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The Myth of the Mandrake, the ‘Plant-Human’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Thierry Zarcone
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Abstract

There is no plant that embodies the encounter between humans and plants better than the mandrake, whose myth, as Arlette Bouloumié writes, ‘has the cosmic sense of a profound correlation between nature and humanity and the possibility of their merging’. Zarcone presents a collection of extracts on this theme, under three main headings: (1) ancient documents in which legend and scholarship are mixed in varying degrees; (2) contemporary scholarly studies; and (3) literary texts.

Type
Comment
Information
Diogenes , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , August 2005 , pp. 115 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2005

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References

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