“To be the joy of the garden” is an expression used to indicate a cheerful, optimistic person who is always in a good mood. He is that friend who always bursts in with jokes and jokes or that person who has a jovial spirit with which he sees life in a rosy light.
The locution is a full-fledged idiom, since its meaning cannot be deduced from the meaning of the words that make up the expression. Because, what is the joy of the garden? Is it the sun that plants need to live? The emotion of the farmer when it rains? The best fruits and vegetables collected? Nothing of that.
The origin of the phrase is more related to the scenarios than to the field. “La alegría de la huerta” is the title of one of the great classics of zarzuela, a scenic musical genre born in Spain in the 18th century.
The libretto of this zarzuela bears the signature of Enrique García Álvarez and Antonio Paso, while the music was composed by Federico Chueca. Premiered in 1900 at the Teatro Eslava in Madrid, it narrates a love story set in the orchard of Murcia.
The protagonist, a young man named Alegrías, is in love with Carola, but he never dared to confess his feelings. Tired of waiting for the shy Alegrías to declare himself, she ends up getting engaged to another suitor with whom she hopes to leave the town of Murcia. Of course, despite the mess, love ends up triumphing.
This zarzuela, belonging to the chicho genre as it consists of one act and three scenes, was a complete success. Not in vain, already in 1940, Ramón Quadreny directed a film with the same name and plot, starring Flora Santa Cruz and Salvador Castillo. Both on stage and on screen, the story continues to be a reflection on the idealized country life with a good dose of comedy.
In this way, the play on words that forms the title of the work with the name of the protagonist gave rise to the expression “to be the joy of the garden”, applied to people whose joy and good humor are irreducible.
There are those who mistakenly consider that the locution has sexual connotations. However, it is a confusion with another older expression, “take (someone) to the garden”, whose origin is in the work of La Celestina (1500/1502), when Calisto uses La Celestina so that Melibea goes to the garden to intimate
