[In the following essay, Lumiansky argues that the author of The Owl and the Nightingale was Nicholas of Guildford, who probably crafted the poem to showcase his talents and secure preferment as a judge.]

In his 1907 edition of The Owl and the Nightingale, John Edwin Wells observed that this poem had “received much less attention than it merits.” Wilhelm Horn in 1925, reviewing Atkins' edition of the poem, took occasion to mention the imminent appearance of two more editions of the same piece, and maintained with reference to Wells's observation that “Das gilt heute nicht mehr.” However, although book-length studies and numerous articles have been devoted to the poem in the more than twenty-five years since Horn's remark, a systematic review of the available commentary convinces me that Wells's comment is still apt today.¹

All commentators, except G. G. Coulton, agree as to the high literary merit of the poem, and there now seems little doubt that its form is more indebted to the vernacular than to the Latin debates; but on three other major problems—theme, authorship, and rough date—wide disagreement exists. This state of affairs can perhaps be illustrated most pointedly by brief quotation of statements appearing in two recent comprehensive literary histories, which naturally reflect differences of opinion drawn from various special studies of the poem. A. C. Baugh, in A Literary History of England (1948), states that there is no need for seeing in The Owl and the Nightingale any theme other than “a lively altercation between two birds;” that the most natural explanation finds Nicholas of Guildford the author; and that the poem must be dated after but “perhaps not long after 1189.” G. K. Anderson, in A History of English Literature (1950), sets forth different views. He remarks that such matters as the theme of the poem are perhaps “unimportant;” that the author was “probably not Nicholas of Guildford;” and that the consensus of scholars puts the poem's date “not far from 1225.”

Of course such wide disagreement in connection with a piece of medieval literature is not in itself surprising, in view of the regular scarcity of external evidence. Yet it seems to me that scholars in commenting upon The Owl and the Nightingale have failed to an unusual degree to accept and use certain cogent arguments presented by their predecessors concerning the poem, and that the extreme divergence of opinion which the statements quoted above exemplify is no longer necessary. Though there seems some reason for differing views concerning the date of the poem, my concern in this paper is to demonstrate that the findings and speculations of earlier commentators on The Owl and the Nightingale afford sufficient basis for general agreement as to its theme and authorship. In so demonstrating, I shall use parts of arguments advanced by Wells, Atkins, Huganir, Tupper, Wilson, and others, though the complete thesis of no one of these writers appears to me acceptable.

The starting point for any detailed discussion of The Owl and the Nightingale should be an attempt to state the theme for the whole poem. Though the poem can be broken down into two elements—on the one hand, a plea for preferment for Master Nicholas of Guildford because of his excellent qualities as a judge; and, on the other hand, a debate between an owl and a nightingale—the first of these two is undeniably the reason for the poem's existence. Consequently, whether or not we are sentimentally pleased at so considering what W. P. Ker called “the most miraculous piece of writing … among the medieval English books,” we are met with the inescapable necessity of meshing the debate proper with this mercenary purpose for the poem. In other words, the debate between the two birds must in some way or other support the plea for preferment for Nicholas. And it obviously follows that any effort to state an isolated theme for the debate without concern for its framing purpose comes perilously close to being a waste of time for both writer and reader. But I find that many commentators have been guilty of this fault; an exception is Miss Huganir. In her words, “The primary object of the poem was not to present an engaging fable—that was incidental, however important. Its object was to present a certain Nicholas for preferment.” And elsewhere she continues:

… after Nicholas is mentioned, and the clarity of his judgment in difficult questions is lauded, and his insight and taste in literary matters [are] stressed, [then] the conduct of the debate, the legal knowledge displayed, [and] the comment upon [the] various phases and themes [of the debate] … are [all] specifically designed to attest the legal acumen, knowledge of the art of pleading and legal processes, experience of life, literary appreciation and skill in verse, credited to Nicholas at the beginning and close.

Miss Huganir's point, convincing I think in itself, gains support from consideration of the relationship of the two elements in the structure of the poem. The praise of Nicholas near the beginning and the plea for preferment near the end by no means clumsily surround the central matter represented by the debate. Rather, the framing material concerning Nicholas is skillfully introduced after the debate has begun, with a purpose necessary to the proper conduct of the debate: the Nightingale suggests Nicholas as a suitable judge, and the Owl agrees to this suggestion. Again, in the concluding passage treating Nicholas, this material is neatly integrated by the appearance of the Wren to prevent disorder and to send the two contestants to Nicholas. Further, the framing situation whereby the debaters are to appear before Nicholas for judgment, is not allowed to disappear through the body of the poem, in which the birds present their arguments. Twice in the course of their debate the reader is reminded of Nicholas' future role as judge. Thus the structure of the whole poem, as well as the simple logic of the matter, indicates that we cannot consider the debate between the two birds without reference to the praise of and the plea for Nicholas.

