By Any Other Name
A Cultural History of the Rose
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- R$ 77,90
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- R$ 77,90
Publisher Description
A beautifully illustrated history of the Queen of Flowers and her enduring power in our gardens, art, religion and imagination.
‘Fascinating... I’ll never look at a rose in quite the same way again.’ Adrian Tinniswood
The rose is bursting with meaning. Over the centuries it has come to represent love and sensuality, deceit, death and the mystical unknown. Today the rose enjoys unrivalled popularity across the globe, ever present at life’s seminal moments.
Grown in the Middle East two thousand years ago for its pleasing scent and medicinal properties, it has become one of the most adored flowers across cultures, no longer selected by nature, but by us. The rose is well-versed at enchanting human hearts. From Shakespeare’s sonnets to Bulgaria’s Rose Valley to the thriving rose trade in Africa and the Far East, via museums, high fashion, Victorian England and Belle Epoque France, we meet an astonishing array of species and hybrids of remarkably different provenance.
This is the story of a hardy, thorny flower and how, by beauty and charm, it came to seduce the world.
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‘Fascinating material, surveyed with relish and acumen.’ Times Literary Supplement
‘Morley’s book is, in part, the story of how humans came to raise roses so consistently and abundantly that we demand them even in freezing February. First, though, By Any Other Name recounts the love affair with a flower that drove us to want to do that in the first place.’ Wall Street Journal
‘An intellectual and artistic journey… digging around the history of how roses have become entangled with human life. By Any Other Name will be a source of inspiration for us.’ Kim Wook-Kyun, President of the South Korea Rose Society
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Art historian Morley (Writing on the Wall) delivers a discursive history of roses, or the "Queen of flowers," in this meandering take. "All the various cultural associations the rose has accumulated over the centuries are grounded in human encounters with its natural beauty," he writes, offering a warning that he isn't "a botanist, horticulturist, or especially devout gardener," but rather interested in the plant's cultural associations. Native to the northern hemisphere, he explains, roses were domesticated first in Sumer in 2200 BCE. "Love of the rose spread westwards," Morley writes, to Greeks and Romans, and the flower was central to pagan beliefs before it was "rebranded" by the Christian church. And though the Bible doesn't mention roses, they became associated with Christ's wounds and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Morley examines the rose's presence in poetry (most famously, the works of Shakespeare), paintings, music, perfumes, and medicines, and his approach has philosophical leanings and an ecological bent; he defines his search for meaning within a "wider contemporary context of ecological crisis," as people continue to have "devastating" effects on nature. But the work feels wide and shallow, more scattershot than insightful, and it too often reads like a highbrow lecture. While the idea has potential, rose-tinged inspiration is likely to be discovered elsewhere.