SOURCE: "Selected Nightingales" in His and Hers: Essays in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Literature, The University Press of Kentucky, 1986, pp. 71-83.

In the following excerpt, Messenger discusses the literary tradition of poet as nightingale and the dualisms—such as art and nature or humans and animals—that underscore Finch's "To the Nightingale."

"To the Nightingale" begins with a command to the bird to sing so that the poet can write the lyrics for its music. The poet makes some comparisons between the bird and poets in general. When the bird begins to sing, the poet or the Muse attempts twice to match it with words but fails in the attempt. With a quick sour-grapes reversal, the poet attacks the frivolity of the nightingale, who is neglecting the serious business of nest-building, and concludes with a rueful analysis of the motivation for that attack.

One can readily see how this...