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"Silent Eloquence": The Social Codification of Floral Metaphors in the Poems of Frances Sargent Osgood and Emily Dickinson

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From: Legacy
Date: 19981031
Author:A, Elizabeth

"Let me thank the little Cousin in flowers, which without lips, have language -- " wrote Emily Dickinson to Eugenia Hall in 1885 (L 1002). For Dickinson, as for her contemporaries, flowers were repositories of cultural meaning and communicated emotions privately. During the 1840s and 1850s, popul ar female writers were adding to a growing fund of literature: the language of flowers. In a century when public speech about sexuality was not acceptable for men or women, floral imagery conveyed sexuality and allowed women more freedom of expression than had previously been available. In contrast to ...

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