ancient malice). Yet more general was the trick of angering an opponent, and of causing him, as a result, to make “a mistake in pleading.” This also was attempted by the Owl, and in some measure she succeeded (l. 933). But the Nightingale is said to have seen through the trick in time: she recalled the saying that “the angry man is seldom a good pleader” (ll. 943-4), and so she manages to steady herself before replying to her opponent. The Nightingale, on the other hand, is more successful in her tactics as a pleader, when she convicts the Owl of a stultiloquium (l. 1640), and claims that the defendant has lost the case through boasting of her own disgrace (l. 1650). This claim, advanced by the Nightingale, is not without its importance: it is endorsed by the neighbouring birds, who rejoice that a decision has at length been reached: and with this, the legal dispute comes practically to an end, with the Nightingale triumphant.

The form of The Owl and the Nightingale is therefore one of considerable interest. Originally a development of the pastoral in late Latin literature, it became, from the time of Alcuin, one of the recognised medieval genres, until, in the 12th and early 13th centuries, it reached the height of its popularity when it appeared in the vernaculars as well as in the original Latin. In its general outline the poem thus recalls the earlier Conflictus and certamina: but in its various details it points to a development of those earlier types. Its treatment, for instance, is freer and more original: it has been influenced in places by the lyrical poetry of France: its procedure has been modelled on that of contemporary law-suits, and altogether the form is full of historical interest, while it is also excellently adapted for the special object in view.

THE THEME OF THE POEM

Not less interesting than the form is the theme of the poem, which will be found to deal with one of the outstanding developments in the literature of the age. It was usual for such debates to take up questions of contemporary interest: and The Owl and the Nightingale is certainly no exception to the general rule. As to the actual nature of the theme, there has been some difference of opinion. Earlier interpretations, for the most part, have assumed a general form. The dispute has been said to stand for the old conflict between pleasure and asceticism³², between crabbed age and youth, between gravity and gaiety³³: or again, it has been described as Art against Philosophy³⁴, the aesthetic as opposed to a more serious view of life³⁵, the strict monastic party on the one side, the more latitudinarian among the clergy on the other³⁶; and for each of these suggestions there is something to be said, though, it must also be added, no one of them seems to suit all the details of the case. Indeed, there are specific references in the poem which seem to point to a subject less general: and in spite of the elaborate form of the debate, in spite, too, of the side issues and the personalities in which the disputants indulge, the main theme reveals itself with tolerable clearness, as a question that stood in intimate relation to the age.

In the first place, it would seem clear, that the dispute is concerned primarily with the singing of the two birds. So much might reasonably be gathered from the choice of birds as disputants, were it not also definitely stated, by the poet himself, before the contest begins (ll. 11-12). But it is further suggested by the opening words of the plaintiff, in which, according to legal custom, it was usual for a case to be stated in the plainest of terms. Thus the Nightingale opens the proceedings with remarks on the Owl's song (ll. 35-40): later on, she begins her formal plea with a more detailed indictment of the same (ll. 217 ff., 411 ff.). And although other charges are also brought forward from time to time, they are merely incidental: it is with the singing of the Owl that the plaintiff is primarily concerned, while an arraignment of the Nightingale's song is the main line of the defence.

The key to the allegory will therefore be found in the contrast of the two songs: and a hint as to the nature of that contrast may further be gathered from the particular birds chosen—the Owl with her fabled wisdom, the Nightingale associated with the passion of love. But the solution need not be based on mere conjecture: the poem itself is sufficiently explicit on the point. From the thrust and parry of the debate, the drift of the allegory becomes clear, and the disputants can be unmasked by noting what is said, first, of their songs, and secondly, of their personalities.

To begin with, there can be no mistake about the claim of the Owl, when she states that her songs urge men to repent and find pardon for their sins, that they inspire good men with longing, and fill the wicked with terror of the evils to come (ll. 869-92, 927-8). Nor can the Nightingale be misunderstood when she protests that her songs bring delight (skentinge, l. 986) to men, and that “soþ hit is of luue ich singe” (l. 1339). The contrast is, of a surety, sufficiently plain: the broad issue would seem to lie between two types of poets and poetry, between the religious didactic poetry characteristic of the Middle Ages, and the new poetry with its love-motive, which originated in the century 1150-1250.

And this interpretation may be consistently applied throughout the poem, to what is said of the songs and the disputants alike. When the Nightingale, for instance, attacks the Owl for her lugubrious singing, which terrorises and depresses all who hear (ll. 220 ff.), or when she complains that the Owl sings only in times of trouble, as if envious of the happiness of men (ll. 412 ff.), the reference is obviously to that medieval religious poetry, which, based on patristic teaching, sought by thunderings and threats to bring men to God. But the Owl, too, lays stress on the didactic qualities of her song (ll. 535 ff.), on the knowledge she possesses of the symbolical meaning of things (ll. 1213-14): while she is found betraying the medieval ascetic temper, when she charges the Nightingale with making use of wanton themes to the abuse of young minds (l. 899). It is the religious poet as opposed to the secular love-poet. And the contrast is further emphasised by the personalities in which the disputants indulge. Thus in the references to the tyrannical behaviour of the Owl (ll. 61 ff.), and her uncleanly ways (ll. 91 ff.), we have obvious allusions to clerical abuses of the time³⁷. Then, too, there are the Owl's boasts of her preference for a life of retirement (ll. 227 ff.), of her well-ordered singing at regular hours (ll. 323 ff.), and her care for the fabric of the Church (ll. 609 ff.). Here, it cannot be doubted, one of the regular clergy is meant. And, with equal certainty, the Nightingale may be described as the secular love-poet. Her songs are said to be sung only in cultured circles (ll. 1031 ff.): her technique is claimed to be finer than that of her opponent (ll. 48, 759 ff.): her defence of love (ll. 1378 ff.) finds a counterpart in many utterances of contemporary love-poets: while, later on, she is indirectly accused of being “al unihoded” (l. 1178), that is, being not ordained she does not possess the priestly prerogative of uttering a curse³⁸. There is but one passage in the poem which seems to be inconsistent with this general interpretation, and there the difficulty is more apparent than real. It is where the Nightingale claims that she, too, sings of “chirche-songe” (l. 1036), and thus seems to emphasise the didactic quality of her singing. Yet this passage is by no means out of keeping with the rest of the poem, if interpreted in the spirit of certain lines which precede it (cf. ll. 716 ff.), where the Nightingale states that since all earthly songs are a preparation for the harmonies of Heaven, therefore her singing is not without its religious value. Elsewhere the point is repeated when the Nightingale claims to teach the virtue of fidelity (l. 1347), and the transitoriness of earthly passion (l. 1450). And this she does mainly for a tactical purpose, in order to meet her dour opponent, as it were, on her own ground. But the point scored is something more as well: it is an argument drawn from the teaching of Latin Christianity, according to which the Nightingale was praised, not as the messenger of love, but as the songstress of the glories of the Creator. It is as the songstress of love that the Nightingale figures in the present poem: but the old didactic notion is also utilised as a sort of passado in a bout of dialectics.

