Literary notes about Plants (AI summary)
In literature the word “plants” frequently transcends its literal meaning to become a rich symbol of growth, renewal, and the interconnection of life. Authors use plants to evoke both the organic processes of nature and human states of being. For example, in philosophical texts, plants are employed as metaphors for cohesive growth and regeneration ([1]), while in narrative prose, they often serve as vivid imagery of vitality and unexpected beauty, as seen when Twain compares plant heads to glistening eyes full of childlike delight ([2]). Scientific and botanical treatises use the term in a precise manner that reflects classification, naturalization, and even metaphorical reversion ([3], [4], [5], [6]), whereas in poetic and allegorical works, plants can symbolize spiritual rebirth or moral transformation ([7], [8]). Whether serving as a marker of nature’s ceaseless cycle or as a tangible manifestation of deeper human truths, “plants” in literature embody both the physical world and the myriad ways it mirrors the human experience.
- "Affected and qualified" (i4): exis, the power of cohesion shown in things inanimate; fusiz, power of growth seen in plants and the like. XVII.
— from Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius - The plants lift up their heads out of the earth, like the eyes of children glistening with delight.
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain - The gradations from leaf-climbers to tendril bearers are wonderfully close, and certain plants may be differently placed in either class.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - The following conclusions are drawn up chiefly from Gartner's admirable work on the hybridisation of plants.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - The same principle is seen in the naturalisation of plants through man's agency in foreign lands.
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - Many cultivated plants display the utmost vigour, and yet rarely or never seed!
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - But do I bid you become phantoms or plants?
— from Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - It is the analogue of the acacia, and like all the other sacred plants of antiquity, is a symbol of the immortality of the soul.
— from The symbolism of Freemasonry : by Albert Gallatin Mackey
