Birthday
HydrangeasWriters have always used flowers to speak about things that are hard to name directly: love, memory, loss and hope. The Little Prince's rose, Ophelia's flowers, Dumas's black tulip and Shevchenko's viburnum each carry a whole story. Here is which flowers became symbols in world and Ukrainian literature, what they mean and why those meanings still shape the bouquets we give.
The main flower symbols in literature
The literary language of flowers existed long before Victorian "flower dictionaries"; it appears in ancient myths. But in the 19th century, when Europe was fascinated by the secret language of bouquets, writers especially liked to encode their characters' feelings in flowers. Read more in the language of flowers.
The rose: from Shakespeare to The Little Prince
- Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Juliet reflects that a rose would smell as sweet by any other name: a name does not change the essence of the person you love.
- Oscar Wilde, The Nightingale and the Rose (1888). A nightingale stains a white rose red with its own blood for someone else's love, one of the saddest tales of sacrifice.
- Hans Christian Andersen, The Snow Queen. The roses Kai and Gerda grow together become a symbol of their friendship and home.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince (1943). A capricious rose on a tiny planet teaches the hero responsibility for those we love.
- Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose (1980). The rose in the title is a multi-layered symbol the author deliberately left open.
Poppies, tulips, narcissus and more
- Narcissus. In Ovid's Metamorphoses the youth Narcissus falls in love with his reflection and turns into a flower, which gave us the word "narcissism".
- Ophelia in Hamlet hands out flowers with telling meanings: rosemary for remembrance, pansies for thoughts. The scene is often cited as an example of Shakespeare's language of flowers.
- The poppy. The poem "In Flanders Fields" (1915) by Canadian doctor John McCrae, about poppies growing among soldiers' graves, made the red poppy a symbol of remembrance for the fallen. In Ukraine it is used on 8 May, the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation.
- The tulip. In Alexandre Dumas's novel The Black Tulip (1850), a grower competes for the city of Haarlem's prize for breeding a black tulip. The novel draws on the era of Dutch tulip mania; see Dutch flower traditions.
- Thumbelina, Andersen's heroine, is born from a tulip-like flower and in the end finds a home among flower fairies.
Flowers in Ukrainian literature
In Ukrainian literature flowers are closely tied to folk symbolism. For Taras Shevchenko, viburnum (kalyna) is an image of Ukraine and of a young woman's fate, and his famous "A cherry orchard by the house" paints the ideal of home. Periwinkle and hollyhocks stand for loyalty and remembrance of the homeland. In Lesya Ukrainka's drama-fantasy The Forest Song (1911), the forest nymph Mavka lives by nature's rhythm, blossoming in spring and fading in autumn. In the 20th century the Sixtiers poets continued this tradition, and the song "Chornobryvtsi" to words by Mykola Synhaivsky made marigolds a symbol of a mother's love. See Ukrainian plant symbols and our selection of Ukrainian love poems.
Literary bouquets: giving flowers with meaning
- For a fan of The Little Prince: a single red rose under a glass dome or in a flask.
- For a Shakespeare lover: an "Ophelia" bouquet of rosemary, pansies, daisies and fennel.
- For a book club: dark tulips in honour of The Black Tulip.
- For a teacher of Ukrainian literature: a bouquet with viburnum, hollyhocks or marigolds.
- Add a book with a pressed-flower bookmark for a gift to remember.
For single-stem ideas see one-flower gifts.
Frequently asked questions
Which flower appears most often in literature?
The rose: from ancient poetry to modern novels it symbolises love, beauty and its fragility.
Why is the poppy a symbol of remembrance?
Because of John McCrae's poem "In Flanders Fields" (1915) about poppies on First World War battlefields.
What does viburnum mean in Shevchenko's poetry?
It is an image of Ukraine, of a young woman's beauty and fate, and of the native land.
What is The Black Tulip about?
A grower trying to breed a black tulip to win Haarlem's prize, set against 17th-century Dutch history.
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Author: Maria Svitlovir
Graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Institute of Biology and Medicine (2001). BSc in Biology, MSc in Horticulture. Writes about plants, works at a garden centre selecting and repotting plants, and contributes to plant reference guides.