The discussion in the poem may therefore be said to deal with the respective merits of two different types of poetry—the old religious poetry on the one hand, the new love-poetry on the other—and we have yet to consider the attitude taken up by the poet on this particular question. In accordance with the debate convention, no definite decision is given at the end of the poem: the discussion is broken off abruptly before the umpire has time to speak. Yet the sympathies of the poet can be read between the lines, and the statement may be hazarded, that although the balance is held fairly between the two disputants, it is the Nightingale who in the end seems to get the better of the argument. For one thing, it is not without its significance that the Nightingale figures as plaintiff in the law-suit: she is out to remedy an abuse, to right a wrong, and to claim for love-poetry its release from the heavy hand of tradition. Then, too, it is noteworthy that the Nightingale is represented on the whole as the better-tempered of the two combatants: she is the more attractive personality, she shows more self-restraint than the Owl, and she indulges to a lesser extent in vile personalities and abuse. And in the end it is the Nightingale who is made to triumph: she accuses the Owl of a technical blunder and claims for herself the victory, which is joyfully endorsed by the company of attendant birds. Indirectly therefore, the poet may be said to have given his verdict: he has declared against the monopoly of religious themes in literature, and has called attention to the claims of the new love-poetry for recognition.

But while this is true, it should also be added that the Nightingale—and consequently the poet—has incidentally some criticism to make on the love-themes that were characteristic of the lyrics of the age. While commending love-poetry she does so with reservation: she has a protest to make against the artificial conventional themes which figured in so many of the French chansons, and which also gave a bias to Troubadour work. In the ancient chansons de danse which accompanied the May-day festivities, the common theme was that of la mal mariée, according to which, marriage was represented as a hateful form of slavery, and the husband as an odious tyrant (le vilain, le gelos) who was wont to ill-treat his wife, clothing her badly, oft-times beating her and putting her under lock and key. This subject-matter entered into the chansons dramatiques: and the tradition persisted in the courtly poetry of the Troubadours, as well as in the doctrines formulated in the Courts of Love. Thus, love was seldom celebrated save in opposition to marriage, the love which preceded or accompanied marriage being generally excluded. In courtly lyrics, married women alone were idealised and their exploits with lovers sung: whereas songs in honour of young girls were comparatively rare. And again, in the Courts of Love it was decreed that a man could love only a married lady, while love in marriage was deemed impossible. It was against this artificial code that the Nightingale seems to have uttered her protest. Her sympathies lie with the loves of maids (l. 1419): for the peccadilloes of wives she has naught but condemnation (l. 1468). A wife, she maintains, should ignore the allurement of fools, even though her marriage should chance to be unhappy (l. 1471): while a virtuous wife might also taste of love and yet remain faithful to her marriage vows (ll. 1340-1). It is, in short, a plea for a more rational treatment that the Nightingale is here making, for love-themes more in keeping with ordinary morality: and that the poet would seem to have had this object in mind is clearly suggested by reminiscences of the mal mariée motive found here and there in the poem.

The main theme of our poet is therefore one of considerable interest. He discusses the respective merits of two types of poetry: and while definitely commending the poetry that took love for its theme, as opposed to the older sort of a religious kind, he also passes judgment on the contemporary limitations of that theme, and argues for a broader and a healthier treatment. Nor need we be greatly surprised at finding an English writer of the early 13th century handling in his poem such subjects as these, and handling them too in so original and striking a fashion. The challenge of the earlier religious tradition had already gone forth in actual literary developments: and no alert contemporary, such as our poet must surely have been, could possibly have remained ignorant of the changes that were taking place at the time. Of the nature of those changes something has already been said: of the work of the Troubadours who sang of love—to them a cult, almost a religion—with a beauty and a refinement that made their lyrics something new in the achievements of man: of those wonderful romances, too, in which love appeared, not merely as the artificial convention of the lyrics, but as a tremendous mysterious force, potent for good or evil in its influence on mankind. And such works could not but come into violent contrast with the literature that had sprung from the patristic tradition, with such works as the Dies Irae, the Moral Ode, the Legends of the Saints, or with others which dealt with Visions of Heaven and Hell, with Vices and Virtues, and the Seven Deadly Sins³⁹. Nor could those developments on French soil have been unknown to cultured Englishmen of the time: for England under Henry II had become a true colony of France in matters of taste, and the relations between the two countries were of a most intimate kind. There is therefore nothing improbable in attributing to an English poet of this period a discussion as to the relative values of the old and new schools of poetry. The only wonder really is that French literary activities, which produced such results in Germany and Italy and elsewhere, did not lead to some similar result on English soil⁴⁰. If, however, we have nothing in England to correspond to the Minnesingers of Germany or the Troubadours of Italy and Spain, there is at least The Owl and the Nightingale to show that the new movement in France did not pass altogether unnoticed, and that England too played a part in the new European concert.

Apart from its pronouncements on the theme selected, the poem undoubtedly has qualities that command attention. In its freshness and originality, for instance, and in the independence of judgment shown in criticising the new tradition, may be found a striking witness of 12th century Renascence influences. Or again, to contemporary readers, the form, even more than the subject-matter, may possibly have offered attractions. For our poet has set out clearly the pros and cons of the question at issue: his poem is notably an exercise in dialectics: and with Abelard he might have said in submitting his case, “I present these contradictions to inspire my readers to search after truth, and to make their minds more flexible as a result of that search.” But to modern readers, interest will, of necessity, gather around the theme, the significance of which could only be revealed in historical perspective. To us the poem stands out as a landmark in English literature, as the work of a herald announcing a new order of things. And although its utterance may be but an echo from abroad, it is yet the English voice in that widespread chorus which anticipated the coming of Dante and of Petrarch, and of all who were to find their inspiration in the theme of love. …

