"Shakespeare has missed the dandelion …". (2nd April 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Nelson, E. Charles
• Is Part Of: Shakespeare. Volume 12:Number 2(2016)
• Page Start: 175
• Page End: 184
• Publication Date: 2016-04-02
• Subjects: Cymbeline -- Taraxacum officinale -- Hugh Kenner -- Warwickshire -- "golden lads"; Periodicals; 822.33
• DOI: 10.1080/17450918.2015.1026929
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1745-0918

Abstract

Abstract : The equation of "golden lads" and "chimney-sweepers", alluded to in the dirge in Cymbeline, with, respectively, the flower-heads and clocks of the dandelion ( Taraxacum officinale ) is a twentieth-century myth, perhaps even a hoax. Neither phrase has been recorded, even in Warwickshire, as a vernacular name for the dandelion, a plant not mentioned anywhere in Shakespeare's works. The history of the myth, widely propagated by Hugh Kenner in his 1971 book The Pound Era and uncritically repeated by various authors since then, is traced.