Literary notes about hawthorn (AI summary)
The word "hawthorn" serves as a versatile symbol in literature, employed to evoke the delicate beauty of nature as well as deep personal sentiment. In the works of Proust, for example, it becomes an emblem of nostalgic recollection—its blossoms and branches recalling tender moments of the past ([1], [2], [3], [4]). Poets such as Burns and Wilde use the hawthorn to amplify the lush imagery of the natural world, describing its blossoms with a richness that mirrors human emotion and the transient nature of beauty ([5], [6], [7]). At times, the hawthorn grounds the landscape itself, marking the border between cultivated settings and the wild, as seen in Joyce’s and Irving’s vivid portrayals, while biblical texts and other prose works classify it among the enduring trees that witness the passage of time ([8], [9], [10], [11]). Whether as a marker of memory, a beacon of hope ([12], [13]), or simply as a striking feature of the natural scene ([14], [15], [16]), the hawthorn continues to enrich literary imagery and symbolize the intricate bonds between humans and the natural world.
- If I had had the courage I would have cut you a branch of that pink hawthorn you used to like so much."
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust - It was in these 'Month of Mary' services that I can remember having first fallen in love with hawthorn-blossom.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust - I found the whole path throbbing with the fragrance of hawthorn-blossom.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust - And it was indeed a hawthorn, but one whose flowers were pink, and lovelier even than the white.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust - Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows, Adown the glade.
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns - Sweet is the scent of the hawthorn, and sweet are the bluebells that hide in the valley, and the heather that blows on the hill.
— from The Happy Prince, and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde - How sweetly bloom'd the gay, green birk, How rich the hawthorn's blossom, As underneath their fragrant shade, I clasp'd her to my bosom!
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns - Blackbird I heard in the hawthorn valley.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce - The Hawthorn (Cratægus oxyacantha).
— from The King James Version of the Bible - It was a quiet, sheltered spot, adorned with arbors and green alleys, and protected from the passing gaze by trees and hawthorn hedges.
— from The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving - THEIR VARIATION IN DEGREE AND KIND — ASH-TREE — SCOTCH-FIR — HAWTHORN.
— from The King James Version of the Bible - Hope Hawthorn.
— from Language of Flowers by Kate Greenaway - Hawthorn Hope.
— from Language of Flowers by Kate Greenaway - We also picked up a bush, full of red berries, like those of the hawthorn, and the carcass of a singular-looking land-animal.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe - In the centre was a hillock or tumulus, surmounted by a scorched hawthorn.
— from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells - Judged by the fragrance of that cave, The amber of the Baltic wave, The rose, the pink, the hawthorn bank, Might with the vulgar garlic rank.
— from Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes by Jean de La Fontaine
