Honora, should that cruel time arrive
When 'gainst my truth thou should'st my errors poise,
Scorning remembrance of our vanished joys;
When for the love-warm looks in which I live,
But cold respect must greet me, that shall give
No tender glance, no kind regretful sighs;
When thou shalt pass me with averted eyes,
Feigning thou see'st me not, to sting, and grieve,
And sicken my sad heart, I could not bear
Such dire eclipse of thy soul-cheering rays;
I could not learn my struggling heart to tear
From thy loved form, that through my memory strays;
Nor in the pale horizon of Despair
Endure the wintry and the darkened days.
Hasten, from your coral caves,
Every nymph that sportive laves
In the green sea's oozy wells,
And gilds the fins, and spots the shells!
Hasten, and our morning join,
Ere the gaudy morning shine!
Rising from the foamy wave,
Instant now your aid we crave;
Come, and trip like our gay band,
Traceless on the amber sand.
Haste! or we must hence away,
Yet an hour, and all is day!
At your bidding, from our feet
Shall the ocean monsters fleet,
Sea-nettle and sting-fish glide
Back upon the refluent tide.
Haste! the dawn has streak'd the cloud,
Haste! the village cock has crow'd.
See! the clouds of night retire,
Hesper gleams with languid fire!
Quickly then our revel join,
The blush of morn is on the brine!
Loiterers, we must hence away,
Yonder breaks the orb of day.
Song Of The Fairies To The Sea-Nymphs by Anna Seward
Sonnet 92 [Behold that Tree, in Autumn’s dim decay] - Anna Seward
Behold that Tree, in Autumn’s dim decay,
Stript by the frequent, chill, and eddying Wind;
Where yet some yellow, lonely leaves we find
Lingering and trembling on the naked spray,
Twenty, perchance, for millions whirl’d away!
Emblem, alas! too just, of Humankind!
Vain Man expects longevity, design’d
For few indeed; and their protracted day
What is it worth that Wisdom does not scorn?
The blasts of Sickness, Care, and Grief appal,
That laid the Friends in dust, whose natal morn
Rose near their own;—and solemn is the call;—
Yet, like those weak, deserted leaves forlorn,
Shivering they cling to life, and fear to fall!
I love to rise ere gleams the tardy light,
Winter's pale dawn; and as warm fires illume,
And cheerful tapers shine around the room,
Through misty windows bend the musing sight
Where, round the dusky lawn, the mansions white,
With shutters closed, peer faintly through the gloom,
That slow recedes; while yon gray spires assume,
Rising from their dark pile, an added height
By indistinctness given. Then to decree
The grateful thoughts to God, ere they unfold
To friendship or the Muse, or seek with glee
Wisdom's rich page. Oh, hours more worth than gold
By whose blest use we lengthen life, and, free
From drear decays of age, outlive the old.
Scientists Don’t Know How to Deal With Botanical Sexuality, Part 2
Read the first part of this story here.
This wasn’t just some old white dudes debating in the halls of academia though (even though it kind of was), because it had some serious impacts on those who wanted to study botany, especially women.
Before this whole shenanigan, botany was considered an acceptably delicate pursuit for women, as long as they didn’t flaunt their knowledge too much. But now that plants had become sexualized (thanks for nothing, Linnaeus), some thought it was improper for women (or anyone) to study them. A more common approach was not to attempt to ban botany altogether, but to create a desexualized version that would be appropriate to study. If you remember William Withering from the first installment in this ongoing saga, that was his intention in publishing an English translation of Linnaeus’ Systema Vegabilium. His book was titled A Botanical Arrangement of all Vegetables Naturally Growing in Great Britain, and in its anglicizaton of Linnaeus’ work, it also omitted all references to sexuality, including the names of the reproductive organs and the metaphors comparing them to men and women.
You might be wondering: Why did people care so much about plant sex? Why was this such a big deal, or even any deal at all? Well, the natural world was seen as a reflection of human society. A neat, organized, hierarchical concept of nature served to reinforce the same ideals in society. However, if nature was actually disorderly and promiscuous, as the Linnaean system suggested, the stage was set for this conservative society to crumble under the force of botanical subversion.
This was a problem for women botanists, because they wanted to study plants, but also maintain propriety in a restrictive society. Omitting the sexual parts of Linnaeus’ system prevented a full understanding of its meaning, because the classification was explicitly based on the reproductive parts of flowers. There were some other classification systems floating around, but the Linnaean system was generally considered the most useful and complete one. Women could not go to university at this time, so by providing them only with censored translations, they were blocked from accessing a botanical education reflecting complete and current knowledge.
Of course, women botanists did not always do what they were told. Many studied the Litchfield translation of Linnaeus (the complete version), but they did not always include overt references to the sexual system in their own writing. Others wrote about the sexual system but published their works anonymously. My point here is that it was a difficult time to be a woman involved in science, but women botanists strove to overcome barriers to educating themselves and others in various ways. They may not have been “perfect” feminists (whatever that means) but I think they form an important part of botanical history nonetheless.
So there you have it: an incredibly condensed version of a sizable chunk of scientific history.
Sources (if you want to read these but there’s a paywall just hit me up, I have the pdfs):
George, Sam. “Carl Linnaeus, Erasmus Darwin, and Anna Seward: Botanical Poetry and Female Education.” Science & Education, vol. 23, no. 3, 2014, pp. 673-94.
Kurchenko, Elena I. “Carl Linnaeus as the founder of modern plant taxonomy.” Chromosome Botany, vol. 2, no. 2, 2007, pp. 55-61.
Powell, Rosalind. “Linnaeus, Analogy, and Taxonomy: Botanical Naming and Categorization in Erasmus Darwin and Charlotte Smith.” Philological Quarterly, vol. 95, no. 1, 2016, pp. 101-24.
See also, for an extensive discussion of women botanists:
Shteir, Ann B. Cultivating Women, Cultivating Science. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
