MARVELLOUS VEGETABLES IN THE ENGLISH REN

NARDIZZI, VIN

ISBN 10: 148750070X / ISBN 13: 9781487500702

Editore: University of Toronto Press, 2025

Codice articolo NW9781487500702

Riassunto:

John Gerard’s natural history of plants, The Herball (1597), is considered a failure in the history of science. Despite this reputation, it has endured as an aesthetic resource. Its illustrations were used as needlework patterns, and strewn across its pages are extracts of classical poetry, including Ovid’s Metamorphoses, that delight and instruct. It is little wonder that early modern poets, like Shakespeare and Milton, gathered inspiration from this storehouse of plants.

In Marvellous Vegetables in the English Renaissance, Vin Nardizzi offers a reparative reading of Gerard’s “failed” text, particularly its chapters on leeks, laurels, tulips, and potatoes. Through a series of experiments in speculative natural history, which require an analysis of both word and image, Nardizzi distills The Herball’s logic and poetics, its distinctions and infelicities, and demonstrates the entanglements of humans and plants at the core of Shakespeare’s plays. Exploring these “cross-kingdom” encounters, Nardizzi contributes to the burgeoning field of queer ecologies by treating plant natural history as a serious intellectual resource for writing a counter-history of embodiment at the turn of the seventeenth century. All we need do, Nardizzi proposes, is smell the flowers.

Informazioni sull'autore: Vin Nardizzi is a professor in the Department of English Language and Literatures at the University of British Columbia.

Dati bibliografici

Titolo: MARVELLOUS VEGETABLES IN THE ENGLISH REN
Casa editrice: University of Toronto Press
Data di pubblicazione: 2025
Legatura: Rilegato
Condizione: NEW