Gothic Songbird: Bloodstained Breast and Brow

A close reading of the linnet scene in The Monk

Male Linnet. From www.rspb.org.uk

The notorious mirror scene of Matthew Lewis’ eighteenth century Gothic thriller The Monk is much examined by Gothic scholars, yet the arrival of a tame linnet at Antonia’s breast as she stands on the brink of immersion, seems to be strangely absent from the discourse.  Whilst the erotic or magical aspects are often the focus of narrative and structural analysis, little is said about the symbolism of the linnet itself. What might it represent in terms of the masculine Gothic as it relates to Ambrosio’s oedipal desires? Indeed, it is possible to regard the little finch as a reflection – viewed through a magic mirror wielded by a demonic woman – of Ambrosio’s struggle with his repressed sexuality and unspoken past. 

The literary and etymological lineage of the linnet, when considered in conjunction with its visual expression of courtship displays, provides insight into the bird’s timely arrival at Antonia’s impending bath. The linnet is a small finch, popular during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries not only as a caged, songbird taken from the wild, but also as a literary device for Romantic and Victorian writers such as Blake, Wordsworth, Dickens, Tennyson, Rosetti and Wilde.It is most commonly referenced in poetry for either its sweet song or its sad status as a caged wild bird, possibly as an expression of the repression of individual liberty.

The linnet’s common name in English is derived from the flax seed, which the bird is purportedly fond of eating. Flax seed is also known as linseed and from flax, linen fabric is made – being the most commonly used fabric in the manufacture of veils. For the majority of the year the male linnet shares the dull brown and grey colouring of the female. During breeding season however, it develops a bright red breast and brow. (Fig 1) Thus, when a tame linnet flies towards Antonia to nestle between and nibble at her breasts we are witness to a complex allegorical study of Ambrosio’s repressed oedipal desires.

The linnet is known chiefly as a songbird and eighteenth century journals recommended that the best time to remove wild hatchlings from their nest for training is just ten days from hatching, if not earlier. Similarly, Ambrosio was removed from his mother at an early age, and was just two years old when he was taken to a monastery where, “in order to break his natural spirit” he was subjected to “all the horrors with which superstition could furnish...” The effect of the denial of his "natural warmth of...temperament" is repression of all natural instincts, the memory of his mother and sister and even his own sexuality.

If sensibility is a veil that inflames the heart, then the symbolism of the linnet with inflamed heart and bloodied brow nestling within Antonia’s breast as she “stands on the brink” should ignite an inferno. A bird named for the seed of linen from which veils are made, dipped in the virginal blood of a broken hymen? The sacred heart of the veiled Mother Mary, for whom Ambrosio earlier lusted? As Jones points out, the breast is that “part of a woman's anatomy that Ambrosio finds most irresistible...the universal synecdoche of the mother”. Jones’ examination of the narrative structure of the scene fails to consider the oedipal significance of the linnet but the conclusion is the same – the monk desires what has been denied and the repression of that desire brings about his eventual downfall. Likewise, sensibility takes form in the depiction of Antonia’s lovely symmetry, but it is the arrival of the linnet and her dismissal of it that drives Ambrosio into an almost sublime frenzy. Antonia is only able to dislodge the bird by raising her hands, revealing her full naked form to the monk. The bird is driven from her breast, just as Ambrosio was earlier and so he yields and “dashes the mirror upon the ground’. 

There is significantly more than could be explored from the seemingly unimportant appearance of a small bird. Reading the small finch as reflecting the oedipal struggles of a nefarious monk is a telling example of the depths that can be read into the concept of Gothic masculinity. Of course, the speculation about bloodied breast and brow is predicated on the gender of the tame linnet being male. If the bird is actually female then we are left with the concept of it existing as tame songbird, which is a matter for consideration at a later time.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BBC.co.uk, “BBC Nature – Linnet videos, news and facts.” 2015 [website] http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Linnet [accessed 29 August, 2015]

 Jones,W, “Stories of Desire in the Monk”, ELH, Vol.57, No.1 (Spring, 1990), pp. 129-150

Lewis, M The Monk (London: Wordsworth Editions, 2009 [1796]), passim.

Powell Jones, W, The Captive Linnet: A Footnote on Eighteenth-Century Sentiment. Philological Quarterly; Vol33, (1954) pp. 330-337

Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, “Birdguide:Linnet”, 2015 [website] http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/name/l/linnet/

[accessed 30/08/2015]

Snodgrass, Mary Ellen World Clothing and Fashion: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Social Influence, (London: Routledge, 2013) pp. 612-213

Tague, Ingrid H, Dead Pets: Satire and Sentiment in British Elegies and Epitaphs for Animals, Eighteenth-Century Studies 41.3 (2008) pp. 289-306

Young, H “The Italian: Week 3”, PowerPoint, ENG2GOT, La Trobe University, 03/08/2015

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