This book gathers essays on premodern plants, considering the position of critical plant studies in relation to medieval studies. Contributions cover topics including the significance of the daisy in the two Prologues to Chaucer's Legend of Good Women; naming in premodern herbals; gathering prayers; vegetal decay in the prose romance Perceforest; the futurity of plants as they ripen and then rot; and vegetal life in libertine science and literature from the seventeenth century. Taken together, they provide a thoughtful reflection on premodern plants.
1. Editor's introduction.-
2. Farewel my bok: Paying attention to
flowers in Chaucers prologues to The Legend of Good Women.-
3. Vegetal
continuity and the naming of species.-
4. The sacrificial herb: Gathering
prayers in medieval pharmacy.-
5. Written in trees.-
6. Fruit and rot:
Vegetal theology in Perceforest.-
7. Before and after plants.-
8. Libertine
botany: Vegetal sexualities, vegetal forms.-
9. Centerpieces.-
10. Writing
with plants.-
11. Is Dante a cosmopolitan?
Vin Nardizzi is Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, Canada.
