Book ID: CBB200819656

The Language of Fruit: Literature and Horticulture in the Long Eighteenth Century (2019)

unapi

Bellamy, Liz (Author)


University of Pennsylvania Press


Publication Date: 2019
Physical Details: 256
Language: English

In The Language of Fruit, Liz Bellamy explores how poets, playwrights, and novelists from the Restoration to the Romantic era represented fruit and fruit trees in a period that saw significant changes in cultivation techniques, the expansion of the range of available fruit varieties, and the transformation of the mechanisms for their exchange and distribution. Although her principal concern is with the representation of fruit within literary texts and genres, she nevertheless grounds her analysis in the consideration of what actually happened in the gardens and orchards of the past. As Bellamy progresses through sections devoted to specific literary genres, three central "characters" come to the fore: the apple, long a symbol of natural abundance, simplicity, and English integrity; the orange, associated with trade and exchange until its "naturalization" as a British resident; and the pineapple, often figured as a cossetted and exotic child of indulgence epitomizing extravagant luxury. She demonstrates how the portrayal of fruits within literary texts was complicated by symbolic associations derived from biblical and classical traditions, often identifying fruit with female temptation and sexual desire. Looking at seventeenth-century poetry, Restoration drama, eighteenth-century georgic, and the Romantic novel, as well as practical writings on fruit production and husbandry, Bellamy shows the ways in which the meanings and inflections that accumulated around different kinds of fruit related to contemporary concepts of gender, class, and race. Examining the intersection of literary tradition and horticultural innovation, The Language of Fruit traces how writers from Andrew Marvell to Jane Austen responded to the challenges posed by the evolving social, economic, and symbolic functions of fruit over the long eighteenth century.

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Reviewed By

Review Eveline R de Smalen (January 2021) Review of "The Language of Fruit: Literature and Horticulture in the Long Eighteenth Century". Environmental History (pp. 152-153). unapi

Review Melissa Bailes (2020) Review of "The Language of Fruit: Literature and Horticulture in the Long Eighteenth Century". Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation (pp. 123-126). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB200819656/

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Authors & Contributors
Vita Fortunati
Lara Pauline Karpenko
Eklund, Hillary
Boulter, Michael
Shalyn Rae Claggett
Harner, Christie
Concepts
Science and literature
Science and culture
Horticulture
Botany
Agriculture
Economic botany; plant cultivation; horticulture
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
17th century
Early modern
Renaissance
16th century
Places
England
Great Britain
London (England)
United States
France
Institutions
Great Britain. Royal Navy
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