Birds in Literature: Symbol Literacy Course

In ancient myth and literature, birds delivered prophecy and served as messengers, helping us discover language, music, poetry, and spiritual realms.

Now, in art and literature, birds have been ravaged and flattened into endless clichés: the caged bird, the dark raven bringing omens, and birds as symbols of freedom.

Shapeshifting, mystical travel, birdsong, green language, trance, and true wonder are absent from modern literature, and if they do exist, have been imprisoned in the fantasy and magical realism genres.

However, in today’s segment of the symbol literacy course, we will study the authors who still remember the true cry of the raven, who can write directly about birds not just as a symbol, but who bring birds’ ritual vision, their patterns of flight, and rhythm to their work with complex and aesthetic framings/metaphors.

Plus, of course, we will have to study the mythological origins of birds in literature and our animistic relationship to them.

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