The Owl and the Nightingale

The Owl and the Nightingale
Owl with three smaller birds, in a bestiary manuscript (London, British Library Harley MS 4751, f. 47r)
Also known as	Hule and the Nightingale
Date	12th or 13th century
Manuscript(s)	(1) BL MS Cotton Caligula A.ix; (2) Oxford, Jesus College, MS 29 (MS Arch. I. 29). Written in the 2nd half of the 13th century

The Owl and the Nightingale is a twelfth- or thirteenth-century Middle English poem detailing a debate between an owl and a nightingale as overheard by the poem's narrator. It is the earliest example in Middle English of a literary form known as debate poetry (or verse contest). Verse contests from this time period were usually written in Anglo-Norman or Latin. This poem shows the influence of French linguistic, literary, and rhetorical techniques. After the Norman Conquest, French became a predominant language in England, but English was still widespread and recognized as an acceptable language for poetry, if only burlesque debates.

There is no certain information about the poem’s author, date of composition or origin.

Nicholas of Guildford is mentioned several times in the text as the man best suited to judge which bird presents the strongest argument. His character never actually makes an appearance, and the poem ends with the debate unresolved and the owl and nightingale flying off in search of Nicholas. Critics tend to agree that the most likely reason for the mention of Nicholas of Guildford in the poem is because he is the author. However, in the introduction to the latest translation on the text, Neil Cartlidge reminds the reader that despite the general acceptance of Nicholas as author “…there is no firm evidence to support such an identification and no certain trace of the existence of any Nicholas of Guildford, priest of Portesham, beyond the text itself”.

It is equally difficult to establish an exact date when The Owl and the Nightingale was first written. The two surviving manuscripts are thought to be copied from one exemplar, and they are dated to the second half of the 13th century. In ll. 1091-2, the nightingale prays for the soul of "king Henri", which is thought to reference “either the death of Henry II of England in 1189 or of Henry III of England in 1272". Scholars see no evidence that the poem predates the surviving manuscripts by many years. It is possible that the poem was written in the 12th or 13th century, and “there is a serious possibility the poem was composed after the death of Henry III in 1272”.