WEBVTT - Did Victorians Really Have a Language of Flowers? 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:07.840 Welcome to brainstud a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Laura 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:14.480 vogelbam here. Floriography, the association of flowers with special virtues 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.680 and sentiments has been a practice from antiquity to the 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:22.520 present day. Ancient Chinese flower calendars established the tradition of 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.560 associating seasonal flowers with meanings, beginning in the seventh century BCE, 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:30.880 a making January's winter flower the plum blossom, a symbol 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:35.440 of beauty and longevity. By the seventeen hundreds, the concept 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:38.720 of salaam, the Turkish language of flowers and objects, found 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:42.080 its way to Europe, further establishing the idea of associating 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:48.040 flowers with meanings. The eighteenth century religious visionary and Madman 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:52.200 poet Christopher Smart wrote, for there is a language of flowers, 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:55.960 for there is a sound reasoning upon all flowers, For 0:00:56.080 --> 0:01:01.760 elegant phrases are nothing but flowers. Smart's use of the 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:05.920 terminology language of flowers is likely the earliest literary record 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:10.480 of the informal phrase. By the early eighteen hundreds, the 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:13.959 language of flowers was commonly recognized in Europe, and many 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:17.000 devotees of the tradition had begun hand copying lists of 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:21.240 flowers and their symbolic meanings. Are you a friend on 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.280 the outs who wants to skip the drama of a 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:25.880 face to face then place a lemon verbina plant on 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:29.959 your bestie's front stoop for forgiveness. Or maybe you're a 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:34.679 vocabulary challenged suitor who feels some kind of way present. 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:40.080 You're someone special with the heliotrope bouquet for infatuation. Practically 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:44.440 any emotion or black thereof, from apathy represented by Candy 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:48.760 tuft to zeal represented by elderflower can be conveyed with 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:53.280 a just right arrangement for the article. This episode is 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.080 based on How Stuff Work. Spoke with Susan Loy, an 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:59.520 American artist and calligrapher, whose award winning book Flowers the 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:03.320 Angels Alphabet is a standard reference for floral dictionaries and 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:08.320 the Victorian language of flowers. She said the idea of 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:11.200 a symbolic language of flowers made its way to Victorian 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.280 Europe and North America through a cross cultural migration of 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:18.359 ideas and lore from China, Japan, Turkey, Greece, and Rome. 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:22.960 The Victorian language of flowers is primarily a literary tradition 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:25.720 that grew out of the genre of sentimental or gift 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:29.080 flower books, which had its roots in the literary almanac, 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.480 an annual publication, often a New Year's gift book that 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:38.720 included a calendar. Literary almanacs were particularly popular around Europe 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:41.440 and the United States from the eighteen twenties through the 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:45.639 eighteen sixties. The language of flowers books that grew out 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:49.760 of the tradition were sort of dictionaries of flowers, including 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:54.560 associated meanings or sentiments, illustrations of the flowers, botanical information 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:58.959 and lore, poetry about the flowers or those associated sentiments, 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:04.120 and perhaps a floral calendar. Some even included a fortune 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:09.040 telling game called a floral oracle. Modernly, lots of juicy 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:12.280 stuff has been written about the repressive strictures of a 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:16.320 stilted era that led daring lovers and blossoming romantic hopefuls 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.400 to employ the Victorian language of flowers as a secret, 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.960 encoded form of communication. Lore has it that a single 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:28.480 flower or cryptic bouquet could express hidden desires, forbidden longings 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:33.160 and erotic imaginings. One dare not speak out loud. During 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.400 a time when etiquette loomed large over the tufted velvet 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:38.920 love seat and decorums sucked all the oxygen out of 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:42.960 the parlor. What claustrophobic Victorian couple wouldn't opt for a 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.640 midday meander through the garden of flower dictionaries in hand. 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:52.000 But here's the thing, Lloy explained, there is very little 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.880 evidence that ordinary people in the Victorian era actually used 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.160 the language of flowers as a means of communication. This 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:01.240 is a myth that has been propagated by the writers 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:06.360 and editors of Language of Flowers books. Artists, designers, florists, marketers, 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:09.560 and writers are more likely to have used and continue 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:13.640 to use floriography. Many of the Language of Flower books 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.040 in my personal collection state in their introductions that Victorians 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:19.760 used the language of flowers in their courtship, but neither 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:23.280 historians nor I have found much evidence that they actually did. 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.279 One exception is the use of language of flowers in nosegays, 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:32.440 which originated in medieval times. During Victorian era, nosegays were 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:36.279 called tussy mussies and sometimes included flower symbolism. From the 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:41.000 language of Flowers, it turns out there wasn't even a 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:45.560 single cohesive language. Alloy's research suggests that somewhere between four 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.440 hundred and six hundred Language of Flowers books were published 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:52.440 during the Victorian era. As she said, many of the 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.440 writers and editors copied each other's dictionaries, so there is 0:04:55.520 --> 0:05:00.320 some agreement regarding flower meanings. Individual flower associations, however, are 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.760 not universal, and there is not one lexicon of agreed 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.520 upon meanings even within a single culture. As symbolic flowers 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.600 and their lexicons are often tied to the geography and 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:15.479 customs of a given region, this really only makes sense. 