Florists and feasts: a critical digital edition of Ralph Knevet's Rhodon and Iris

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dc.contributor.authorHoward, Ashley
dc.contributor.supervisorKelly, Erin Evelyn
dc.contributor.supervisorJenstad, Janelle Auriol
dc.date.accessioned2020-09-09T04:45:00Z
dc.date.copyright2020en_US
dc.date.issued2020-09-08
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Englishen_US
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en_US
dc.description.abstractOne spring afternoon in 1631, the Norwich Society of Florists held a feast to celebrate and display its exquisite flowers. The celebration included an entertainment written just for the occasion—Ralph Knevet's quirky play about a war among flowers. Early modern florists were not the sort of people who sold cut flowers in shops; rather, they were experts in floriculture who applied this knowledge to cultivate new flowers. Norwich was already renowned for its gardens, but flowers soon became even more significant. Rhodon and Iris was performed just before tulipomania, a frenzy of tulip cultivation lasting from c.1634 – 1637. During this period, florists grew elaborate multi-coloured flower bulbs that sold for extremely high prices. In other words, the florists' feast and Knevet's play emerged when flowers were important to the economy and identity of Norwich. My thesis presents an open-access, digital critical edition of Rhodon and Iris encoded in TEI-P5. This edition offers an old-spelling transcription of the 1631 playbook, a modernized text with annotations, and a critical introduction. Responding to the need for more editions of non-canonical early modern plays, my research widens the otherwise Shakespeare-centric canon and helps make more early modern drama accessible to student readers. Rhodon and Iris also merits critical attention on its own grounds: an example of Caroline occasional drama, the play experiments with convention and offers a rare glimpse into the Society of Florists. My thesis approaches the play with special interest in editorial praxis, ecotheory, and the history of floriculture. The florists' feast delighted audiences and participated in a tradition of floral celebrations—one reaching, at least, from the ancient Roman ludi Florales to the modern Netflix series The Big Flower Fight.en_US
dc.description.scholarlevelGraduateen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/12115
dc.languageEnglisheng
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.subjectearly modernen_US
dc.subjectecocriticismen_US
dc.subjectRalph Kneveten_US
dc.subjectdigital editingen_US
dc.subjectcritical editionen_US
dc.subjecteditorial theoryen_US
dc.subjectXMLen_US
dc.subjectTEIen_US
dc.subjectscholarly editionen_US
dc.subjectgenre theoryen_US
dc.subjectRhodon and Irisen_US
dc.subjectfloristryen_US
dc.subjectflowersen_US
dc.subjectseventeenth-centuryen_US
dc.subject1631en_US
dc.subjectrenaissanceen_US
dc.subjectamateur dramaen_US
dc.subjectoccasional dramaen_US
dc.subjectNorwichen_US
dc.subjectamateur playwrightsen_US
dc.titleFlorists and feasts: a critical digital edition of Ralph Knevet's Rhodon and Irisen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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