Meaning of a rose

Wednesday march 7 2012


 



This week we are discussing about symbol and illusions, so i decided to write an entry for "rose" in Ferber's A Dictionary of literary symbols.

       Almost any flower can represent a girl, but the rose has always stood for the most beautiful, the most beloved - in many languages "rose" remains a popular given name- and often for one who is notably young, vulnerable, and virginal. Shakespeare's laertes when he sees his sister Ophelia in her madness, cries "O Rose of May!"(hamlet 4.5.158), bringing out not only her uniqueness  but the blighting of her brief life. Othello, on the verge of killing Desdemona, thinks of her as a rose which he is about to pluck ( Othello 5.2.13-16); Orsino tells Viola, "women are as roses, whose fair flower / being once display'd, doth fall that very hour " (12N 2.4.38-9). The french poet Baif  vows, "i will not force the rose / who hise in the bosom / of a tightly closed bud / the beauty of her flower" ( "la rose ," in livre des Passentems II). 

I chose this passage because it gives i clear explanation of the real meaning of a rose in a way the i am able to understand. According to the passage the main image of a rose is a woman because is the most beautiful and beloved but also delicate; it is also described as "virginal", which i believe means untouched. Shakespeare compares a woman as "Rose" of May" because you don't see that beauty everyday. The passage implies that in many languages "Rose is a popular given name", which is true in many countries of Latin America and some of Europe.

I chose this image because the hearth of roses represents the hearth of  woman who is as beautiful as inside as outside.

 key words of the passage:

1. "Rose of May"- comparison of a woman to a rose, stating that the beauty of a woman is something you don't see often.

2. "Rose vulnerable and virginal"- the rose is compare with a woman as delicate and untouchable

"Rose." Dictionary of Literary Symbols. Ed. Michael Ferber. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge, 1999. 172-177. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 7 Mar. 2012.