Towards a Historical Semiotics of Literary Flower Personification

Bibliographic Data

ID4375096
AuthorsBeverly Seaton (corresponding author)
Year1989
Volume10
Issue4
Pages679
Publication date1989-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePoetics Today (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0333-5372 • E-ISSN: 1527-5507
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1772806
OpenAlexW2323388738
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited1

Throughout the history of Western literature, plants of all kinds have been personified as men and women. Trees and flowers are the two most common categories of such plants. This paper concerns flowers only; trees would be another, quite different subject for semiotic analysis. Flowers have their biological role in the lives of plants (as studied by botanists), but their role in the cultures of the people who appreciate them is an interesting and complex example of sign-function. The codes of flower usage in cultures of both East and West have often been studied by anthropologists and folklorists, especially popular folklorists of the late nineteenth century (Cooke 1882; Folkard 1884; Friend 1884; Gubernatis 1878; Thistelton-Dyer 1889). Most of us are familiar with the particular flower customs of our own culture, typically relating to holidays or ceremonies such as weddings and funerals. Such customs would be a fruitful subject for a semiotic investigation, but this study does not concern them. Rather, my subject is the series of transformations undergone by the concept of flower personification from classical times to the end of the nineteenth century. By flower personification I mean any signification in any form that brings together flowers and human beings. Included are figures such as metaphor and simile, metonymy, symbol, and allegory, as well as narrative elements and personification in its narrow sense. I do not

Art · Linguistics · Literature · Semiotics · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Philosophy

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