THE POEM AS LITERATURE

It now remains to inquire what use our poet has made of his various materials: how far he has succeeded in giving to his work artistic quality and life: and further, what are the particular features that make the poem what it is—one of the finest achievements in English medieval literature. The main purpose of the writer, it has been suggested, was to commend himself (or one Nicholas) to the favourable notice of his contemporaries. He complains of neglect: a case for recognition is made out: and the real business is done in the eulogies so artfully placed near the beginning and the end of the poem. But for the plea to be effective, it was necessary above all that the work should be widely read: and no effort has therefore been spared in making the appeal as general as possible. Thus a poem in the popular “debate” form, dealing in allegorical fashion with a live question of the day, was a device well calculated to serve the particular object in view. But when into the poem was poured a mass of subsidiary detail drawn from the favourite reading of the time, the appeal must surely have been greatly increased. At every turn the reader would be met by some delectable detail. The very title would prove alluring to a generation brought up on animal-fables: while there was matter also to suit every taste—natural history and bird-lore, proverbs and exempla, reminiscences of French love-poetry, fragments of patristic learning, and above all, the legal atmosphere and procedure so cunningly counterfeited. The poem is, in short, a triumph of practical wit. The elements have been well mingled with an eye to the main object: and the result is a tribute to the shrewdness of the poet, to the subtle insight he possessed into men and their ways.

But the work is something more than a successful occasional poem, or a clever advertisement deserving of respect even in a modern age. It is a piece of art amazingly put together: full of striking effects, amusing, bizarre, and picturesque: with a well-defined plot, a consistent allegory, a variety of incident, colour, and tone, as well as the animation that comes from lively and well-drawn characters. The poem is, in fact, as ingeniously wrought as it is shrewdly planned. It is free from the formlessness of so much of the medieval art: and here lies the miracle in connection with a work of this period.

Of its actual form something has already been said. In many ways, the poem is representative of the vernacular “debates” of the time, which stood for a development of the earlier and more conventional Latin type: so that elsewhere may be found hints for many of the structural features of our poem, and the author's debt to his predecessors was doubtless of no negligible kind. But whatever that debt may have been, as to the artistic value of the result there can be no doubt. If the poet has borrowed liberally, he has made his borrowings his own; and earlier devices are handled with a freedom and an originality that distinguish this poem from all the rest of its kind.

In the first place, it will be conceded that the poem has been provided with an excellent framework, one well adapted for the purpose in hand. There is an exposition, to begin with, in which the background is sketched, and the case is stated: this is followed by a conflict of wits, which reaches a sort of crisis when the assembly of birds acclaims the Nightingale as victor; and after that the action moves on as if to a dénouement, though no solution of the conflict is actually given. The dispute is thus constructed on dramatic lines: the arguments are marshalled in effective fashion: and the reader need never be in doubt as to where the main issue lies. But this is by no means all. More remarkable still is the way in which this outline is filled in with a variety of detail, and with devices which serve artistic ends: for of the varied material that enters into the structure, there is but little that can be termed really superfluous, or that fails to contribute something to the general plan. The nightingale-episode, for instance, is no mere idle insertion: it has the effect of emphasising the main contention of the Owl—that the love-songs of her opponent often lead to grave abuse and disaster. The animal-fables, again, are introduced to illustrate certain moral truths: in the Owl and the Falcon fable we have an illustration of a well-known Horatian maxim, in the fable of the Cat and the Fox, an illustration of the fact that tricks are valuable only in so far as they are successful. Then, too, there are the proverbs that lend authority to the various statements: the scraps of natural history and bird-lore, which are utilised in developing the principal characters and in illustrating certain points of popular wisdom. Even the daring introduction of legal procedure must be regarded as something more than a mere tour de force: for it is a piece of machinery that introduces method into the argument, and gives a firmer outline to the course of the debate.

But while the poet has thus woven into his fabric a variety of material with unusual skill, not less remarkable are his structural devices for giving to the action increased verisimilitude, and for making the dispute more life-like and real. It was, for instance, a happy and original thought, that of making the time-duration of the quarrel the period of one night. The Owl waits until night-fall (l. 41) before taking up the Nightingale's challenge; and in the dawn (l. 1718) the thrush, the wren, and the rest of them appear on the scene, by which time the dispute of the two night-birds is over. By this touch of Nature an air of realism is given to the scene: the action is proper to a June night in an English valley, when the hoot of the brown owl and the screech of the white one are almost alone in replying to the notes of the nightingale. And something of the same effect is obtained by the varying length and tone of the utterances of the two disputants. In most of the Latin “debates” the dialogue is carried on with a dull monotonous formality, each statement being limited to a fixed number of lines. In our present poem, however, the dialogue is conducted with a vivacity and a freedom that do away with all formality, while suggesting as well the vicissitudes of an actual dispute. Yet it is, after all, in the narrative element so freely worked into the poem, that the author's constructive genius is most palpably seen. There is, first, the preliminary skirmishing, when the Owl suggests a decision by trial by combat; later on, there is much ado caused by the gathering of the birds; and such incidents as these may perhaps be paralleled in some of the other debates, in that of Phillis and Flora, for instance. But action of this kind is not confined to the framework of our present poem. It forms an integral part of the dialogue as well: in fact, the short interludes, which break the argument at frequent intervals, are among the most effective features of a well-constructed poem. As the dispute proceeds, we have visibly brought before us the changing moods of the two protagonists, confidence giving way to perplexity or vexation, a note of triumph creeping in before the launching of some weighty argument. We see the Owl, again, with her sullen demeanour, with downcast eyes that on occasion can blaze with fury; we note, too, her more timorous opponent, high-spirited but cautious, flying aloft at the end to announce her victory. Such passages are, of course, the natural breaks in the report of a heated conversation, made by one who had been present at the whole affair. But they discharge important functions in the structure of the poem as well. Obviously something more than mere links between the several arguments, they afford relief, first of all, from the long bout of pleading, by adding variety and animation to the work; they serve also a dramatic purpose by throwing light on the personalities of the two disputants; and at the same time, they supply a running commentary, chorus-fashion, on the various situations, in a way that illuminates the whole course of the dispute.

The poem has therefore been skilfully put together: it is characterised throughout by a nice proportion of parts, by a subordination of details to the main idea; and these qualities reveal unmistakably a true sense of form. Yet more went to the making of the poem than a well-designed structure, or a complicated machinery giving simple results. The work consists of an allegory with birds as the actors: it is an attempt to give human interest to an abstract question by means of a symbolical treatment; and it is here, in what is after all the essential aspect of the poem, that the real test of the poet's workmanship may be said to lie. And admirably has the poet discharged this part of his task, though his success is perhaps the less surprising, seeing that the medieval man thought and felt in symbols, so that allegory came naturally to 12th century minds. Yet the poet has chosen wisely in taking his material from the animal world; for in so doing he has based his allegory on the Aesopic fable, the symbolism of which would be intelligible to all his readers. He has also made good use of that particular material, and of the analogies it offered ready-made for allegorical purposes. And, as a result, he has presented his subject in picturesque and convincing fashion: his work has a lucidity and a force not excelled by any other writer of the kind in English.

