Thesis ID: CBB001560798

From Modest Shoot to Forward Plant: Botany and the Cultivation of the Female Mind in Eighteenth-Century Literature (2005)

unapi

George, Sam (Author)


University of York


Publication Date: 2005
Physical Details: 301 pp.
Language: English

This study explores the cultivation of the female mind and the feminised discourse of botanical literature in eighteenth-century Britain. Botany became an important medium for women's education and botanical works were often addressed to, and by, women. Epistolary, dialogic and poetical introductions to botany by eighteenth-century women including Priscilla Wakefield, Maria Jacson, Frances Arabella Rowden, Charlotte Smith and Sarah Hoare are examined. These unique texts are situated within the literature of the eighteenth century where they can be seen to be in dialogue with the writings of such key Enlightenment figures as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Erasmus Darwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Chapter 1 looks at the genre of the botanical letter and sees how it mediated the key oppositions of rationalism and empiricism, and also the public and the private, through systems of classification which were invariably gendered. In chapter 2, women's problematic relationship to Enlightenment culture via analogies between women and flowers is explored. Chapter 3 investigates women's contribution to national identity through works of indigenous botany and the privileging of native flowers therein. The opposition of floristry to botany involved notions of class and nation and tensions between the universal and particular which are examined. Chapter 4 shows how botany was employed against social disorder during this period through the assimilation of botanical taxonomy to a hierarchical model of human society. Chapter 5 explores botany as a discourse on female sexuality, investigating the moral backlash against female botanists and the problems of representation facing literary women who practised the modern, sexual system of botany. The thesis covers important new ground by focusing on indigenous botany practised by women in the private sphere of the home or garden (as opposed to the public role of botany on the voyages of discovery). It traces the development of a new genre of women's writing---the botanical poem with scientific notes. A number of progressive texts are uncovered, characteristically eighteenth-century in their modernity, and assigned a place in the histories of science and women's literature.

...More

Description Looks at works of Priscilla Wakefield, Maria Jacson, Frances Arabella Rowden, Charlotte Smith, and Sarah Hoare. Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. C 67/02 (2006): 498. UMI pub. no. C825059.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001560798/

Similar Citations

Book Page, Judith W; Smith, Elise Lawton; (2011)
Women, Literature, and the Domesticated Landscape: England's Disciples of Flora, 1780--1870 (/isis/citation/CBB001214713/)

Article Leach, Camilla; (2006)
Religion and Rationality: Quaker Women and Science Education 1790--1850 (/isis/citation/CBB000740586/)

Book Dahlia Porter; (2018)
Science, Form, and the Problem of Induction in British Romanticism (/isis/citation/CBB734911585/)

Article Hansson, Heidi; (2011)
Emily Lawless and Botany as Foreign Science (/isis/citation/CBB001213325/)

Book Friedrich, Christoph; Bernschneider-Reif, Sabine; (2003)
Rosarium litterarum: Beiträge zur Pharmazie- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte: Festschrift für Peter Dilg zum 65. Geburtstag (/isis/citation/CBB000780042/)

Article Findlen, Paula; (2003)
Becoming a Scientist: Gender and Knowledge in Eighteenth-Century Italy (/isis/citation/CBB000340795/)

Thesis Anna Katerina Sagal; (2015)
Experimental Women: Reclaiming Women's Scientific Work in the Long Eighteenth Century (/isis/citation/CBB439459732/)

Article George, Sam; (2011)
Epistolary Exchange: the Familiar Letter and the Female Botanist, 1760--1820 (/isis/citation/CBB001213322/)

Article Elsa Mariella Cappelletti; (2016)
Piante e didattica nell'antico Horto Medico Patavino: manoscritti, erbari secchi, tavole dipinte (/isis/citation/CBB405542635/)

Thesis Gushurst-Moore, B; (cited 2012)
A Garden in Her Cups: Botanical Medicines of the Anglo-American Home, c. 1580--1800 (/isis/citation/CBB001567420/)

Article Böhme, Katrin; Müller-Wille, Staffan; (2013)
“In der Jungfernheide hinterm Pulvermagazin frequens (/isis/citation/CBB001420952/)

Article Logan, Gabriella Berti; (2004)
Women and Botany in Risorgimento Italy (/isis/citation/CBB000770306/)

Article George, Sam; Martin, Alison E.; (2011)
Botanising Women: Transmission, Translation and European Exchange (/isis/citation/CBB001213321/)

Book Laird, Mark; Weisberg-Roberts, Alicia; (2009)
Mrs. Delany and Her Circle (/isis/citation/CBB001231284/)

Article Müller-Wille, Staffan; (2006)
Linnaeus' Herbarium Cabinet: A Piece of Furniture and Its Function (/isis/citation/CBB000771691/)

Authors & Contributors
Sagal, Anna Katerina
Müller-Wille, Staffan
George, Sam
Andrea Haslander
Antonelli, Francesca
Smith, Elise Lawton
Concepts
Botany
Women in science
Science and literature
Manuscripts
Science and gender
Science and art
Time Periods
18th century
19th century
17th century
16th century
Early modern
Medieval
Places
Great Britain
Italy
Padua (Italy)
England
United States
Portugal
Institutions
Royal Society of London
Geological Society of London
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment