In 1844, Nathaniel Hawthorne published a short story entitled “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” It’s a gothic / horror story about a scientist in Padua who grows poisonous plants in his garden. He’s trained his beautiful daughter to tend the garden, and while she’s become immune to the poisons, she herself has become poisonous. But her beauty attracts suitors, including the narrator, a young man visiting the city and staying in a room overlooking the garden.
The story is more than a gothic or “garden of evil” tale. It also questions the scientist who believes anything (and anyone) is fair game in the pursuit of knowledge. Hawthorne rolled romantic infatuation, scientific infatuation, and evil into one story. What he doesn’t get specific about, except for describing a flower or two, is what kinds of plants were actually in the garden?
Poets Jules Jacob and Sonja Jackson have an answer: Rappaccini’s Garden: Poisonous Poetry.To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Some Tuesday Readings
Imagine – poem by Kelly Belmonte at All Nine.
“Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.
Phone Ghazal – Tania Runyan at Every Day Poems.
Still Possible – poem by David Whyte.
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