Paper short abstract:

Focusing especially on the distinctive 'crex crex' of the corncrake (a bird once common, but now endangered in Britain), my paper will explore how literary renderings of natural sounds in previous historical periods continue to shape our understanding of environmental change as well as loss.

Paper long abstract:

When the Northamptonshire poet John Clare was writing in the early nineteenth century, the ‘craiking’ voice of corncrake could be ‘heard in every vale’ (‘The Landrail’, 1832-7). Once widespread throughout the British and Irish Isles, the population of corncrakes declined catastrophically in the twentieth century due to changes in farming practices: tall grass hay crops once provided the bird with cover in which to breed and raise its young, but the introduction of mechanised mowing and earlier cutting for silage led to its near extinction. By the time that Kathleen Jamie set off in search of it for her book Findings (2005), the bird’s distinctive crex crex could only be heard in remote parts of the Scottish Western Isles. Focusing especially on Jamie’s responses to Clare’s description of the corncrake, my paper will explore how literary renderings of natural sounds in previous historical periods continue to shape our understanding of environmental change as well as loss. As the bird’s geographical range has considerably narrowed, the corncrake, as Jamie is led to reflect, raises further questions about natural soundscapes and their importance to local identity and our sense of place: the topographical, cultural and linguistic features particular to a specific region or locality.