Abstract: A whole network of plant analogies pervades Étienne de la Boétie’s Discours de la servitude volontaire. We can study their use in detail through images of living or dead wood, and of sowing and grafting. Harking back to classical sources, this network of analogies – to be found not only in the Discours, but also in la Boétie’s poems written in Latin – provides him with a poetic and conceptual device with which to address the question of culture and the flexibility of our essential nature.
