Exotic mania [ Taste & Manners ]
… The term ‘exotic’ was associated with unfamiliar flora and fauna as well as with rare objects exhibited in places of sociability such as gardens, public and private menageries, museums, salons, tea-rooms, theatres, opera houses and many … plantations in the Caribbean. Notably, collective turtle consumption was considered to be a sociable affair entailing polite enjoyment of exotic food. This luxury good became an emblem of gentility, sobriety, fellowship and sociable … and generosity (Plumb 71). In line with Joseph Addison and Steele’s conversational model aimed at promoting an ideal of polite sociability, the exotic appears to be a topic of good-humoured conversation which reflected and shaped broader …
Animals | Australia | Chinoiserie | Collecting | Commerce | Exoticism | Menageries | North America
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