The voice of Philomela : the Victorian nightingale’s predicament

Abstract

Literary nightingales have warbled through endless nights since Homer, keeping forlorn poets company, musicians inspired, painters perplexed how to translate the auditory into the visual. More often than not, the nightingale is depicted in various art forms as an inoffensive bird, solitary and melancholy, a creature seemingly disembodied, heard more than seen, its rhapsody filling the hushed silences of night. So many times the nightingale is regarded as a synonym for the poet him- or herself, merging seamlessly with plaintive subjective verse.