Durch die Blume gesagt. Erotische Blumenmetaphorik in romantischer Lyrik: Stagnelius, Wergeland und Aarestrup

What is it about?

Likening females to flowers is not a groundbreaking poetical strategy. However, romantic poetry seems to deal with this well-known metaphor in a particularly expressive way. In this paper, three poems by three different romantic authors – Erik Johan Stagnelius, Henrik Wergeland, and Emil Aarestrup – are analyzed with regard to their use of metaphors merging floral and erotic subjects, particularly in viewing women as flowers. The three chosen poems highlight the effectiveness of metaphorical operations in the context of romantic conceptions of unity. They are marked by a strong metalinguistic awareness in that they are reflective of their uses of metaphorical language in an ironic and playful manner that reveals different shifts of meaning. More precisely, the metaphors serve to illuminate alternative layers of meaning related to late-romantic language: In the end, it is language that brings about the erotic relationship, language that does not merely describe but actually shapes the beloved one.

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