In this colloquium talk\, Dr. Vin Nardizzi will provide an overview
of his recently published book\, Marvellous Vegetables in the English
Renaissance.
John Gerard’s natural history of plant s\, The Herball (1597)\, is considered a failure in the history of science. Despite this reputation\, it has endured as an aesthetic resource . Its illustrations were used as needlework patterns\, and strewn across it s pages are extracts of classical poetry\, including Ovid’s Metamorphos es\, that delight and instruct. It is little wonder that early modern poets\, like Shakespeare and Milton\, gathered inspiration from this storeh ouse of plants. In Marvellous Vegetables in the English Renaissance\, Vin Nardizzi offers a reparative reading of Gerard’s “failed” text\, pa rticularly its chapters on leeks\, laurels\, tulips\, and potatoes. Through a series of experiments in speculative natural history\, which require an analysis of both word and image\, Nardizzi distills The Herball’s logic and poetics\, its distinctions and infelicities\, and demonstrates th e entanglements of humans and plants at the core of Shakespeare’s plays. Ex ploring these “cross-kingdom” encounters\, Nardizzi contributes to the burg eoning field of queer ecologies by treating plant natural history as a seri ous intellectual resource for writing a counter-history of embodiment at th e turn of the seventeenth century. All we need do\, Nardizzi proposes\, is smell the flowers.
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Dr. Vin Nardizzi is Professor of English Language and Literatures at the University of British Columbia.
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