The Tree of Life and Arboreal Aesthetics in Early Modern Literature

247 Pages·2021·8.212 MB·English

by  Victoria Bladen

The Tree of Life and Arboreal
Aesthetics in Early Modern
Literature
The Tree of Life and Arboreal Aesthetics in Early Modern Literature
explores the vital motif of the tree of life and what it meant to early modern
writers who drew from its long histories in biblical, classical and folkloric
contexts, giving rise to a language of trees, an arboreal aesthetics. An
ancient symbol of immortality, the tree of life was appropriated by Christian
ideology and iconography to express ideas about Christ; however, the
concept also migrated beyond religious doctrine. Ideas circulating around
the tree of life enabled writers to imagine and articulate ideas of death
and rebirth, loss and regeneration, the condition of the political state
and personal states of the soul through arboreal metaphors and imagery.
The motif could be used to sacralise landscapes, such as the garden,
orchard or country estate, blurring the lines between contemporary
green spaces and the spiritual and poetic imaginary. L ocated within the
feld of environmental humanities, and intersecting with ecocriticism
and critical plant studies, this volume outlines a comprehensive history
of the tree of life and offers interdisciplinary readings of focus texts by
Shakespeare, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, A emilia Lanyer, Andrew
Marvell and Ralph Austen. It includes consideration of related ideas and
motifs, such as the tree of Jesse and the Green Man, illuminating the rich
histories and meanings that emerge when an u nderstanding of the tree of
life and arboreal aesthetics are brought to the analysis of early modern
literary texts and their representations of green spaces, both physical and
metaphysical.
Victoria Bladen teaches in literary studies and adaptation at The Univer-
sity of Queensland, Australia, and has twice received a Faculty Teaching
Award. Her publications include six Shakespearean text guides in the
I nsight (Melbourne) series, including The Merchant of Venice (2020)
and Much Ado About Nothing (2019), and fve co-edited volumes, in-
cluding Shakespeare on Screen: King Lear (2019), Shakespeare and the
Supernatural (2020), and a special issue of Australian Literary Studies
on Afterlives of Pastoral (2015).
Routledge Studies in World Literatures and the
Environment
Series Editors: Scott Slovic and Swarnalatha Rangarajan
Packing Death in Australian Literature
Ecocides and Eco-Sides
Iris Ralph
Climate Change, Ecological Catastrophe, and the Contemporary
Postcolonial Novel
Justyna Poray-Wybranowska
Mushroom Clouds
Ecocritical Approaches to Militarization and the
Environment in East Asia
Edited by Simon C. Estok, Iping Liang, and Shinji Iwamasa
Dystopias and Utopias on Earth and Beyond
Feminist Ecocriticism of Science Fiction
Edited by Douglas A. Vakoch
Ecofeminist Science Fiction
International Perspectives on Gender, Ecology, and Literature
Edited by Douglas A. Vakoch
Surreal Entanglements
Essays on Jeff VanderMeer’s Fiction
Edited by Louise Economides and Laura Shackelford
Narrating Nonhuman Spaces
Form, Story, and Experience Beyond Anthropocentrism
Edited by Marco Caracciolo, Marlene Karlsson Marcussen,
and David Rodriguez
The Tree of Life and Arboreal Aesthetics in Early Modern Literature
Victoria Bladen
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.
com/Routledge-Studies-in-World-Literatures-and-the-Environment/
book-series/ASHER4038
The Tree of Life and Arboreal
Aesthetics in Early Modern
Literature
Victoria Bladen
First published 2022
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Victoria Bladen
The right of Victoria Bladen to be identifed as author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bladen, Victoria, author.
Title: The tree of life and arboreal aesthetics in early modern
literature / Victoria Bladen.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Series:
Routledge studies in world literatures and the environment |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifers: LCCN 2021018014 (print) | LCCN 2021018015 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032017860 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032017877 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003180043 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: English literature—Early modern,
1500–1700—History and criticism. | Tree of life in literature.
Classifcation: LCC PR428.T74 B58 2022 (print) |
LCC PR428.T74 (ebook) | DDC 820.9/357—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021018014
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021018015
ISBN: 978-1-032-01786-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-01787-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-18004-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003180043
Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
Dedicated to Emeritus Professor Chris Wortham,
with love and gratitude.

