Cultivating the Imagination
Cultivating the Imagination

Plants and Flowers in Later Victorian Poetry

Author(s): Catherine Maxwell
Subject(s): Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature, Philology, History of Art, British Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: late Victorian poetry; flora; poet-botanist; Constance Naden; Laurence Binyon; Algernon Charles Swinburne; Katherine Bradley
Summary/Abstract: The article examines a late Victorian concern about the accurate representation of flora in poetry of the period, demonstrating that poems which regard flowers and plants with studied attention are in a minority, and that poets usually use plants to serve their own interests, invoking flowers impressionistically for incidental atmospheric contribution or for symbolic or personal associations. It then goes on to explore poems by both male and female poets (principally Constance Naden, Laurence Binyon, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Katherine Bradley) that look attentively at plants and flowers, considering their interest is in the plant for the plant’s sake, and exposing ways in which the poetic self is represented in relation to the flower or plant.

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