Once we accept this fact, we realize the inadequacy of the various available statements of isolated theme which do not take into account the framing purpose for the poem. And let us note here that almost every scholar who has written about the poem has claimed a new and different theme for the debate proper; also, some, like ten Brink, have proclaimed the Owl the victor, while others, like Atkins, have awarded the victory to the Nightingale. It may well be that the debate includes many thematic strands, and that neither the Owl nor the Nightingale is meant to be considered the winner. To ten Brink the theme of the poem was a dispute between pleasure and asceticism; to Saintsbury, between gaiety and gravity; to Ker, between Art and Philosophy; to Wells, between an ascetic and a more serious view of life; to Courthope, between strict monasticism and the latitudinarian clergy; to Owst, between the old and the new preaching; to Atkins, between didactic religious poetry and the new love poetry. In no one of these instances, however, did the writer make clear just how and why the theme claimed might furnish reason for the bishops to grant Nicholas additional livings.

What then is a more satisfactory approach to the theme of the whole poem? In my opinion, Miss Huganir, in the second quotation given above, offered the best answer, though with the help of more recent commentators we can make this answer considerably more specific. First of all, the entire piece is aimed at showing Nicholas' skill as a poet, and the excellent analyses by numerous critics attest the successful accomplishment of this aim; as Atkins pointed out, at a time when the new poetry was sweeping Western Europe, such skill would be a far from unimportant attribute in intellectual circles. Second, the method, the conduct, and the content of the debate all bear witness to the various traits and abilities which qualify Nicholas as a valuable judge. In method the debate presents two supposedly conflicting views of life—the old and the new, the grave and the gay, the strict and the latitudinarian—each fittingly symbolized by the traditionally suitable bird, and then proceeds to examine both the strong and the weak points of each view, to the end that the conflict is shown to be more supposed than real. By choosing not to state the outcome of this debate, the poet not only borrows a usual situation from the vernacular examples of this genre; he also emphasizes that since neither point of view is regularly preferable, neither the Owl nor the Nightingale should be considered the winner. Thus the method of the debate illustrates the depth of Nicholas' understanding of life and his wisdom in examining all sides of a question—qualities of high import for a judge. In addition, the conduct of the debate, wherein we see strict adherence to the forms, processes, and terminology of a contemporary trial, is obviously meant to demonstrate that Nicholas possesses the technical knowledge necessary for a judge.

It is, however, in the content of the debate that Nicholas' wide familiarity with and sane judgment about intellectual matters of contemporary interest are most fully illustrated. First, both the Owl and the Nightingale discuss at some length love, honest and illicit, and marriage; surprisingly, for anyone who is looking for a winner in the contest, the two birds hold closely similar views on this subject: every sort of love, they say, is justifiable except that which is stolen. As Miss Huganir showed, this discussion probably reflects a well known contemporary controversy concerning women, centered about the Order of St. Gilbert, which accepted women in conventual houses; among others, Becket defended the order and Nigel Wireker attacked it. Second, Atkins has indicated how significantly the debate presents the current opposition between the new love poetry and the traditional didactic religious poetry. Third, as A. C. Cawley made clear in a recent issue of the Modern Language Review, the material concerning astrology and witchcraft most certainly mirrors popular opinion in the years shortly before and after 1186, when, as Benedict of Peterborough and Roger of Hoveden say, everyone seems to have been to some degree concerned about the planetary conjunction of September 16, 1186. Fourth, Owst has related various attitudes of the Owl and of the Nightingale to the contemporary interest in the new gentle preaching as opposed to the old thundering sermon. Fifth, almost certainly the material in the debate which stresses the ascendancy of wisdom over strength and suggests the folly of warfare reflects views not unusual at the time, considering the constant warring in France. In short, the content of the debate shows both Nicholas' close acquaintance with important contemporary intellectual controversies and the sane, tolerant, humane attitude he adopts in examining these controversies; for him each side of these questions has both its strong and its weak points. Such a man obviously possesses the qualities of a good judge.

We have seen then that there can be no isolated theme for the debate proper without consideration of the framing plea for preferment. Thus the theme for the poem as a whole must be about as follows: The bishops should grant Nicholas of Guildford additional livings because of his skill as a poet, his penetrating analysis of two superficially conflicting views of life, his wide knowledge of legal processes, and his sane judgment, evidenced by his ability to examine both sides of such questions as love, poetry, astrology, preaching, and violence.

The second problem with which we are here concerned is the question of authorship. A review of the scholarship treating this matter shows that three unrewarding approaches have been used. First, ever since Stevenson brought out the earliest edition of the poem in 1838, a certain John of Guildford, whose name appears in the Jesus manuscript containing one version of the poem, has regularly been put forward as possible author, though nothing at all connects him with the poem. Second, because Mätzner, Wülcker, and ten Brink declared that the Nicholas who appears in the poem could not possibly be the author, since normal modesty would prevent his indulging in such outright self-praise, every commentator has felt it necessary to discuss laboriously this unconvincing contention, as well as the corollary to the effect that Nicholas could not have been the author because in the poem he is supposed to be at home in Portisham rather than in the thicket overhearing the debate between the two birds. Third, as a result of this second approach, a completely nebulous candidate has been conjured up in the form of a friend, who presumably wrote the piece out of kindness for Nicholas. Despite these three peripheral considerations, however, most critics—Wright, Gadow, Hinckley, Atkins, Huganir, Tupper, and others—have maintained that the probable author is the Nicholas of Guildford mentioned in the poem.

