Passage Two
You don't have to be a botany expert to decipher what it means when somebody sends you a rose. Every year on Feb.14, millions of people exchange the flower to express their love——and an estimated 250 million roses were produced for Valentine's Day in 2018, according to the Society of American Florists.
But the rose's life as a symbol didn't begin with romance. In Victorian England, women's roles in society were limited by custom and norms. Within those strictures, learning the language of flowers ——the notion that each and every flower has its own meaning—— was one activity deemed domestically appropriate for them. And for ladies in that situation, its communicative possibilities also held an appeal that other domestic arts lacked; “the possibility that some women sought methods of covert communication and expression exists,” Mary Brooks wrote in Silent Needles, Speaking Flowers.
The early popularization of this practice is credited to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the wife of a British ambassador to Turkey in the 18th century.Enthralled by a Turkish version of flower language, Lady Montagu wrote a series of letters home to England in 1716. She described the Turkish tradition as a way of assigning meaning to objects in order to send secret love letters. Montagu's letters, published in 1763, wrote of her perceptions of this practice: “There is no color, no flower, no weed, no fruit, or herb that has not a verse belonging to it: and you may quarrel, criticize, or send letters of passion, friendship, or courtesy, or even of news, without ever inking your fingers,” she wrote. But the Lady was actually incorrect in her interpretation.
In spite of Montagu's misunderstanding, word of the concept spread. Langage des fleurs, a dictionary for the language of flowers by Charlotte de Latour, was published in France in 1819, a century after Montagu's discovery. Nine editions of the English translation of the book, which alphabetically defined each flower, were printed within three decades of its publication. De Latour's translated Language of Flowers covered most popular flowers we buy, sell and give today, from the mistletoe's importance during Christmas to the musk rose's symbolization of“capricious beauty".
In de Latour's chapter on the rose, the flower is not only defined as meaning “love”, but the plant itself is romanticized.“Who that ever could sing has not sung the Rose! The poets have not exaggerated its beauty, or completed its panegyric,” she wrote. Nature seems to have exhausted all her skill in the freshness, the beauty of form, the fragrance, the delicate color, and the gracefulness which she has bestowed upon the Rose.
According to Paragraph 2, learning flower language is deemed as().
A、an appropriate activity for women in Victorian England
B、a way to express their romantic ideas explicitly
C、a symbol of romantic lifestyle
D、a kind of domestic art form
【正确答案】：A
