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Tue 8 May, 2007 08:18 pm
At six o'clock the waiter brought her dinner and carried away the typewritten bill of fare. When Sarah ate she set aside, with a sigh, the dish of dandelions with its crowning ovarious accompaniment. As this dark mass had been transformed from a bright and love-endorsed flower to be an ignominious vegetable, so had her summer hopes wilted and perished. Love may, as Shakespeare said, feed on itself: but Sarah could not bring herself to eat the dandelions that had graced, as ornaments, the first spiritual banquet of her heart's true affection.
In this paragraph from <<Springtime>>, Sarah doesn't want to eat "dandelion with egg" because dandelion was made into a crown by her lover and given to her. What I want to know is: I don't know the quote in the paragraph "love may feed on itself", and why the author refer to this Shakespeare's quote here? What's the relation between this context and the quote?
First:
Practically speaking, the dandelion garnish is gastronomically incorrect. Dandelion greens are tender and tasty when they first sprout, but by the time the flowers appear they are bitter and inedible.
Your question:
When Shakespeare wrote "love may feed upon itself" he meant that lovers by being lovers can increase each other's passions.
The author is trying for poetic flourishes, but his poetic flourishes aren't very good.
Thank you.
Now that I know this quote means "the passion could be increased automatically if love exists", still I don't know why the author said this. So if the passion had not be increased, Sarah would have eaten the dandelion?
And what is "poetic flourish"?
Translator--
Love can feed upon itself, but Sarah refuses to make a meal of old memories. Her love affair is over.
Had I written: "Love, the nobl'st of emotions, feedeth upon itself and dost not comsume itself. Sarah spurns the humble weed which once she would have relished...."
Those sentences are even more freighted down with bad poetic flourishes.
For any art form to flourish it has to feed itself
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1750564,00.html
Will Global Warming Feed Upon Itself?
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/bioticFeedbacks.html
Evil Feeds Upon Itself: Also known as the Law of the Dark Queen Takhisis (Goddess of Evil).
This reflects evil's belief in natural selection through the elimination of weaker beings.
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/3376/dragon.html
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