Such a view seems to me sound, except that I would delete the probable, for the logic of the case indicates that only Nicholas of Guildford could have written the poem. As we saw in the foregoing discussion, the poem exists as a plea for preferment for Nicholas, and the debate proper is present primarily to illustrate to some powerful person or persons the outstanding qualities which recommend Nicholas for such preferment. If anyone other than Nicholas wrote the poem—say, a friend—then the poetic skill, the knowledge of legal processes, and the ability to examine both sides of contemporary questions would all be attributes of the friend rather than of Nicholas. In other words, a supposition of authorship by anyone other than Nicholas directly contradicts the primary purpose of the poem; further, such a supposition argues for a disunity between the two formal elements which the text will not support. Consequently, Nicholas of Guildford must be considered the author of The Owl and the Nightingale.

A few words may be in order concerning the bitterly debated question of the date for the poem. In the past, the basic point at issue seems most frequently to have been whether the poem was written during or after the reign of Henry II; and the argument has hinged chiefly about lines 1091-92—“þat underyat þe king Henri, / Jesus his soule do merci!”—which some feel could apply only to a deceased King Henry, and which others maintain as possible during that king's life-time. An important new factor was introduced into this controversy last year by A. C. Cawley, who, as I mentioned earlier, showed the connections of the poem with the planetary conjunction of September 16, 1186, and suggested that the astrological material in the poem would have had point anywhere from 1184 to some few years after Henry II's death in 1189. It may well be that this span of roughly ten years is as close as we shall ever come to an exact date for The Owl and the Nightingale; even so, we have a probable date considerably less vague than that for most pieces of medieval literature.

My concern in this paper has been to urge that the area of scholarly agreement about the problems of The Owl and the Nightingale should be extended to include the questions of theme and authorship. Since the poem exists primarily as a plea for preferment for Nicholas of Guildford, the debate proper must be thought of as present in order to support this plea. Consequently, only this Nicholas can be considered the author of the poem; otherwise, the illustrations within the debate proper of outstanding attributes would not be applicable to him, and thus would not support the plea for his preferment. Finally, the astrological implications of lines 1145-1330 of the poem present a strong argument for a date somewhere between 1184 and about 1194.

Notes

1. The discussions of the theme, authorship, and date of The Owl and the Nightingale are listed in the bibliographies to be found in the editions of the poem by J. E. Wells (Boston and London, 1907; revised 1909; pp. 184-186), J. W. H. Atkins (Cambridge, England, 1922; pp. 182-186), and J. H. G. Grattan and G. F. H. Sykes (London, EETS, es, number 119, 1935; pp. xxiii-xxiv). To these lists should be added G. R. Owst, Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (Cambridge, England, 1933), p. 22; L. de la Torre Bueno, “A Note on the Date of The Owl and the Nightingale,” Anglia, LVIII (1934), 122-130; K. Huganir, “Equine Quartering in The Owl and the Nightingale,” PMLA, LII (1937), 935-945; H. B. Hinckley, “A Note on the Owl,” ELH, IV (1937), 299-300; R. M. Wilson, Early Middle English Literature (London, 1939), chapter VII; K. Huganir, “Further Notes on the Date of The Owl and the Nightingale,” Anglia, LXIII (1939), 133-134; J. W. H. Atkins, “A Note on The Owl and the Nightingale,” MLR, XXXV (1940), 55-56; F. L. Utley, The Crooked Rib (Columbus, Ohio, 1944), pp. 42, 54, 87, 154; S. R. T. O. d'Ardenne, “‘Ine so gode kinges londe’,” English Studies, XXX (1949), 157-164; A. C. Cawley, “Astrology in The Owl and the Nightingale,” MLR [Modern Language Review], LXVI (1951), 161-174.

   Valuable reviews of Miss Huganir's important book, The Owl and the Nightingale: Sources, Date, Author (Philadelphia, 1931), will be found in Medium Aevum, I (1932), 149; MLN, XLVIII (1933), 58; JEGP [Journal of English and Germanic Philology], XXXII (1933), 408; Speculum, VIII (1933), 282; Anglia Beiblatt, XLIV (1933), 229; YWES [Year's Work in English Studies], XII (1931), 117. The latest study of the language of the poem is B. Sundby, The Dialect and Provenance of the Middle English Poem “The Owl and the Nightingale” (Lund Studies in English, number XVIII, 1950); a bibliography occupies pp. 207-216.