The Flowers Personified
Have you ever found an object that was odd or funny or unusual which, for no practical or obvious reason, you liked? Something like a doorknob from an antiques fair that you bought with no intended door for it or an old fan of your grandmother’s that you just like to look at. For me, these objects are often books. Funny, unusual, odd little books that fascinate me for no particular reason other than that they do.
One of these books is The Flowers Personified. This is the English translation of a French book published in 1847. Research has taught me that this book was one of many of its kind published in that time period, roughly the early to mid Victorian Era, which sought to provide information about the then popular idea that each flower has a particular meaning.
This book tells a series of stories about flowers that have been transformed into women. While this premise sounds silly to modern ears, what I found fascinating about the stories of the women the flowers became was that each kept the characteristics or meaning attributed to the flower, in human form.
My favorite is the story of the rose (June's Birth month flower). As a woman the rose is, of course, the most beautiful and the most admired. Kings fall in love with her, poets compose sonnets in her honor, and a contest is devoted to determine the origin of the flower aptly called the Game of the Rose.
I love the various possible histories that are presented, such as Venus being adorned by a rose when she emerged from the foam of the sea or Zephyrus changing himself into a rose to attract the attention of his beloved Flora.
The book also contains funny little essays and asides, but the main theme is the meaning which each particular flower stood for at the time. This book is such a fun way to explore floriography, the meaning or language of flowers. If you like the idea of losing yourself in an alternate world at a time that is very different from the present, Grandaville and his flowers will take you there.