The opening scene of "Love's Labours Lost" does suggest, however, the importance of specifically seasonal celebration: "At Christmas I no more desire a rose | Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth".
For me, time is always about desire, and the rose is the most sensual memento mori image".
Such thoughts are out of bounds, needless to say, in the Disney garden, where the rose of desire is definitely not for the plucking.
I should also point out here that my pining for all things retro isn't draped in a rose-tinted desire to see women dressed in pinnies, one eye on what's cooking in the oven, the other on the front door, waiting for hubby to get home.
The second in the series of collaborations between Williams and Elia Kazan, it came six years after their galvanizing Broadway production of "Streetcar Named Desire" and immediately followed "The Rose Tattoo" (1951).
"The Glass Menagerie," "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Summer and Smoke," "The Rose Tattoo," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "The Night of the Iguana" — the list is long and distinguished.
She followed this with Fikrimin ince gülü (1976; "The Slender Rose of My Desire"), Bir düğün gecesi (1979; "A Wedding Party"), Uç bes kişi (1984; "A Few People"; Eng. trans. Curfew), Hayır (1987; "No"), and Ruh uşümesi (1991; "A Shiver in the Soul").
In works ranging from 1947's "A Streetcar Named Desire" and 1951's "The Rose Tattoo" to 1958's "Suddenly Last Summer," Williams created a collective portrait of difference that often raised the ire of moralists ranging from the gatekeepers at Time to Cardinal Spellman, who denounced "Baby Doll" from the pulpit of St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Finally, he closes in: "next, my nose, crushed by the collision, no longer perceived any fragrance, and, without thereby gaining any clearer idea of the taste of the rose of my desire, I learned from these unpleasant signs, that at last I was in the act of kissing Albertine's cheek".
After stopping to smell the roses, you may desire more vigorous activity.
