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"In the long nineteenth century, scientists revealed striking similarities between how birds learn to sing and how children learn to speak. This book explores how poets in this period responded to an analogy which challenged established definitions of language and, consequently, of what it means to be human. Tracing the 'science of birdsong' as it developed from the ingenious experiments of Daines Barrington to the evolutionary arguments of Charles Darwin, the first two chapters reveal a legacy of thought which informs, and consequently affords fresh insights into, a canonical group of poems about birdsong in the Romantic and Victorian periods. Focusing especially on the writings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the Wordsworth siblings, John Clare and Thomas Hardy, the remaining chapters explore how these writers used birdsong as an analogy through which to explore the faculty of language: how language is learned and how it may have evolved, and what this may further tell us about how poets compose. Drawing together responses to birdsong in science, music and poetry, this interdisciplinary approach examines and tests many of the deep-rooted assumptions which have shaped (and continue to shape) how we respond to the sounds and songs of other creatures in the Anthropocene"--
List of contents
Introduction; 1. The science of birdsong: 1773-1871; 2. The science of language: 1755-1873; 3. 'Prelusive notes': Coleridge and the Wordsworths; 4. 'Undersong': John Clare; 5. 'We Teach 'Em Airs That Way': Thomas Hardy; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
Francesca Mackenney is a Research and Teaching Fellow in Romanticism at the University of Leeds. Her research and related work in environmental education has been funded by an AHRC Doctoral Award, a BARS/Wordsworth Trust Early Career Fellowship, an award from Creative Scotland and an AHRC International Placement at the Library of Congress.
Summary
This interdisciplinary work explores how scientists, musicians and poets have listened to, and tried to understand, the everyday mystery of birdsong. Paying particular attention to Romantic and Victorian writing on other species, it offers valuable insights for scholars working in the fields of literary criticism and the environmental humanities.
Foreword
Illuminating the poetry of birdsong in the Romantic and Victorian periods, this timely study dissects historical attitudes to nonhuman life.
