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The Language of Flowers: A History
The author traces the phenomenon of ascribing sentimental meaning to floral imagery from its beginnings in Napoleonic France through its later transformations in England and America. At the heart of the book is a depiction of what the three most important flower books from each of the countries divulge about the period and the respective cultures. Seaton shows that the language of flowers was not a single and universally understood correlation of flowers to meanings that men and women used to communicate in matters of love and romance. The language differs from book to book, country to country. To place the language of flowers in social and literary perspective, the author examines the nineteenth-century uses of flowers in everyday life and in ceremonies and rituals and provides a brief history of floral symbolism. She also discusses the sentimental flower book, a genre especially intended for female readers. Two especially valuable features of the book are its table of correlations of flowers and their meanings from different sourcebooks and its complete bibliography of language of flower titles. This book will appeal not only to scholars in Victorian studies and women's studies but also to art historians, book collectors, museum curators, historians of horticulture, and anyone interested in nineteenth-century popular culture.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionPlants
234 pages, Hardcover
First published April 22, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 4, 2024
Absolutely astounding book! It turns out almost everything we take for granted about the Victorian flower era is baseless.
"Throughout my presentation of the language of flowers, I have stressed its nature as a consumer phenomenon, something with only tenuous ties to real lives. Nineteenth-century people were very fond of flowers, but it does not appear that they tried to use the floral language very much. For one thing, there was no standard of meaning; for another, its practicality was limited, at least with fresh flowers, as everything is not in bloom all the time. And, frankly, I suspect that most men were not especially attracted to the idea. Human nature does not change that much in 100 years" (110).
As it turns out, flower meanings were isolated between different personal concepts! Many different flower books were written on a local level and they all tended to have different meanings. There WAS no standardized message. In fact, if you tried to communicate using flowers with someone you loved (and most didn't), you were in danger of causing the following:
"For example, a young man might send a girl a jonquil, which, according to the language of flowers explained in Flora's Interpreter means 'I desire a return of affection.' But if the girl uses the other method of reading the flower, the one given in Fortuna Flora, and if she received the flower on Sunday, the first day of the week, on the nineteenth day of the month, and her temperament was lymphatic, she would add up 21, look up number 21 in the meaning list, and find this verse:
'The last link is broken,
That bound me to thee,
The words thou hast spoken
Have rendered me free.'
Such are the chances one takes in using the floral language" (101-2).
And on that note, we need to talk about flower fortune-telling books, because that's SO COOL. They used to make flower fortune-telling books! Where you pick a certain flower or flowers and depending on your personality/the date/a random number you get a FORTUNE, either about you or your potential suitor, and it could be one of the most freaking out-of-pocket experiences ever. We should bring those back!
This book exists as the first major publication analyzing the history of the language of flowers, and it needs more attention! It was written back in 1995! It's FASCINATING! An extremely well-researched study of the field that poignantly addresses the many inaccuracies that the public holds up about the Victorian flower "language" (there wasn't one; there were many, and some of them contradicted one another. They also blatantly stole from each other without citing a dime.)
Tldr; there is no understood flower language. The people who tried to make them a thing were business majors at heart trying to cash in.
Also we should bring back flower fortunes.
"Throughout my presentation of the language of flowers, I have stressed its nature as a consumer phenomenon, something with only tenuous ties to real lives. Nineteenth-century people were very fond of flowers, but it does not appear that they tried to use the floral language very much. For one thing, there was no standard of meaning; for another, its practicality was limited, at least with fresh flowers, as everything is not in bloom all the time. And, frankly, I suspect that most men were not especially attracted to the idea. Human nature does not change that much in 100 years" (110).
As it turns out, flower meanings were isolated between different personal concepts! Many different flower books were written on a local level and they all tended to have different meanings. There WAS no standardized message. In fact, if you tried to communicate using flowers with someone you loved (and most didn't), you were in danger of causing the following:
"For example, a young man might send a girl a jonquil, which, according to the language of flowers explained in Flora's Interpreter means 'I desire a return of affection.' But if the girl uses the other method of reading the flower, the one given in Fortuna Flora, and if she received the flower on Sunday, the first day of the week, on the nineteenth day of the month, and her temperament was lymphatic, she would add up 21, look up number 21 in the meaning list, and find this verse:
'The last link is broken,
That bound me to thee,
The words thou hast spoken
Have rendered me free.'
Such are the chances one takes in using the floral language" (101-2).
And on that note, we need to talk about flower fortune-telling books, because that's SO COOL. They used to make flower fortune-telling books! Where you pick a certain flower or flowers and depending on your personality/the date/a random number you get a FORTUNE, either about you or your potential suitor, and it could be one of the most freaking out-of-pocket experiences ever. We should bring those back!
This book exists as the first major publication analyzing the history of the language of flowers, and it needs more attention! It was written back in 1995! It's FASCINATING! An extremely well-researched study of the field that poignantly addresses the many inaccuracies that the public holds up about the Victorian flower "language" (there wasn't one; there were many, and some of them contradicted one another. They also blatantly stole from each other without citing a dime.)
Tldr; there is no understood flower language. The people who tried to make them a thing were business majors at heart trying to cash in.
Also we should bring back flower fortunes.
July 23, 2018
Incredible! The amount of research that went into this book is staggering. I imagine Seaton did nothing else for a very long time but to research this book.
It's a new way of understanding how the language of flowers was created and evolved.
It's a new way of understanding how the language of flowers was created and evolved.
September 4, 2023
Educational and entertaining - a rare achievement. Seaton tells you everything you ever wanted to know (and more) about what is, in essence, an "artistic construct" (p. 112).
August 27, 2018
One of my favorite sources for the study of the subject in a scholarly way.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews