SOURCE: Lumiansky, R. M. “Concerning The Owl and the Nightingale.” Philological Quarterly 32, no. 4 (October 1953): 411-17.

In the following essay, Lumiansky argues that the author of The Owl and the Nightingale was Nicholas of Guildford, who probably crafted the poem to showcase his talents and secure preferment as a judge.

In his 1907 edition of The Owl and the Nightingale, John Edwin Wells observed that this poem had “received much less attention than it merits.” Wilhelm Horn in 1925, reviewing Atkins' edition of the poem, took occasion to mention the imminent appearance of two more editions of the same piece, and maintained with reference to Wells's observation that “Das gilt heute nicht mehr.” However, although book-length studies and numerous articles have been devoted to the poem in the more than twenty-five years since Horn's remark, a systematic review of the available commentary convinces me that Wells's comment is still apt today...