For the setting of his allegory the poet has, first of all, taken a simple story. An owl and a nightingale meet at dusk in the coverts of birdland, and fall a-quarrelling over the merits of their songs. From the first it is clear that it is to be a serious business, and it is agreed to refer the decision to an independent judge, to one of good repute among the race of men. Throughout the whole night the dispute goes on with varying fortune, until in the dawn the nightingale claims to have won: and her claim is taken up by the newly-awakened birds, who enrage the owl by their joyful chirpings. The owl straightway threatens to call together her friends, and to avenge herself on those who have applauded her rival. When, however, the wren reminds them of the penalty for breaking the peace, the nightingale states her willingness to abide by the earlier agreement, and to go with the owl to the home of the appointed judge. And this accordingly is done, though the sequel is not told.

This, then, is the fable created by the poet, into which he was to read his allegorical meaning. And a delightful fable it is, of the doings of the birds in a world of their own, amidst the silence and darkness of the English country-side. A suitable fable, as well, with a meaning plain to all: for who could fail to see in the quarrel about the bird-songs a discussion relating to the songs of men? Nor could that interpretation be said to be either too far-fetched or too obvious, though at the same time sufficiently veiled to give the reader the delight of discovery. In short, the fable was well adapted to serve its particular purpose—to present its theme in effective fashion, and to do so with a racy directness that would come home to all.

It is, however, in the handling of this material that the skill of the poet most clearly appears: and that skill is seen in the life-like precision and truth with which the main characters are drawn, in the realism with which the poet has invested his mysterious bird-world, and in the consistency with which he has maintained the illusion necessary for the working out of his allegorical purpose. The figures of the two birds, in the first place, are unmistakably drawn: we recognise them at once from the descriptions given of their outward forms and habits. The details are all there, though they are never obtrusive, so neatly are they placed in the mouth of one or other of the birds. The Owl, for instance, is depicted as short of body, with a large head, a hooked bill, sharp claws, dark staring eyes, and with fluffy feathers that give her when angry a swollen appearance. Her haunt is a hollow tree covered over with ivy: she lives on mice and snails and such-like creatures. Blind and silent by day, she sings only at night: and her weird harsh cry is everywhere regarded as the forerunner of evil. The Nightingale, on the other hand, is a smaller bird, with dull brownish plumage—“a little dirty ball,” as the Owl is pleased to call her. She frequents the woodlands of damp low-lying districts, but only during the summer months and in certain parts of England: for in Scotland and Ireland her presence is quite unknown. Her song is as delightful as the Owl's is discordant: it is heard day and night during May and June, though early in June it is apt to cease, when the mating season is over. The birds, as drawn by the poet, are therefore taken directly from life: there are touches which reveal the hand of the naturalist; and we are thus presented not with mere stock figures, but with life-size pictures of living creatures that compel our attention by their sheer reality.

But the poet has done yet more than this: he has made his creatures live by endowing them with human personality, and by ascribing to them thoughts and feelings characteristic of men. And, indeed, this was the only way of giving them life—it is La Fontaine's method at a later date—for we can never know much more than the outside of animals, the only inner life we can imagine being, after all, our own. To some extent, the moral qualities of the birds may be inferred from the physical characteristics depicted: the Owl, for example, is sullen and gloomy, as is natural in one who is unsightly and something of a recluse: whereas the Nightingale, a frail songstress who loves the sun, is of a gayer temperament, a milder and more lovable nature than her opponent. But the poet does not leave here the delineation of his characters: far more is done by the dramatic method, by the inferences to be drawn from what is said and done by the birds themselves. In this way we learn that the Owl is a dour fighter, with an overbearing manner and keen reasoning powers, given to coarse invective when provoked, and apt to prove surly and violent when worsted in argument: all of which is borne out by the fierce hatred she inspires, especially in the breasts of the weaker members of her tribe. As for her views on life, they are of the narrow ascetic kind: life to her is at best a bad business, and he lives best who sheds most tears. Hence her pride in the dismal nature of her songs, which are a perpetual reminder of the terrors to come, and aim at inducing men to leave their evil ways. Throughout the dispute she is conscious of her own rectitude: of her services to mankind she speaks at length. But for the frailties of others she has no sympathy, for she stands aloof from the lighter side of life. She is, in brief, a creature of gloom, a Puritan before her time, and her type is permanent in human nature. In marked contrast with her stands the Nightingale—a gentler creature, who holds her own against her brow-beating opponent, by her daring thrusts, her happy retorts, and the self-control she displays throughout the dispute. The cause she pleads is that of sweetness and light; the songs she sings are of love and the joy of life. Her mission is simply to spread happiness around; and she is therefore beloved by all her fellows; even Nature smiles at her approach. Nor is she without a more serious purpose in life, though she claims for her songs a value of their own. For the love-stricken soul she has a message of hope: her charity is as wide as humanity itself. Spiritual pride is to her the most deadly of sins: and with all her urbanity and art, she is a tender rebel against harsh unfeeling authority. An early humanist, with a touch of the modern spirit, she represents a brave “soldier in the Liberation War of humanity.”

