The narrator of a poem by this author falls asleep after reading Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis and dreams that Scipio Africanus is guiding him to a celestial gate. For 10 points each:
[10e] Name this author who wrote about a debate between eagles that occurs when Nature convenes the birds to pick their mates in his Parlement of Foules.
ANSWER: Geoffrey Chaucer
[10h] In this other Middle English debate poem, one participant says that her opponent is only useful as a scarecrow. This poem’s two title birds seek out Nicholas of Guildford to settle their debate.
ANSWER: The Owl and the Nightingale [or Hule and the Nightingale; or Altercatio inter filomenam et bubonem]
[10m] In John Clanvowe’s The Book of Cupid, God of Love, the nightingale defends love in a debate with this other bird, which the narrator chases off with a stone. The poem “Sumer is icumen in” asks this bird to sing.
ANSWER: cuckoo [or cuccu or cukkow; accept common cuckoo or European cuckoo or other species]
<British Literature>