The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare

About the book

Henry Nicholson Ellacombe brings horticultural enthusiasm to passages from Shakespeare, organizing the main discussion around plants and their associations. A name may lead into cultivation, folklore, older botanical writing, or the changing meaning of a familiar word. A further section considers garden craft, and appendices extend the discussion to topics including the daisy and the seasons of the plays. This revised edition supplies line references and acknowledges corrections, making it a working reference as well as a book for browsing. Its historical identifications should not replace modern botanical guidance, but they can sharpen attention to details easily passed over in reading a play. The pleasure lies in seeing a brief literary image open onto a larger world of practical and remembered knowledge.

• Literature and nature
• Gardens
• Language and history

Why read it

For a way of rereading familiar dramatic language through the plants and practices that give it texture.

English study · revised second-edition text