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:18.440 Many of the flowers in the lexicon are wild flowers, 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:22.440 others are garden flowers, some are florist flowers, meaning that 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:27.440 access to specific blooms is kind of a big deal. However, 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:31.720 there are lots of common themes like love, beauty, and friendship. 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:36.480 Often the meanings were expressed in personal statements. For example, 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:40.479 a sentiment expressed by Virginia Creeper was I cling to 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.680 you both in sunshine and shade, or listed under peach 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:49.880 your qualities like your charms are unequaled. There were lots 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:53.679 of nuances. Ivy was said to symbolize friendship or lasting 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:58.279 friendship because of its clinging habit, while periwinkle indicates early 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:02.159 and sincere friendship. Snowdrop connotes a friend in need or 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:06.599 a friendship inadversity, while zynia represents thoughts of absent friends. 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.840 Some of the meanings have negative connotations, and the Victorian 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:14.080 writers tended to associate these with yellow flowers, such as 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:18.440 the daughter for meanness or a yellow rose for jealousy. 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:21.400 Some of the writers included chapters on the special meaning 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:25.480 assigned to the arrangement of flowers. For example, subtle signals 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:27.799 might have been sent if a particular flower were worn 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:32.600 in the hair or in a corsage. Lloyd said, usually 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:35.120 the original meaning would be reversed if a flower is 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:40.520 worn upside down. One poet and floriography maven of her day, 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:45.200 Katherine H. Waterman Esling, wrote in eighteen thirty nine, the 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.400 language of flowers has recently attracted so much attention that 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:50.880 an acquaintance with it seems to be deemed, if not 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:53.919 an essential part of a polite education, at least a 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:59.560 graceful and elegant accomplishment. The long lived language of flowers 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:03.719 craze was ushered in from eighteenth century Constantinople via Lady 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.880 Mary Wortley Montague in travel letters that she mailed to 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:10.560 her friends. In Europe. A Montague, a feminist poet who 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.680 was married to the English ambassador to Turkey, accompanied her 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:17.320 husband to his post in seventeen seventeen and became captivated 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.880 by the customs there. In a letter to her friends 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:24.280 back home, she wrote, there is no color, no flower, 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.920 no weed, no fruit, herb, pebble, or feather that has 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:31.640 not a verse belonging to it. And you may quarrel, reproach, 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.840 or send letters of passion, friendship, or civility, or even 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:41.360 of news without ever inking your fingers, Allois said. Montague's 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:45.040 Turkish Embassy letters were published in seventeen sixty three, shortly 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:48.400 after her death, and made her famous. The letters described 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.880 Turkish life, including the salaam, the Turkish language of flowers 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:56.480 and objects undemonic system where flowers or objects rhyme used 0:07:56.480 --> 0:08:00.200 as an aid for memorization. Examples don't translate well well 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.640 because of the rhyme, but an example in English might 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:07.560 be pair, do not despair. Although Salam is an ammonic system, 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:09.960 it became known in Europe as a system of associating 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:16.040 flowers with sentiments. Probably the most famous and influential floriography 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:18.560 book is by the well known writer and illustrator of 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:22.200 children's books, Kate Greenaway, who lived in England from eighteen 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:26.360 forty nine to nineteen oh one. Her book The Language 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:29.360 of Flowers, first published in eighteen eighty four, has been 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:32.800 translated into many languages and continues to be reprinted to 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:37.839 this day. Even if Victorian's thought and spoke about floriography 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:41.240 more than they actually put it into practice, it's interesting 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:43.920 to think about the movement as a pre digital version 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:49.000 of emoji culture, Lois said. Many of the contemporary flower 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.079 emoji sentiments could be found in a typical Victorian Language 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:56.040 of Flowers dictionary. Like the Victorian Language of Flowers, flower 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.520 and plant emoji symbolism often relies on a characteristic of 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:04.559 the plant for its significance, which is to say that 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.000 just as sending an emoji of a peach, chili, pepper, 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.440 or eggplant doesn't literally mean that you're thinking about produce. 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:16.679 Victorians were finding ways to express themselves figuratively. In the 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:20.839 eighteen nineties. The Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde famously 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.240 asked his friends and advocates to wear green carnations, which 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:29.200 he hinted would simultaneously signify homosexuality, while meaning nothing at all. 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.880 When How Stuff Works spoke with Loy back in twenty twenty, 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:37.880 they asked her to create a hypothetical bouquet that expresses 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.600 the language of flowers for our current times, and I 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:44.280 think it's still pretty applicable. She said that she would 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:49.440 include balm for cure, coltsfoot for justice, mint for virtue, 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:54.920 nistertium for heroism, dogwood for honesty, oak for honor, olive 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:59.560 for peace, pimpernel for change, pomp and rose for kindness, 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:04.040 stuf our flower for reciprocity, time for courage, and white 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:09.880 chrysanthemum for truth. But Lloy said this bouquet represents qualities 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:17.679 that we need more of in our contemporary world. Today's 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:20.320 episode is based on the article red Roses Are Yellow, 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.480 Every Flower has a Secret Meaning on how Stuffworks dot Com, 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.520 written by Carrie Tatreu. Brain Stuff is production by Heart 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:28.920 Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and is 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:32.200 produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts my heart Radio, 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:35.760 visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.240 to your favorite shows.