The personalities of the two protagonists thus stand out clear and distinct. They are birds obviously enough: but they are human beings as well. They are birds with the minds that human beings would possess, could we imagine them transformed, for the time being, into birds: and it is in this dual character that their fascination really lies. But this fascination is by no means confined to the two main actors: it is characteristic as well of the world to which they belong—that queer elusive world of the poet's own making, born as it were of some midnight fancy. There indeed we see a strange community of creatures, removed from the haunts of men, living a primitive life of their own full of factions and feuds, and yet not so very different after all from life as we know it. Of the members of that community some take part in the action of the poem: these are the thrush, the throstle, the wood-pecker and the wren. Concerning others, again, we hear only in passing, through references made by the Owl and the Nightingale; and thus it is that we learn of the tiny titmouse and the bellicose cock, of hedgesparrows and magpies waging war on the young corn, and of crows in large flocks attacking hawks in the marshes. It is therefore a seemingly substantial world that the poet has created: a community representative of the bird-life with which we are familiar. Nor is there anything incongruous or out of keeping in this fanciful world of the poet's: for the birds, for the most part, act in conformity with their nature, they remain true to the laws of their own being. It is not without its significance, for example, that they discuss only such matters as birds might reasonably be supposed to discuss, namely, their songs, their habits and the like; or that when the Owl threatens violence, it is with her claws and the claws of her friends that she attempts to frighten her opponent⁴¹; or again, that the images which come naturally to the minds of the disputants, are taken, in general, from the animal world, and have reference either to the birds already mentioned, or to such animals as the cat, the fox, the hare and the horse. The truth is that the poet has preserved his fiction with extraordinary skill: neither the action nor the debate ever leaves the animal plane of being. The reader is never puzzled, as he is in reading Dryden's Hind and the Panther, with the bewildering changes that come over the actors, which at one time are rational creatures, capable of discussing abstruse doctrines like transubstantiation, while at other times they revert to the brute creation, one of them drinking at the “common watering-place” for animals, the other pacifying her tail and licking her frothy jaws. In The Owl and the Nightingale, on the other hand, the illusion is never destroyed: the fable as it stands is consistent throughout, and all of a piece. If we can suppose such beings as the poet creates, to exist at all, then from his treatment of them we must add, what Hazlitt said of the characters of the Tempest, that “they could not act or speak or feel otherwise than as [the poet] makes them.”

The fable has therefore been handled with wonderful tact: everything is clearly outlined, concrete and convincing; and the workmanship throughout points to a master of his craft. But something of the same skill has also been shown in connection with the allegory, which the fable has been designed to bring before its readers. Running throughout the narrative is a secondary meaning, which brings the story into intimate connection with life; and this side of the work shows the same originality of treatment, the same effective handling, and the same insight into the requirements of art. Of the nature of that allegorical theme something has already been said. It has been shown to relate to contemporary songs and singers, to the challenging of religious poetry of the old tradition by the secular love-poetry of the new; and it only remains to suggest the quality of the treatment. The allegory, to begin with, is plain to the simplest of souls. With a mind well versed in contemporary fable, no one could fail to read what was meant into the dispute of the birds, or to see in their quarrel a reference to the struggle then beginning, between the different types of poetry in the world of men. Nevertheless, the poet has left but little to chance: from the opening scene the antithesis is clear, and the contrast is afterwards developed by a number of strokes—by the claims and counter-claims of the birds, their charges and countercharges—until the reader is convinced of what the poet was about. If, as is indeed the case, the success of an allegory largely depends upon the ingenious development of analogies between the symbols and the things symbolised, then The Owl and the Nightingale must surely rank high among works of its kind. Yet the poet has not exhausted his resources in the working out of his many analogies. All the while he has been telling an interesting story, a story which, like Gulliver's Travels, can be read for itself; and in his skill as a story-teller lies no small part of his art as an allegorist, for it is by this means that he manages to bring home his subject. Apart from the realism with which he endows his story, there are the subtlety and the restraint with which he has veiled his meaning. In some allegories, for instance, the story obscures the figurative sense; in others, the figurative sense destroys the story. But in our present poem a perfect balance has been attained: the allegory never obtrudes into the literal narrative, though it is there all the same as a sort of undertone. The bird-world we know is but a pendant of human society; and the imagination is, as it were, fired by the device. As for the originality of the treatment, we have only to turn to some of the earlier narratives, to the Owl and the Falcon fable, for instance, contained in the poem, which forms a good example of the type in question. And there we shall find a narrative of bare facts, with the moral appended: the birds mere automata, dull, lifeless, mechanical—little more than pegs for human attributes. The moral, in short, has stifled the story, which is wanting in life as well as in reality. Compared with such narratives our allegory assumes its just value and proportions, the difference being one of quality not merely of scale. Our poet, it is true, has enlarged the scope of the fable: but he has also breathed fresh life into all its details, while bringing to his work a fine sense of proportion and balance. Both the fable and the allegory have been changed beyond all recognition: what was mechanical and impersonal before, has felt the quickening touch of the poet's genius.

Leaving now the allegory, we approach the work from another standpoint, with a view to inquiring what claims may be advanced for the work as poetry, and whether the author has gifts, in the matter of expression, at all comparable with those he possessed as fabulist and allegorist. Is there anything, for instance, to be said for the style in which he has presented his work? Does his manner add anything to the total effect? What command has he shown of the instruments at his disposal,—of the diction and the verse he has chosen for his purpose? Are there any colours or tones that give special delight, or that help to vitalise the theme of his work? These are questions that arise when we turn to this side of the work: and they call for some sort of answer, if we are to appreciate at all adequately the appeal of its art. From the very nature of things, little enough would be expected from work of this date. The English genius, we are wont to say, was inarticulate as yet: and we point to the fumbling efforts of contemporary writers, as work which, while valuable for historical reasons, requires also some allowance to be made for crude and imperfect workmanship. But The Owl and the Nightingale does not ask to be tried by any mere historical standard: it has qualities that will stand a test of a more absolute and searching kind. In a multitude of different ways has the poet commended his fable by his manner of presenting it; and indeed, when all things are considered, his technique must be described as masterly—a marvel of literary art before our medieval art was born.

Nothing, to begin with, is more remarkable—though the point has hitherto almost escaped notice⁴²—than the particular style in which the poem is written. An apparently artless vein, in which things are said simply and directly, without any straining for effect, any torturing of the syntax for the sake of the metre, but with word following word as in ordinary well-bred speech, the simple structure and diction of prose gliding naturally into verse without ever becoming prosaic—this is the style in which our poet has written, and the fact in itself is not without its significance. For what we have here is clearly the first example of the “familiar” style in English, that style which, according to Cowper, is “of all styles the most difficult to succeed in.” Later on, in Chaucer, the same vein occurs: in Swift and Prior too, though with them there is a refinement due to further literary practice. But to our poet belongs the honour of originating the style in English: he first attempted to build up the poetic idiom on a colloquial basis.

