SOURCE: "The Background of Lindsay's 'The Chinese Nightingale'," in Western Illinois Regional Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1, Spring, 1985, pp. 70-80.

In the following essay, Ward examines the autobiographical elements of "The Chinese Nightingale. "

Imagine Vachel Lindsay sitting upstairs in his family home in Springfield, Illinois as sounds of the summer of 1914 floated through the open window, musing over a draft of "The Chinese Nightingale." How could he conjure up, with any accuracy, the fabulous and unknown world of China? What resources did Lindsay draw on to create the grace, delicacy, and awareness of Chinese culture we find in this poem? Critics have assumed that the shadowy other world of the Orient was a mystery to the sheltered midwestern poet, that the details of the poem were bits of fantasy woven into the fabric of a dream vision, uninformed by actual experience. Appraising Lindsay's career in the Southern Review [September, 1936] W...