Contents
List of Figures viii
Acknowledgements x
Introduction 1
1 Arboreal Aesthetics: The Language of Trees 7
2 The Garden of the Soul: George Herbert, Henry
Vaughan and the Tree of Life 48
3 Political Gardens: Shakespeare and the Tree of  Life 79
4 The Tree of Life in the Country Estate: Aemilia Lanyer 123
5 Andrew Marvell and the Forest of the Mind 156
6 The Sacred Orchard: Ralph Austen and the Tree of Life 189
Conclusions 222
Index 233
Figures
1.1 Ruthwell Cross. 8th c., Ruthwell, Scotland. Detail
from a 3D model prepared by the Visionary Cross Project 12
1.2 Tree of life design. 14th c., York Minster. Author’s photo 13
1.3 Pierre des Aubeaux, Tree of Jesse. 1512–1513, Rouen
Cathedral. Author’s photo 15
1.4 Martin Schongauer. The Virgin and Child in a
Yard. c. 1480–1490, The State Hermitage Museum,
St.Petersburg. Photograph © The State Hermitage
Museum. Photo by Vladimir Terebenin 17
1.5 Giovanni Bellini. The Transfguration. c. 1480,
Museo di Capodimonte, Naples. Reproduced with
the permission of the Ministero per i Beni e le Attività
Culturali e per il Turismo – Museo e Real Bosco di
Capodimonte 18
1.6 Tree of Knowledge, Church and Synagogue. 15th c.,
Burgerbibliothek, Bern, Switzerland. MS Hist.
Helvet.X 50, f. 127, saec.xv. Reproduced with the
permission of the Burgerbibliothek 20
1.7 Hans Holbein the Younger. An Allegory of the Old
and New Testaments. 1530s, National Galleries of
Scotland, Edinburgh. Purchased by Private Treaty
with the aid of the National Heritage Memorial Fund
and the National Heritage Purchase Grant (Scotland)
1981. Reproduced with permission of the National
Galleries of Scotland 21
1.8 Crispin van de Passe. Emblem of resprouting rod
in George Wither’s A Collection of Emblemes,
Ancient and Modern (London, 1635), Book 4, p. 217,
Illustration IX. RB 79918, The Huntington Library,
San Marino, California 22
1.9 Mappa Mundi. c. 1300, Detail showing Eden and dry
tree, Hereford Cathedral. Reproduced with permission
of Hereford Cathedral 24
Figures ix
1.10 L eonardo da Vinci. Page from notebook containing
sketch of tree stump and bird. Late ffteenth century,
Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Vol. II, Codex
Forster II, f. 63a. Reproduced with permission of the
Victoria and Albert Museum 27
1.11 M ichelangelo Buonarotti. Pietà (copy after the original
of 1499); detail of tree stump. Accademia di Belle Arti
di Bologna. Author’s photo 28
1.12 M ichelangelo Buonarotti. David (copy after the
original of 1501–1504); detail of stump. Piazza della
Signoria, Florence. Author’s photo 29
1.13 C esare Ripa. Riforma in Nova Iconologia. 1618,
Padua. Second part, p. 447. Reproduced with
permission of the Rubenstein Library, Duke University,
North Carolina 31
1.14 Harmenz van Rijn Rembrandt. Saint Francis Praying
Beneath a Tree. 1657. Reproduced by permission of
the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C 35
3.1 T itle page to Edward Halle’s Union of the Two
Noble and Illustre Famelies of Yorke and Lancastre.
1550, London. Call no.: STC 12723 copy 2. Used
by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library
under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
4.0 International License 80
3.2 L orenazo Lotto. Allegory of Virtue and Vice.
1505. Reproduced with permission of the National
Gallery of Art, Washington D.C 87
3.3 J oachim Camerarius. Intacta virtus (Uninjured virtue)
in Symbolorum et emblematum. 1590, Nuremberg.
Image 35, p. 37. Reproduced with permission of The
University of Adelaide Library 90
4.1 F rancis Quarles. Emblem no. XIV, in Emblemes.
1635, Book 4, pp. 236–39. RB 69009, The
Huntington Library, San Marino, California 138
5.1 Green Man. 1483, Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire.
Author’s photo 175
6.1 John Goddard. Frontispiece to R.A. Austen’s A
Treatise of Fruit-trees and the Spiritual Use of
an Orchard. 1653, London. Call no. 64523, The
Huntington Library, San Marino, California 192