And in this he has succeeded to an astonishing degree: for nowhere does his tone rise above the conversational level, nowhere does it fall beneath the dignity of art. Everywhere he writes in irresistible effortless fashion, depending for his effects upon the simplest forms of expression, upon a vocabulary drawn from the lips of the people, and consisting of words full of colour and life. For him there existed no poetic diction: the most trivial and commonplace words came alike to his pen. Yet the words he uses are never out of place or lacking in dignity; his colloquialisms he handles with unfailing moderation and taste; and in so doing he has added a new power to expression. But in other ways as well is this conversational tone maintained, and notably in the absence of conventional stylistic devices. The poem, for one thing, contains no passages of fine writing, none of the glitter or elevation derived from classical allusions and the like. All tricks, in fact, are practically avoided: our poet writes with the gay good-humour of one with a good story to tell: and he writes to be understood—by the plain man, most of all. And so the effect throughout is simplicity itself, the simplicity that results from a well-concealed art, and wanting in neither energy nor charm. Yet of the art underlying there can be no doubt, as a comparison with contemporary work will plainly reveal. The truth would seem to be that our poet's style grew partly out of his subject-matter. Dealing with a theme that called for no pretentious treatment, he has hit upon a vein that gives just the light and whimsical touch required, while imparting to the narrative an air of naturalness, almost capable of persuading us that such things could be. But much was also due to the poet's own personality, the style really being but an expression of himself. If there is present the naïveté of one dealing in fables, there is also the easy familiarity of a wit indulging in a jeu d'esprit; and these are the qualities, more than anything else, that give to the poem its peculiar character and tone.

It would, however, be idle to deny that the “familiar” style of our poet has features of its own, that distinguish him from later writers in the same vein. There is, for example, his fondness for synonyms⁴³, and for repeating his ideas—traces perhaps of the exuberance of the earlier poetic manner, or more particularly of the oral literary tradition which up to then had prevailed. Or, again, there is the element of alliteration⁴⁴, which runs throughout his work like veins in marble. Never obtrusive in its effects, it serves, notwithstanding, to emphasise the important words in a line, while adding an incidental charm to the poet's expression. But most striking of all is the poet's use of similes, which heighten the vitality of the work as a whole, in a way unprecedented in our native literature. Scattered throughout the poem are quite a number of images of this kind, which add an element of fine surprise to the style, while they also strike home by their daring and unexpected quality. When, for instance, the bill of the Owl is likened to a crooked awl (l. 80), or the persistent song of the Nightingale to an Irish priest's chattering (l. 322); when the Owl is said to sing as lugubriously as a hen in the snow (l. 413), or the twittering of the birds, on the supposed defeat of the Owl, is said to recall the excitement that follows a gambler's overthrow (ll. 1664-5)⁴⁵—the figures may be described as unconventional perhaps, but they must also be said to be fresh and original. They present in arresting fashion the various points they are designed to illustrate; and here, without a doubt, the influence of the Troubadours may indirectly be felt.

But the poet does not depend upon similes alone for the colouring of his poem: in developing his argument he makes use of a number of illustrations, which, apart from their function of presenting the abstract in concrete fashion, supply also a wealth of imagery, which adds very materially to the picturesque quality of the work. And what we have here are no reprints of orthodox scenes: they are reflections caught from the world around, fleeting reminiscences of contemporary life, its manners and customs, its common sights and sounds. Inspired by Troubadour song, our poet, it is true, may depict in glowing but conventional fashion, the familiar scene of the oncoming of spring (ll. 437-44),—when trees and meadows are decked with blossom, with lilies and with roses that burst from the blackthorn; or again it may be the season of autumn, when the sheaves are being garnered and the leaves are stained with brown (ll. 455-6). But these are by no means his characteristic effects. His scenes are more often taken first-hand from the country life of the people: they are the results of his own observation, as when reference is made to the hare flying hot-foot down forest glades, to the fox pursued in open chase, to the horse standing patiently beside the mill-door, or to the owl hunted down and hung as a scarecrow amidst the corn. Elsewhere, again, glimpses may be caught of other aspects of contemporary life: we hear incidentally of the fondness for wrestling and cock-fighting, of the dance-songs that formed part of the Christmas festivities, and of certain other features of the religious life of the time—the canonical hours, the different orders of clerks, monks and canons, and the rampant injustice that prevailed in the bestowal of livings. The effect of it all is to add very considerably to the appeal of the bird-fable. Not only are fresh colours worked into the poetic style, but a substantial historical background is also created, the familiarity of which would appeal to contemporary readers, while arousing in later readers that imaginative sympathy, ever needed for the appreciation of a work that has come down from out of the past.

Such, then, is the manner in which our poet has presented his story, though there are yet other factors that contribute to the total effect—the skill, for example, he displays in dialogue, his power of handling argument in verse, his piquant humour, his urbanity as well as his sane common-sense. But above all, there is the elusive personality that peers through the pages, and is all the more notable in an age of impersonal art. From first to last this personality dominates the work, making it the expression of an individual soul, with its own peculiar utterance and its own outlook upon life. And these are the things that ultimately determine the quality of the work. The poet has spoken to his generation of things of the mind: and he has done so in a way that is entirely his own. Rich in fancy, in humanity, and in the wisdom drawn from life, the poem is, in short, an intimate revelation of the poet himself.

Something must however be added as to our poet's verse, and his skill in handling that octosyllabic couplet, of which he is the first efficient exponent in English. The verse-form was one which was familiar in France, where it appeared in the popular romances, and indeed in much else besides. But its introduction into English marked the beginning of a new system of verse; and it remains to inquire how far our poet has succeeded in acclimatising the measure, and adapting it to the purpose in hand. That there were obstacles to his success is obvious enough: for he was attempting to run English words into a foreign mould, in spite of the persistence of the native accentual tradition, and without the guidance of earlier models. Yet the poet may be said to have triumphed over most of his technical difficulties: he has reconciled the English word-accent with the rhythm required, and has greatly enhanced by his metrical effects the artistic value of the story he tells.

With surprising skill, to begin with, has the poet impressed upon his readers the metrical pattern upon which he works. By far the greater proportion of his verses consists of normal octosyllabic iambic lines, with the sense complete in couplets: so that there can never be any doubt as to the controlling rhythm, or the metrical effects he has primarily in mind. And so the narrative proceeds in easy uninterrupted fashion, the short line harmonising with the naïveté of the theme; while arguments and descriptions fall naturally into couplet form, which is also well suited to the redundancy of the style.

