A Thorn Among the Lilies
The Hawthorn in Medieval Love Allegory
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8931707 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Susan Schoon Eberly (University of Iowa, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1989 |
| Volume | 100 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 41-52 |
| Publication date | 1989-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Folklore (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0015-587X • E-ISSN: 1469-8315 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0015587x.1989.9715750 |
| OpenAlex | W2095371599 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 3 |
THE hawthorn is one of the constants of medieval love allegory; a May garden of delights without its grene hawthorne is as unlikely as a courtly lover who sleeps soundly and feels well. The hawthorn appears so frequently and with so little elaboration that we, as modern readers, are likely to miss the role it plays in ironic allegory-and this can result in the failure of the irony. This is the more likely in that present-day folklore includes some very different beliefs about the hawthorn, e.g. that it is an unlucky plant which should not be brought indoors,' or that it is a haunt of fairies.2 Its earlier association with love has not wholly vanished, as will be discussed below, but has been thrust into the background by other themes, obscuring symbolisms which would once have been familiar. An examination of the earlier role of the hawthorn motif will show, I believe, that it served, particularly in 15th century medieval love allegory, as what could be called an arbor cupiditatis, an inversion of the 'fruitful tree' found in both the Old and New Testaments: 'The fruit of the just man is a tree of life...' (Proverbs 11:30); 'Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit...Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them' (Matthew 7:17, 20); and, in its most inclusive sense, '...the tree of life, bearing twelve fruits, and yielding its fruits every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations...' (Apocalypse (Revelations) 22:2). As an arbor cupiditatis, the hawthorn is a consistant symbol of carnal love, as opposed to spiritual love, throughout the literature of the Middle Ages; it is a persistent clue to ironic intent in love allegory, and its cupidinous connotations can recur even in the present day. When you become alerted to its implications, you begin to note the presence of the hawthorn in literature ranging from Chaucer to Bronte (witness Thornfield in Jane Eyre) to Edna O'Brien (A Fanatic Heart). It is a symbol whose meaning has remained more or less constant throughout more than a millenium. This paper presents a variety of sources, both pagan and Christian, that illuminate the evolution of the hawthorn motif in love allegory of the 14th and 15th centuries
Aesthetics · Allegory · Art · Folklore · Irony · Literature · Motif (music · Botanical Studies and Applications · History · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.08 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2013 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |