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This page lists books that discuss the bird references in the writings of Shakespeare.

The books are listed by publication date with the most recent at the top.

Shakespeare's Birds

Peter Goodfellow

Penguin Kestrel Books

1984

"This beautifully illustrated book describes all the birds referred to in Shakespeare's poems and plays and provides a fascinating and unusual insight into the world of the Elizabethan's. Shakespeare mentions over fifty different birds in his writings and they 'chant melody on every bush'. His plays are enriched by his use of bird images: Beatrice runs like a lapwing, Antony is vividly described as a doting mallard, while Richard II is compared to an eagle, 'his eye lightens forth controlling majesty'. The most poignant example of all is probably Juliet's allusion to Romeo as a peregrine falcon, a bird of great price, when she pleads 'O for a falconer's voice, to lure this tassel-gentle back again."

An Illustrated Introduction To Shakespeare's Birds

Dr. Levi Fox

1978

References where each bird is mentioned in Shakespeare. 32 pages.

World of Shakespeare: Animals and Monsters

Alan Dent

Osprey Publishing

1972

The Birds of Shakespeare

Lavonia Stockelbach

1940

60 colour illustrations by Stockelbach. Reprinted by Batsford in the 1950s.

Animal Lore in English Literature

P. Ansell Robin

1932

The Birds of Shakespeare

Sir Archibald Geikie

1916

From the preface: "The attentive reader of Shakespeare's Poems and Plays can hardly fail to notice the remarkable frequency of the Poet's allusions to Birds, not merely as a great choir of songsters, enlivening the woods and fields with their varied music, but as individual creatures, each endowed with its own special characters. Shakespeare has drawn an assemblage of bird-portraits to which, for extent and variety, no equal is to be found in any other great English poet. Making ample use of what he had himself observed about Birds in their native haunts, and combining this personal knowledge with what he could obtain from literature and from popular fancy or superstition, he has employed the material thus gathered to illustrate, in many an apt simile and striking metaphor, his vivid presentation of the great drama of human Hfe. If we compare him in this respect with either the poets who preceded or those who have followed him we learn that he stands apart from them all."

Shakespeare's Greenwood: The Customs Of The Country: The Language, The Superstitions, The Customs, The Folk-Lore, The Birds & Trees, The Parson, The Poets, The Novelist

George Morley

1900

Natural History In Shakespeare's Time: being extracts illustrative of the subject as he knew it

P. Ansell Robin

1896

"THIS book presents in a convenient form for reference a collection of the quaint theories about Natural History accepted by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The work is meant to be rather a sketch than an exhaustive treatise, otherwise it would fill many volumes. The plan of the book is to give some illustration of each word mentioned by Shakespeare when there is anything remarkable to be noted about it. The term "Natural History" has been taken in its widest sense, as including not only fauna but flora, as well as some precious stones."

The Animal-Lore of Shakespeare's Time: Including Quadrupeds, Birds, Reptiles, Fish and Insects

Emma Phipson

1883

From the preface: " The object of the following compilation is to bring together in an accessible form waifs and strays of information, collected from various sources, relating to medieval natural history, so far as animal life is concerned. Descriptions, more or less accurate, of the birds and quadrupeds known in the Middle Ages are to be found in the writings of Gesner, Belon, Aldrovandus, and other naturalists. A knowledge of the state of natural science during the period in which our great dramatist lived may be gained, not only from the writings of naturalists and antiquaries, but from similes, allusions, and anecdotes introduced into the plays, poems, and general literature of England during the latter half of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries."

The Birds of Shakespeare: Critically Examined, Explained and Illustrated

James Edmund Harting

1871

From the preface: "Of no other author, perhaps, has more been written than of Shakespeare. Yet whatever other knowledge his commentators professed, few of them appear to have been naturalists, and none, so far as I am aware, have examined his knowledge of Ornithology. An inquiry upon this subject, undertaken in the first instance for my own amusement, has resulted in the bringing together of so much that is curious and entertaining, that to the long list of books already published about Shakespeare, I have been bold enough to add yet another. In so doing, I venture to hope that the reader may so far appreciate the result of my labour as not to consider it superfluous."