though they never probe very deeply. It is possible that
the poem is an allegory in which the Owl represents
the contemplative life and the Nightingale the active
life; or perhaps, as some scholars have suggested, the
birds represent philosophy and art, or the preacher
and the minstrel, or (the most popular interpretation)
love poetry and religious poetry. Indeed, the charac-
ters touch on all of these subjects in the poem, but
never with any depth or apparent seriousness.
What stands out more than any particular theme is
the character of the two debaters. They are more inter-
ested in self-aggrandizement and in personal attacks
against each other than in any serious ideas. The Night-
ingale calls the Owl ugly, and the Owl accuses the
Nightingale of being scrawny. Each attacks the other’s
sanity and cleanliness. The Owl complains that all the
Nightingale can do is sing, while she, the Owl, can do
many things. In particular, she boasts of her practical
contribution of exterminating mice in barns. The
poem’s narrator seems to come down ultimately on the
side of the Owl, though it is just as possible that he,
like the Nightingale herself in the end, is simply
impressed by the Owl’s egoism and self-importance. In
that case, the poem may simply be a satire of human
contentiousness.
The debate concludes without a clear victor, and the
birds fl y off to present their case to someone named
Nicholas of Guildford to judge. Some readers have
assumed that Nicholas was the author of the poem,
others that he was the author’s patron (which would
explain his fl attering characterization in the poem as a
man of learning and accomplishment). Still others have
suggested that the poem was written in order to be
presented to Nicholas by an anonymous clerical friend
of the poet’s, or by the nuns of Shaftesbury Abbey, a
possibility that would be consistent with the poem’s
southwest dialect. But there is no critical consensus
about Nicholas of Guildford’s connection to the text,
or about the poem’s authorship in general. We do
know that the bird debate was to become a popular
subgenre of MIDDLE ENGLISH POETRY, so that the inspi-
ration for the later Thrush and the Nightingale (late
12th c.), Thomas Clanvowe’s Cuckoo and the Nightin-
gale (ca. 1400), and perhaps GEOFFREY CHAUCER’s The
PARLIAMENT OF FOWLS, probably came ultimately from
The Owl and the Nightingale.FURTHER READING
Cartlidge, Neil, ed. The Owl and the Nightingale. Exeter,
U.K.: University of Exeter Press, 2001.
Hume, Kathryn. The Owl and the Nightingale: The Poem and
its Critics. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1975.
Stone, Brian, trans. The Owl and the Nightingale, Cleanness,
and St Erkenwald. 2nd ed. London: Penguin Classics,
1988.
Jay RuudOWL AND THE NIGHTINGALE, THE 303