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Missy Dunaway

is an artist and illustrator with a penchant for storytelling. A traveler at heart, she has attended eight international artist-in-residence programs that provide the opportunity for extended visits and cultural immersion. Her first book, The Traveling Artist: A Visual Journal, was released in 2021. Missy earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Humanities and Arts from Carnegie Mellon University in 2010. She has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship, a Folger Institute Fellowship, the ArtPrize Educator Award, a New Student Scholarship to the Academy of Realist Art Boston, and traveled to Vietnam as a Four Seasons Envoy. She is a represented artist at the Portland Art Gallery in her home state of Maine.
Birds of Shakespeare: The snipe
Shakespeare & Beyond

Birds of Shakespeare: The snipe

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Missy Dunaway

In Othello Iago refers to Roderigo as a snipe to indicate that he only spends time with him in order to take advantage of him.

Birds of Shakespeare: The loon
Shakespeare & Beyond

Birds of Shakespeare: The loon

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Missy Dunaway

The loon appears just once in Shakespeare’s plays, in a line from Macbeth.

Birds of Shakespeare: The seagull
Shakespeare & Beyond

Birds of Shakespeare: The seagull

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Missy Dunaway

The word “gull” is used twelve times in Shakespeare’s plays, appearing the most in Twelfth Night, a play full of pranks and hijinks.

Birds of Shakespeare: The grey heron
Shakespeare & Beyond

Birds of Shakespeare: The grey heron

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Missy Dunaway

Hamlet uses the heron, or “handsaw,” to reference his power struggle with his uncle, Claudius.

Birds of Shakespeare: The magpie
a magpie in flight below a magpie perched on a branch surrounded by foliage
Shakespeare & Beyond

Birds of Shakespeare: The magpie

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Missy Dunaway

Artist Missy Dunaway explores the thieving magpie’s ominous appearances in Shakespeare’s plays.

Birds of Shakespeare: The partridge
five partridges
Shakespeare & Beyond

Birds of Shakespeare: The partridge

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Missy Dunaway

In 1536 Henry VIII forbade killing partridges to ensure populations could support falconry. Shakespeare refers to the partridge twice, both as examples of slaughtered prey.

Birds of Shakespeare: The European robin
Four European robins surrounded by eggs, feathers, honeybees, and the branches and fruit of the European crab apple
Shakespeare & Beyond

Birds of Shakespeare: The European robin

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Missy Dunaway

According to Renaissance folklore, robins were kind and adored humans so deeply that if one came upon a person who had passed away, it would place flowers on the body.

Birds of Shakespeare: The turtle dove
A turtle dove in flight with two other turtle doves sitting below on a branch
Shakespeare & Beyond

Birds of Shakespeare: The turtle dove

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Missy Dunaway

The turtle dove as a symbol of love appears in Shakespeare’s romances, tragedies, and comedies.

Birds of Shakespeare: The lark
A detail of the painting showing a lark, a toad, and a piece of red cloth
Shakespeare & Beyond

Birds of Shakespeare: The lark

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Missy Dunaway

Shakespeare mainly employs the lark as a beloved symbol for the morning, the herald of the dawn. Most of the lark’s 27 appearances in Shakespeare’s works feature it welcoming the start of each day with a sweet song.

Birds of Shakespeare: The common starling
Shakespeare & Beyond

Birds of Shakespeare: The common starling

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Missy Dunaway
Birds of Shakespeare: The wild turkey
a male and female turkey with autumn leaves, acorns, turkey eggs, and turkey feathers
Shakespeare & Beyond

Birds of Shakespeare: The wild turkey

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Author
Missy Dunaway
Birds of Shakespeare: The great cormorant
great cormorant
Shakespeare & Beyond

Birds of Shakespeare: The great cormorant

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Missy Dunaway
In his plays Shakespeare deploys the cormorant as a symbol of insatiable hunger and gluttony, drawing also on the bird's reputation as a portent of doom and evil.
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