Floriography

Wiki puts this in context.



The language of flowers, sometimes called floriography, was a Victorian-era means of communication in which various flowers and floral arrangements were used to send coded messages, allowing individuals to express feelings which otherwise could not be spoken. This language was most commonly communicated through Tussie-Mussies, an art which has a following today.

The nuances of the language are now mostly forgotten, but red roses still imply passionate, romantic love and pink roses a lesser affection; white roses suggest virtue and chastity and yellow roses still stand for friendship or devotion. Also commonly known meanings are sunflowers, which can indicate either haughtiness or respect – they were the favorite flower of St. Julie Billiart for this reason. Gerbera (daisy) means innocence or purity. The iris, being named for the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology, still represents the sending of a message. A pansy signifies thought, a daffodil regard, and a strand of ivy; fidelity.


The vine is a recurring image in Armantrout's poetry, isn't it?

I seem to recall that being a very prominent image in several poems.

Wiki also has its own list of the flowers and their various meanings.

I didn't compare them to see if they wholly match or diverge.

A pansy signifies "thought." So Joe Brainard was showing his pensive nature.

Besides making a pun on homo.

Turn the insults into beauty.

Nancy. Pansy.

I'm so obtuse sometimes.

I didn't even realize he was doing that until someone mentioned it online somewhere.

I think Jordan Davis.

See me putting my fingers to my lips now and making a propeller sound.

I just thought Brainard was doing it because pansies are a gorgeous color combination...that yellow and that purple edged in black.

Just thinking of them my blood pressure probably rises.

And Nancy and Sluggo were just funny looking as Hell. Who wouldn't want to have fun with them.

They had those horribly adult features but were children. And Nancy's hair. That could almost have had a comic strip all by itself. In a way, they remind me of how early American naive painters represented children--as little geriatrics or progerics.

One assumes that was just a convention by which the portraitist stressed to the model, the subject, that life was serious, and that even prepubescent life required a mental sobriety and a commitment to one's vocation.

Hence, boys were Little Men And girls were Little Women.

Those are hideous paintings, aren't they?

They make me sad.

But it was true. There was no extended childhood back then.

I read an interesting sociological study a few years back about "the invention of childhood." We often forget how this extended childhood (often considered to have an upper terminus of nineteen years of age at the current time!) was just unheard of for most of American history.

The earlier generations would have considered our children as hideously deformed adults being pandered to in a ridiculous and uncalled-for manner.

The book made the point that back then, artisans and merchants, business people of all stripes, didn't hold a man's age against him. If he was sixteen and ran a successful business, he was treated as a peer. And it wasn't hard for a sixteen year old to start or acquire a business. He married at that age. He fathered children at that age.

When the average lifespan was thirty years shorter, people knew they had to move fast.

And the classrooms were filled with all ages, mixed together. So that was another weirdness.

And one had to be subtle in one's desires, hence floriography and the language of the lady's fan.

I wonder if I can find a chart explaining the fan language.