THE ROLE OF THE PARROT IN SELECTED TEXTS FROM OVID TO JEAN RHYS Telling a Story from an Alternative Viewpoint Near Fine with no dust jacket

One small bump along top edge of board else Fine. ; 9 x 0.75 x 6.25 Inches; 227 pages; This book features the efforts of a group of academics from diverse disciplines that have been working together to highlight the presence of the parrot in selected texts across the centuries. Their common purpose is to demonstrate that fictional parrots invariably function as more than decoration, comedy or badges denoting the eccentricity of their human owners. These versatile and talented birds function as markers for subtle literary techniques. Using the parrot as an interpretative tool the focus is on a range of narrative strategies and metaphorical meanings employed by the authors in question and argue that these are embodied in the attributes of the speaking bird who figures significantly in each work. Contents: 1. Two Poetic and Parodic Parrots in Latin Literature by Paula James 2. ‘A Byrde of Paradyse’: - Skelton’s Speke Parot and the Parrots of its Context by Susan Purdie 3. The Nunnery Parrot: Gresset’s Ver-Vert and his English translators by John Gilmore 4. The View from the Perch: Flaubert’s Loulou by Julia Courtney 5. Parrot as Paradigm: Stevenson and others by Julia Courtney 6. Parrots in Children’s Fiction by Hilary Clare 7. Coco: A Parrot of Few Words in Wide Sargasso Sea by Paula James 8. The Scientific Background to Parrots in Literature by Caroline Pond