Skip to main content Accessibility help
×

Temporary Disruption

We have implemented additional assurance measures to protect our systems.

As a result, we have suspended some of our systems and services. We apologise for any temporary disruption some customers may experience.

  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

43 results

Page 1 of 3

  • 7 - Poetic Imagery

  • Edited by Dermot Cavanagh, University of Edinburgh, Alan Gillis, University of Edinburgh, Michelle Keown, University of Edinburgh, James Loxley, University of Edinburgh, Randall Stevenson, University of Edinburgh
  • Book:
    The Edinburgh Introduction to Studying English Literature
    Published by:
    Edinburgh University Press
    Published online:
    10 July 2026, pp 67-77

  • Summary

    A wayle whit as whalles bon,

    beautiful woman / whale’s

    A grein in golde that goodly shon,

    rosary bead / beautifully

    A tortle that min herte is on,

    turtle-dove

    In tounes, trewe …

    in the world / alive

    Why might female beauty be likened to a whale bone? This is the extraordinary image presented in the opening of this anonymous lyric poem from the fi fteenth century. It seems strange to measure human beauty by a thing no longer living, and of gigantic proportion. The image stands out oddly in a poem in which the speaker is clearly fl attering his beloved; after all, she is then compared to the perfection of a brightly inset rosary bead and to a turtle dove, a bird which symbolises love. In fact, the whale bone image was not uncommon in medieval love poetry: suggestive of rarity, whiteness and sharp clarity it could be used to mirror ideas about the ideal beauty of a woman's skin. Though we, as contemporary readers, might puzzle at its incongruity, we can still recognise its eff ectiveness as it forces two diff erent images into unlikely juxtaposition. An arresting opening image pulls us into the poem's world, making us more keenly alive to further worlds of possible meanings which even the smallest of lyric poems contains.

    Poetry is in part an act of perception, and a renewal, or heightening, of our ordinary perceptual powers at that. Reading, or hearing, a poem engages our responsiveness on many diff erent levels because a poem itself is created out of diff erent aspects − structural, grammatical, rhythmic, metrical, verbal, visual − which together make a composite whole.

Women's Poetry from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, 1400–1800: An Anthology
  • Edited by Sarah Prescott, Marie-Louise Coolahan, Sarah Dunnigan, Wes Hamrick, Kate Louise Mathis, Cathryn A. Charnell-White
  • Published online:
    05 February 2026
    Print publication:
    22 January 2026
  • Anthologies play an essential role in shaping literary history. This anthology reveals women's poetic activity and production across the three nations of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales from 1400 to 1800, overturning the long-standing and widespread bias in favour of English writers that has historically shaped both scholarly and popular understanding of this period's female poetic canon. Prioritising texts that have never before been published or translated, readers are introduced to an extraordinary array of women's voices. From countesses to servant maids, from erotic verse to religious poetry, women's immense poetic output across four centuries, multiple vernaculars, and national traditions is richly demonstrated. Featuring translations and glosses of texts in Irish, Ulster Scots, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh, alongside informative headnotes on each poet, this collection makes the work of women poets available like never before. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

  • Index

  • Edited by Sarah Prescott, University of Edinburgh, Marie-Louise Coolahan, University of Galway, Sarah Dunnigan, University of Edinburgh, Wes Hamrick, University of Connecticut, Kate Louise Mathis, University of Edinburgh, Cathryn A. Charnell-White, Aberystwyth University
  • Book:
    Women's Poetry from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, 1400–1800: An Anthology
    Published online:
    05 February 2026
    Print publication:
    22 January 2026, pp 730-736
    • Chapter
      • You have access
      • Open access
    • PDF
    • Export citation

Page 1 of 3