Max Kade Institute Library Search

Use the above window to search all fields. Otherwise, search individual fields below.
Please note: In many of the bibliographic records, MKI has not used umlauts (ä, ö, ü) or the letter ß. Try searching both for umlauts and for ae, oe, or ue, and ss.

FormatJournal Article
Author, AnalyticEschenbach, Gunilla and Sandra Richter
Title, AnalyticSounds in Contact: The American Bird Sounds of a German-American Worker Poet and New Empirical Methods of Comparing Literary Sounds
Journal TitleCanadian Review of Comparative Literature
Date of Publication2020
Volume ID47
Issue ID4
Location in Work449-462
View OnlinePDF
AbstractAiming "to strengthen the comparative focus in the vast research field of literature and sound," this article examines examples of birdsong onomatopoeia in the songs and lyrics of Wilhelm Benignus (1861-1930), "a forgotten author who migrated to New York State from the small German town of Heilbronn in 1882, and who favored nature writing, especially ornithological onomatopoeia, in order to write 'American poetry.'" The authors "focus not only on written onomatopoeic words but also on their acoustic representation, reference, and meaning." They "incorporate empirical research on literary texts, as informed and assisted by the use of digital databases and quantitative analysis in linguistics and sound studies."
Call NumberDigital file (PDF)
MKI TermsBenignus, Wihelm, 1861-1930/ Poetry, German American/ Birds