My historical fiction ‘The Aziola’s Cry: A Novel of the Shelleys’ comes out this May, and already a few people have asked me ‘Why ‘The Aziola’s Cry’?
Not to mention, ‘What is an Aziola?’
Unless you’re a Shelley scholar, it’s likely you won’t have come across the word ‘Aziola’ – it’s the feminisation of the Italian name for the Scops Owl (I believe today it’s called the assiolo in Italian).
In fact Percy Shelley didn’t know what it was either.
One day Mary Shelly said to her husband ‘Do you hear the Aziola cry’ and he didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, and instead thought she was talking about a woman.
This moment is recounted in the poem he wrote in which their dialogue, and his feelings when he discovers it is not some tedious person come to disturb them, but the mournful-sounding call of the owl.
I debated the title for a long time while writing this book. When I submitted it for my PhD, it bore the title ‘Autumn Grieving; Leaves of Gold’ which I still love, but which I admit was a little clunky. If you read the book, you’ll find that line still snuck in there.
I like the idea of using a quote. But a big part of my goal in writing this novel was to treat the Shelleys equally, and not ‘pick a side;’ it seemed like choosing a quote from either one of them would absolutely be foregrounding one over the other.
Then I hit upon this poem. It’s a Percy Shelley poem, but in it he’s quoting Mary.
It’s an example of what initially fascinated me and made me want to write this book in the first place; the domesticity, the little interactions that go on behind the scenes between two of the greatest writers in the English Literary tradition.
‘Do you not hear the Aziola cry?
Methinks she must be nigh,’
Said Mary, as we sate
In dusk, ere stars were lit, or candles brought;
And I, who thought
This Aziola was some tedious woman,
Asked, ‘Who is Aziola?’ How elate
I felt to know that it was nothing human,
No mockery of myself to fear or hate:
And Mary saw my soul,
And laughed, and said, ‘Disquiet yourself not;
‘Tis nothing but a little downy owl.’
Sad Aziola! many an eventide
Thy music I had heard
By wood and stream, meadow and mountain-side,
And fields and marshes wide,–
Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird,
The soul ever stirred;
Unlike and far sweeter than them all.
Sad Aziola! from that moment I
Loved thee and thy sad cry.
The Aziola’s Cry: A Novel of the Shelleys is now available to preorder here from History Through Fiction.
Harker Shaw Poetry 