Original scientific paper

“A Nightingale Cannot Sing in a Cage” – Or Can It? A Proverb and Its Related Beliefs

Charles Clay Doyle orcid.org/0000-0001-7070-8811

Abstract

The international proverb “A nightingale (or other bird) cannot (does not, will not) sing in a cage” is several centuries old—prevalent in English since the eighteenth century—though rebuttals or exceptions to the proverb, both popular and “scientific,” have also been common. In modern times a special application of the proverb occurs in the poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar and in the prose and verse of Maya Angelou.

Keywords

international proverbs; proverbs in English; popular beliefs; songbirds; Aesop; William Caxton; African American literature; Paul Laurence Dunbar; Maya Angelou

Hrčak ID:

277498

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/277498

Publication date:

31.8.2021.

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