"liberty tree", 1765, 1766 (antedating 1776)

[Robin Hamilton]

I think this may be crucial:

CARLYLE Fr. Rev. II. I. xii, A Tree of Liberty sixty feet high; and Phrygian
Cap on it,

-- that Phrygian Cap locks straight into the French Revolution.  Doesn't it
crop up in most of the iconic images of the storming of the Bastille?

I suspect that we may have two things at issue here, as Victor suggests -- a
Tree of Liberty dating well back (Richardson, of all people, promoting a
liberty tree!), and a more specific liberty tree growing in the late
eighteenth /early nineteenth century.

But this is strictly off the top of my head.

Robin

----- Original Message -----
From: "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 2:19 PM
Subject: Re: "liberty tree", 1765, 1766 (antedating 1776)


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> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "liberty tree", 1765, 1766 (antedating 1776)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 2:08 PM -0500 3/6/10, Robin Hamilton wrote:
>>Somewhat OT, but the first issue of Tom Paulin's collection of poems, _The
>>Liberty Tree_ (published in the UK by Faber) sported The Wrong Tree.
>>
>>Tom went ballistic, and insisted the entire run (2,000 copies) be
>>withdrawn.
>>
>>Unfortunately, some review copies had already been sent out prior to
>>publication ...
>>
>>So if you happen to get your hands on a copy with a Christmas Tree rather
>>than the more appropriate liberty tree, you're quids in, and ought to sell
>>it to the nearest bookdealer.
>>
>>Robin the Situationist
>>
>>(haunted by the Ghost of Guy Casement Debord -- "The revolution will come
>>when the last bourgoisie
>
> Did "bourgeoisie" used to denote a member of the class rather than
> (or in addition to) the class itself?  Now it would have to be the
> last bourgeois who was strung up.
>
> LH
>
>>is strung up from a lamp post by the guts to the
>>last capitalist." -- how's *that for a liberty tree, jimmy?)
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 1:30 PM
>>Subject: "liberty tree", 1765, 1766 (antedating 1776)
>>
>>>---------------------- Information from the mail
>>>header -----------------------
>>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>>Subject:      "liberty tree", 1765, 1766 (antedating 1776)
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>OED 2nd edition has "liberty tree" in 1776 -- and no other
>>>quotations, earlier or later.  The earliest I find are 1765 and 1766.
>>
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