“Birdsong”

“The poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why.” -Percy Shelley, “A Defence of Poetry”

“Birdsong”

Welcome to K-SAA’s 2025-2027 public outreach initiative! It's our way of getting connected with teachers and students of all levels, as well as the general public.

History & About the Project

Poems & Birdsong

Additional Resources

Teaching "Birdsong"

Background

The relationship of poetry to birdsong is an ancient and global one that returns powerfully in the writings of Keats, Shelley, and their circles. In the 7th century BCE, Alcman of Sardis claims to have learned his skills as a lyric poet from listening to birdsong. The first poem in the Shijing or Classic of Odes (11th to 7th century BCE) in China begins onomatopoetically with the cry of an osprey, “Guan guan!” In 1819 in London, Keats famously wrote about listening to a nightingale, and in 1820 in Livorno, Shelley composed well-known verses to a skylark.

The next year, Shelley would claim in A Defence of Poetry that “the poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why.”

Besides Keats and Shelley, William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth, S.T. Coleridge, Charlotte Smith, John Clare, and Phillis Wheatley, among other contemporaries, likewise set forth in their writings the relationship between poetry and birdsong. Beyond the Romantic period, modern and contemporary poets have both listened to birdsong and alluded to the poems of Keats, Shelley, and others in renewing the creative possibilities and implications of this figure of poetic self-reflection.

Our public outreach theme of birdsong is designed to address audiences on multiple levels. It aims to reach high school and undergraduate students, as well as members of the general public who may be curious about Romantic poetry; and it also aims to reach scholars and teachers who are interested in connecting British Romantic poetry to modern and contemporary poetry in English, to poetry in other languages, historical periods, and parts of the world, making interdisciplinary connections to environmental and sound studies.

For those in the greater New York City area, please join our one-day Curran Symposium on October 24, at Fordham University, at the Lincoln Center campus. The event will feature panels and speakers sharing their research and scholarship on the theme of birdsong, and audience members will be invited to join us for a walking tour of Central Park.

The Vision of Birdsong

Upcoming Birdsong Events

K-SAA May Members’ Meeting

Please join us on Zoom for our annual May Members’ Meeting on May 29th at 3:30 pm EST!

In the spirit of coming together through poetry that might heal and comfort in difficult times, our Members Meeting will offer readings of birdsong poetry, looking toward our 2025 Curran Symposium on the same topic. In addition to the Association’s updates and a few of our favorite readers, we’ll also have community readings of “Ode to a Nightingale” and “To a Skylark.”

Please register for the meeting here and let us know if you would like to volunteer to read a stanza!

We look forward to seeing you on Zoom soon!

"Two Orioles," c. 1610, Mughal Period, India. Collection of the Ashmolean, University of Oxford.

The Curran Symposium

Please join us in New York City for our annual Stuart Curran Symposium on Friday, October 24, 2025 from 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM EST at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus on the topic of “Birdsong.” Join us for a lunchtime birding tour at Central Park!

Welcome and Introduction

Panel I on Afterlives of Romantic Birdsong in Modern and Contemporary Literature and Culture

Eric Eisner (Associate Professor of English, George Mason University)

Alexander Schlutz (Associate Professor of English, John Jay College and CUNY Graduate Center)

Orrin Wang (Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Maryland, College Park)

Panel II on Romantic Birdsong in Comparative and Global Context

Chris Barrett (Associate Professor of English, Louisiana State University)

Paresh Chandra (Assistant Professor of English, Williams College)

Christopher GoGwilt (Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Fordham University)

Lunch

Birding Excursion in Central Park

Led by Tod Winston, Birding Guide and Biodiversity Specialist, NYC Bird Alliance

Keynote Lecture by Francesca Mackenney

Third-Century Research Fellow in Writing and Place at Manchester Metropolitan University and author of Birdsong, Speech and Poetry: The Art of Composition of the Long Nineteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2022)

Teaching Talk on birdsong and music by Glenda Goodman (Associate Professor of Music, University of Pennsylvania), featuring live performances of musical compositions inspired by birdsong.