Bloom : the botanical vernacular in the English novel / Amy M. King.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

King, Amy M.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English fiction--History and criticism.

English fiction.

Botany in literature.

Literature and science--Great Britain.

Literature and science.

Flowers in literature.

Plants in literature.

Physical Description:

x, 265 p. : ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 2003.

Summary:

By reanimating a cultural understanding of botany and sexuality that we have lost, Bloom provides an entirely new and powerful account of the novel's role in scripting sexualized courtship, and illuminates how the novel and popular science together created a cultural figure, the blooming girl, that stood at the center of both fictional and scientific worlds.

Contents:

Intro

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: The Girl and the Water Lily

ONE: Linnaeus's Blooms: The Birth of the Botanical Vernacular

The Rise of Botanical Culture

The Mechanics of the Botanical Vernacular

Botanical Mimetics and the Novel

The Eighteenth Century: Occluded Blooms

Toward the Nineteenth Century: The Bloom Narrative

TWO: Imaginative Literature and the Politics of Botany

Botany's Gendered Controversies

Botanical Modesty: Edgeworth's Belinda

Botanical Poetry: Charlotte Smith and Erasmus Darwin

THREE: Austen's Physicalized Mimesis: Garden, Landscape,Marriageable Girl

Lovers Walk: Burney's Evelina and Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Improving Grounds, Improving Complexions

Bloom: Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion

FOUR: Eliot's Vernaculars: Natural Objects and Revisionary Blooms

Ossification: Midcentury Bloom in Dickens

Revivification: Midcentury Bloom in Middlemarch and Adam Bede

Organic Realism: Eliot and Natural History

FIVE: Inside and Outside the Plot: Rewriting the Bloom Script in James

The Critic and Bloom

The Girl as Topic: Watch and Ward and The Awkward Age

A Blooming Consciousness: The Portrait of a Lady

Bloom's Decadence: The Wings of the Dove and The Picture of Dorian Gray

CODA: Later Bloomings: Molly's Bloom

NOTES

INDEX

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y

Z.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-257) and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780198036562

0198036566

OCLC:

922952488