In his Introduction to his A Dictionary of Literary Symbols, Michael Ferber, an English Professor at the University of New Hampshire, admits that its title “is somewhat misleading”. Ferber writes “It would be more correct, if ungainly, to call” his book “A Selective Dictionary of Traditional Western Literary Symbols and Conventions, Mainly in Poetry”. Most of the entries “begin with the Bible or the classics”. They follow illustrations through to twentieth century authors. The emphasis is on British literature, “and especially on Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and the Romantics”. Ferber also draws on examples “from Italian, French, Spanish, German, or Russian literature”. He uses Dante and Goethe frequently. Ferber, in his Introduction, insists that his “is a dictionary of symbols in literature, not myth, painting, folklore, dreams, alchemy, astrology, the tarot pack, the Kabbalah, or the Jungian collective unconscious”.
The actual dictionary is arranged alphabetically. The first entry is “Absinthe: see Wormwood”. The second is “Adder: see Serpent”. Ferber gets down to business with 11 paragraphs on the “aeolian harp”. His entry ranges from the instrument’s invention in 1650 by the German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, to the origins of the name in Homer’s Odyssey. Its use as a poetic symbol in eighteenth century English poetry, and especially by James Thompson and Thomas Gray, is then described. Apparently “in poetry any harp can become an aeolian harp”. Examples are given from Psalm 137 and William Cowper. The usage among English Romantics such as Coleridge, Wordsworth and Shelley is explicated. There is a paragraph on the aeolian harp in French poetry, and in German poetry, and in American literature (Emerson). The entry concludes with Kircher’s observations on playing the instrument, and instances from Akenside and Byron. There is a short final paragraph of one sentence stating that Berlioz and Chopin have both written music for the aeolian harp.
The final entries are “Zephyr: see West wind” and “Zodiac: see Star, Sun”. Prior to these entries there are 12 paragraphs on “yoke”. They open with the word’s meaning and its Hebrew/Old Testament origins. Then the entry moves to the New Testament (Matthew and Luke), and to Classical Greek, Sophocles and Euripides, then to Sappho and Horace. There are Latin instances cited from Catullus. Examples in English literature range from Chaucer, to Shakespeare and Milton. The final paragraph ranges from the ideology of seventeenth century English political reformers to a lengthy citation (given in translation) from Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell. The work concludes with a listing of authors cited. The name is given, the dates and the language or nation but not the work or where the author is actually cited in the main entries. There is a bibliography divided by subject presumably of sources used in the main entries. There is not an index.
Some idea of the curiously selective nature of Michael Ferber’s A Dictionary of Literary Symbols may be instanced from the entries on “River” and “Sea”. Neither refers to James Joyce. The entry on “River” refers to George Eliot’s Felix Holt and not to the more obvious instance of her use of symbols, The Mill on the Floss. There is a brief reference to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness but surprisingly nothing to Matthew Arnold’s moving explorations of seas and rivers in his poetry. The Liffey does not get a mention in Ferber’s symbolic universe.
Cambridge University Press have produced a volume with enormous margins. The width of a page of typeface is 36/10 inches. The accompanying left‐hand margin is 21/2 inches. The book is nicely typeset and well‐bound, clearly for reference shelf usage. No paperback edition is announced so the publishers clearly are aiming at the reference shelf market. In short, an opportunity has been missed. Cambridge claim that Ferber’s A Dictionary of Literary Symbols “is the first dictionary to be based on literature, rather than ‘universal’ psychological archetypes, myths, or esoterica”. If this claim is true, then they ought to have produced a less idiosyncratic and more scholarly volume. Certainly one which was more comprehensive and clearly stated which secondary sources were being used, one which drew less on diverse references in non‐English literatures and was more clearly focused. Further, the volume is overpriced: more content could have been created with a simple margin reduction. Not recommended.