Equally surprising, however, is the skill with which the poet has rung the changes upon his chosen rhythm, with the result of bringing about the necessary variety of movement. Sometimes the change is made by the omission of a syllable, either at the beginning⁴⁶, or in the middle of a line⁴⁷. And the first of these devices, originally a means of avoiding displacement of the word-accent, has ultimately the effect of emphasising a particular word, or of introducing into the movement a delightful trochaic variety; while the second, though less pleasing in its metrical effects, is nevertheless a licence found in Anglo-French poems like Chardry's. Variation of a different kind again results when two syllables are included under a light accent⁴⁸. And while here the influence of the native tradition would seem to have been at work, the effect produced is of an anapaestic kind—the trisyllabic foot coming as a welcome relief to the quick recurrence of the accent in an iambic line. But the poet has yet other devices for modifying his pattern: and specially notable is the way in which he, from time to time, breaks up the unity of his couplet⁴⁹, or by his use of enjambement⁵⁰ brings release from the monotony to which octosyllabics above all are apt to tend. Chrétien de Troyes seems to have been the first to break up the couplet, in terminating a phrase with the first line of the couplet, and commencing a new phrase with the line that followed. But what was with him a licence became later a mark of elegance; and our poet adds considerably to his freedom of movement by adopting the same device. Moreover the same effect results from his use of run-on lines, which occur frequently throughout the poem: and the poet, employing them with unvarying skill, has cleverly adapted his verse to the narrative purpose he had in view.

Nowhere, however, is the poet's metrical art more clearly displayed than in his handling of the rhymes with which he adorns his poem, thus adding a new music to English verse. From the first he appears as a master of this branch of his craft: for the rhymes throughout are wonderfully correct, and this in spite of the frequency with which they occur in an octosyllabic poem, and the severe demands made in consequence upon his resources. Thus he understands the value of variant forms⁵¹, and dialect forms, in supplying him with the particular words he requires: he helps out his resources with self-rhyming forms⁵², though he uses for this purpose only words that differed in meaning; and whereas occasionally he is content with assonant forms⁵³, it is but rarely that his rhymes can be said to break down. On the other hand, the excellence of the great majority of those rhymes is beyond all dispute: he carefully discriminates in his choice of rhyming sounds, and links together only vowels identical in quality and quantity. Then, too, he varies his effects by the introduction of masculine and feminine rhymes; and, naturally enough, it is the latter that predominate⁵⁴; for in rhyming words in English, there would often occur, after the accented or rhyming syllable, an inflexional ending which would constitute a sort of extra syllable, and go to form a rhyme of a double or feminine kind. But whatever the cause, this variation of rhymes is not without its effect upon the harmony of the poem: the feminine rhymes bring about a “delaying grace of movement”; and for a greater artist in this vein we have to wait until Chaucer comes.

Such, then, is the poet's handling of this “light and lewed rhyme” of his: and his treatment in this respect is but in keeping with the many-sided art of the rest of the poem, with its well-designed form, its picturesque allegory, its clever character-drawing, and the manner and style in which the story is presented. If the test of a poem is its completeness, its unity of effect, then The Owl and the Nightingale must surely rank high in the annals of our literature: for, viewed from what standpoint we will, the work has qualities, arresting in themselves, yet contributing, each in its own way, to the harmony of the whole. What, in fact, we admire in the poem is not its lack of art, but the way in which art has made use of the homely and the familiar, turning what was commonplace to artistic ends. Out of such things as fables, debates and bird-lore, our poet has created a striking and an original phantasy, into which he has worked a symbolism of Nature's own devising, together with images drawn from contemporary life and likely to find a mirror in every mind. And since the principal ornament of fables was to have none, he has set forth his phantasy in artless colloquial fashion, requiring in his readers little more than a knowledge of common words and things, and ears that were attuned to the simple rhythm of the octosyllabic line. Throughout the work, in short, he has maintained contact with the commonplace, with reality; and, like the giant Antaeus, he has gained strength in touching mother Earth.

How the poem appealed to earlier readers can only be guessed, though the two MSS. that have come down—neither of which can have been the original—unmistakably point to some degree of popularity⁵⁵. To modern readers, however, the poem has yet more to offer: for when placed in its true perspective, it presents new lights and shades, countless overtones and undertones, that could have existed for neither the poet nor his original readers. Faults in the workmanship, it is true, may here and there be found: occasionally a line limps with defective rhythm: or the native force of the expression may at times develop a crudity, that seems to modern readers a virtue overdone. Yet, even so, such lapses from good taste may be condoned when viewed in a historical light: they are blemishes upon which it would be fatuous to insist.

And for the rest, we cannot but be conscious of the abounding merits of the poem and of what it really stands for. A medieval poem with a colouring distinctly English, it enshrines in singular fashion the intellectual energies of an age, that marked a new phase in the civilisation of Western Europe, and the beginnings of much of our modern English culture. In it may be heard echoes of that spirit of criticism, which was then for the first time challenging the old traditions in literature and life; in it, too, may be found traces of the literary conditions of the time—the fondness for such things as allegories, debates and fables, the insistent call of the new love-poetry, the move in the direction of a new system of verse-making. And as such it is a product of 12th century Western Europe: it looks back to the Troubadours, and on to Dante and Chaucer.

Yet it would be equally true to say that the poem is also a reflection of 12th century England: for its colouring is taken from English life and scenes, its form is influenced by legal activities under Henry II, while its idiom and vocabulary are reminiscent of the homely speech of Dorsetshire or Kent. Moreover, written, as in all probability it was, in the reign of King John, the poem also preserves traces of the growing spirit of independence among Englishmen, of the broadening intellectual sympathies of such men as John of Salisbury or Giraldus Cambrensis: and last, but not least, it is a silent witness to the gradual fusion of two races, in its fascinating blend of the French and English geniuses. To this mixture of racial qualities must indeed be attributed much of the charm of the poem: for if it is manifestly English, it is French as well,—French in its formal excellence and its unity of plan, in its urbanity, its good sense, its logic, and, above all, in the delightful vein of mockery that pervades the whole.

Other qualities there are of interest to the modern reader: for the poet has extended the scope of both fable and debate, he has introduced new effects into the native literature: and while he has revealed unexpected resources in the vernacular, he has also made use of popular material, out of which was subsequently to emerge the great animal epic of the Middle Ages. Yet it is, after all, as the expression of a unique personality, that the poem appeals finally to modern readers: for in it we have the authentic utterance of one who lived under the early Plantagenets, and whose ambitions and fancies, whose thoughts and moods are therein set down for all to read. That the work gives proof of genius as well as the highest art is a fact that will be conceded by all who know the poem. But what attracts us most is the rich humanity of the work, its freshness of utterance, its simple sincere handling of one of the great problems—the age-long contest between asceticism and pleasure. From out of that distant past the voices are few: though Abbot Samson yet lives in the pages of Jocelin, and tells us of things we would not readily forget. Another reading of life is presented by our poet, who comes to remind us of the joy of living. Both readings are true; they are equally the product of the men and their age: and to that age we may return in The Owl and the Nightingale, and catch again the accents of one who spoke in the dawn.

