The Role of the Parrot in Selected Texts from Ovid to Jean Rhys: Telling a Story from an Alternative Viewpoint

Courtney, Julia and James, Paula eds. (2006). The Role of the Parrot in Selected Texts from Ovid to Jean Rhys: Telling a Story from an Alternative Viewpoint. Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press.

URL: http://www.mellenpress.com/mellenpress.cfm?bookid=...

Abstract

This book features the efforts of a group of academics from diverse disciplines that have been working together to highlight the presence of the parrot in selected texts across the centuries. Their common purpose is to demonstrate that fictional parrots invariably function as more than decoration, comedy or badges denoting the eccentricity of their human owners. These versatile and talented birds function as markers for subtle literary techniques. Using the parrot as an interpretative tool the focus is on a range of narrative strategies and metaphorical meanings employed by the authors in question and argue that these are embodied in the attributes of the speaking bird who figures significantly in each work.

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About

  • Item ORO ID
  • 3280
  • Item Type
  • Edited Book
  • ISBN
  • 0-7734-5574-4, 978-0-7734-5574-0
  • Extra Information
  • Contents

    Chapter 1 - Two Poetic and Parodic Parrots in Latin Literature (Paula James)

    Chapter 2 - ‘A Byrde of Paradyse’: Skelton’s Speke Parrot and the Parrots of its Context (Susan Purdie)

    Chapter 3 - The Nunnery Parrot: Gresset’s Ver-Vert and his English Translators (John Gilmore)

    Chapter 4 - The View from the Perch: Flaubert’s Loulou (Julia Courtney)

    Chapter 5 - Parrot as Paradigm: Stevenson and Others (Julia Courtney)

    Chapter 6 - Parrots in Children’s Fiction (Hilary Clare)

    Chapter 7 - Coco: A Parrot of Few Words in Wide Sargasso Sea (Paula James)

    Chapter 8 - The Scientific Background to Parrots in Literature (Caroline Pond)

  • Keywords
  • parrot; mimicry; literary criticism; satire; colonialism; carnival; piracy; appropriation; symbolic birds; narrative voices; laments; classical; medieval; renaissance; modern; victorian
  • Academic Unit or School
  • Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) > Arts and Humanities > Classical Studies
    Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) > Arts and Humanities
    Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS)
  • Depositing User
  • Paula James
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)

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