Abstract:

In the literature of early modern England, particularly Lyly, Shakespeare, and Spenser, love and sexual desire are commonly allegorised in terms of luring, trapping, and shooting birds. This paper investigates the classical origins of this symbolism, revealing how authors used Greek and Roman metaphors of love-as-fowling to inform their own works, with Cupid himself often imagined as a bird. It reconstructs technical and terminological aspects of fowling, arguing that we can only understand why bird-catching was used to express desire once we have answered fundamental questions of how, when, and by whom birds were traditionally caught.

中文翻译：

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作为爱情寓言的捕鸟：希腊罗马文学与早期现代英国文学的比较

摘要：

在早期现代英国的文学中，特别是在莉莉、莎士比亚和斯宾塞的文学中，爱情和性欲通常用引诱、诱捕和射杀鸟类来寓言。本文调查了这种象征主义的古典起源，揭示了作者如何使用希腊和罗马的“爱如鸟”的隐喻来表达自己的作品，而丘比特本人经常被想象成一只鸟。它重构了捕鸟的技术和术语方面，认为只有回答了传统上如何、何时以及由谁捕捉鸟类的基本问题，我们才能理解为什么用捕捉鸟类来表达欲望。