Notes

1. In support of this statement see A. Jeanroy, “La Tenson provençale” (Annales du Midi, II. 281 ff.), E. Faral, in Romania, XLI. pp. 472 ff., and J. H. Hanford, “Classical eclogue and mediaeval debate” (Romanic Review, II. pp. 1-229).

   1911,

2. There can be little doubt that, apart from the instances found in the Virgilian eclogues, the certamen was a familiar literary form in Latin. This at least is suggested by the following reference (due to Professor H. J. Rose): “Asellio Sabino sestertia ducenta donavit pro dialogo in quo boleti et ficedulae et ostreae et turdi certamen induxerat” (Suetonius, de Vita Tiberii, § 42). On the diffusion of the certamen in a great number of literatures see Greif's account in Zeitsch. für vergleichende Literaturgeschichte, N.F. I. 289-95.

3. “Dubitando enim ad inquisitionem venimus: inquirendo veritatem percipimus” (Sic et Non, ed. V. Cousin, p. 16) [Oeuvres inédits d''Abelard, Paris, 1836].

4. “Haec quippe prima sapientiae clavis definitur: assidua scilicet seu frequens interrogatio” (ibid.).

5. E.g. Peter Lombard, Book of Sentences.

6. E.g. Gratian, Decretum aut Concordia discordantium canonum.

7. It is perhaps worth noting that the method reappears in Bacon's Essays, where the “pros and cons” of the various subjects are developed in accordance with Bacon's remarks on “the antitheses of things,” which appear at the end of the sixth book of the Advancement of Learning (see Bacon's Works, ed. Ellis and Spedding, vol. IV. pp. 472 ff.).

8. E.g. Concile de Remiremont (Lat.), Florence et Blancheflour (Fr.), Blancheflour et Florence (A.-Nor.), Melior et Ydoine (A.-Nor.). See E. Faral, Romania, XLI. pp. 474 ff.

9. Conflictus veris et hiemis.

10. De rosae liliique certamine.

11. De Phillide et Flora.

12. Dispute between the Violet and the Rose.

13. De Clarevallensibus et Cluniacensibus.

14. Altercatio Ganymedis.

15. Goliae Dialogus inter aquam et vinum.

16. See Introduction, § 9, p. lxxv.

17. Cf. similar references in Chardry's Petit Plet [ed. J. Koch, Heilbronn, 1879] to the medieval Distichs of Cato.

18. Gadow was the first to point this out with any detail: see his edition of O. & N. notes on ll. 5, 550.

19. See also Goliae Dialogus inter aquam et vinum, l. 12, where the disputants are called actor and reus respectively.

20. Cf. tale (l. 140), fals dom (l. 210), speche (l. 398), bare worde (l. 547), bicloped (l. 550), hes (l. 748), rem (l. 1215), sake (l. 1430), uteste, utheste (ll. 1683, 1698), (King's) pes (l. 1730), griþbruche (l. 1784). See also ll. 1093, 1096, 1098, 1492.

21. Cf. ll. 215-52; 411-66.

22. ll. 236, 294, etc. See Intro. § 8, p. lxxi, note 2.

23. ll. 150-3. See note.

24. ll. 255-390; 473-542.

25. ll. 291, 301, 351, etc.

26. See Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law [2 vols., Cambridge, 1895], II. 587, 611-20.

27. ll. 545-55.

28. ll. 556-668; 837-932.

29. See Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, II. 615. Also ll. 707-836; 955-1042.

30. Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, II. 519.

31. Ibid. II. 614.

32. Ten Brink, Early English Literature [transl. by H. M. Kennedy, London, 1883] (Bohn), I. 215.

33. Saintsbury, Short History of English Literature, p. 60.

34. Ker, English Literature Medieval [London: Home University Library, 1912], p. 183.

35. Wells, Owl & Nightingale [London: Belles Lettres Series, 1907], p. xli.

36. Courthope, History of English Poetry [London, 1895], I. 134.

37. For owl=“monk” see St Anselm in Migne, Pat. Lat. 159, col. 699 d.

38. Courthope (History of English Poetry, I. 134 n.) has curiously misinterpreted this passage. He translates “For prestes wike ich wat þu dest” (l. 1179) as “I know thou doest so for the sake of a priest's dwelling.” In reality the word wike=“offices” or “duties”; and the Owl, instead of regarding the Nightingale as a cleric who aimed at winning a priest's dwelling, is, on the contrary, condemning her opponent for performing the priestly function, being as she was, “al unihoded” (i.e. “unordained,” not “unheeding,” as Courthope translates). The taunts of the Owl, which immediately follow, supply evidence on this point. (See ll. 1180 ff.)

39. See also F. A. Patterson, The Middle English Penitential Lyric, New York, 1911.

40. Possibly, as Mr G. G. Coulton suggests, because the vernacular was not spoken at the English court.

41. Cf. ll. 1687-8, also ll. 1067-71.

42. See, however, Ker, English Literature Medieval, pp. 181-2.

43. E.g. stif starc strong (l. 5); bischricheþ bigredet (l. 67); tosvolle ibolwe (l. 145); chauling chatere (l. 284); unmeþe ouerdede (l. 352); also ll. 488, 526, 703, 757, 842, 865, 1005, 1083, 1103, 1137, 1160, 1347, 1521, 1647.

44. E.g. wis an war of worde (l. 192); wile of bore wurchen bareȝ (l. 408); þrusche þrostle wudewale (l. 1659); also ll. 296, 335, 396, 437, 495, 524, etc.

45. Cf. also similes relating to the use of woad (l. 86), the music of the harp (l. 142), an envious man (l. 421), a useless well (l. 917).

46. Cf. ll. 87, 116, 1130, 1628, etc.

47. Cf. ll. 21, 568, 681, 923, etc.

48. Cf. ll. 70, 355, 870, 875, etc.

49. Cf. ll. 97, 173, 175, 257, 325, etc.

50. Cf. ll. 23, 151, 337, 409, 425, 428, etc.

51. Cf. ilike (l. 157), iliche (l. 316); wailawai (l. 220), wolawo (l. 412); schame (l. 50), schome (l. 363).

52. Cf. ll. 153-4, 391-2, 425-6, 603-4, 895-6; see, however, ll. 267-8.

53. Cf. ll. 505-6, 987-8, 1531-2.

54. The proportion of masculine to feminine rhymes is nearly 1 to 4 (190: 707).

55. For the probable influence of the poem on the later strif, known as The Throstle and the Nightingale, see note, l. 1109.