Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Revisiting, Revising, and Regenreing John Day's 'The Parliament of Bees'

Revisiting, Revising, and Regenreing John Day's 'The Parliament of Bees'

Smid, Deanna

Hardcover

Series: Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature

Literary CriticismGeneral Reference

ISBN10: 3032158451
ISBN13: 9783032158451
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Published: Feb 20 2026
Pages: 231
Weight: 0.97
Height: 0.56 Width: 5.83 Depth: 8.27
Language: English

This newly updated edition of John Day's The Parliament of Bees includes both the 1641 quarto and also a complete transcription of the earlier manuscript of the text. The editions of both manuscript and quarto feature modern spelling and punctuation, extensive explanatory notes and glosses, considerable attention to the differences between ​the two texts, and a lengthy introduction that delves into the significance of genre and character, particularly in the context of animal studies. In the text, Day creates dialogues between a series of upright or misbehaving bees under the rule of the Master Bee. Day describes each bee in a series of ten poetical scenes, called Colloquies or Characters, and then concludes the text with two more Characters in which Oberon, King of the Fairies, holds court to judge the various bees. Deanna Smid makes the case that the work is often misgenred and therefore not fully appreciated, asserting that as a play or masque, it might be considered mediocre, even dull. However, she posits that if the work is analyzed for what it is--a character book--the text reveals the intertwined genres that underpin apian poetics itself and represents a fascinating early modern exemplarof the relationship between literature and the natural world.

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