Through an exploration of drama, diaries, novels and magazines, this Gardens Trust Wednesday five part series will examine how writers have used gardens and plants to evoke memories, capture ideas of taste and fashion, satirize attitudes, champion social change and give deeper meaning to the world. The chosen authors cover almost four centuries of literature and, through examining their words, we can gain new understandings of the roles, meanings and emotive power of historic landscapes and horticulture. This ticket link https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gardens-and-the-written-word-tickets-930348275737 is for the entire series of 5 talks, or you may purchase a ticket for individual talks, costing £8 via the links on that page. (Gardens Trust members £6 each or all 5 for £26.25). All purchases are handled through Eventbrite.
Ticket holders can join each session live and/or view a recording for up to 1 week afterwards. Ticket sales close 4 hours before the first talk. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk (If you do not receive this link please contact us), and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 weeks.
On Week One on October 2, we experience gardens primarily through our senses – sight, sound, scent, touch, even taste. So how are they evoked so powerfully in literature when none of these sensory media are available to us? William Shakespeare uses botanical images throughout his plays to set the scene on the stage, to enhance the stories he is telling, and to illustrate more universal truths about the complexities of the human condition. For these potent images to work, he had to know that his audience would understand them – after all, they would not all have been expert gardeners, and neither, I suspect, was Shakespeare. This talk will explore how the playwright’s references to plants, flowers and horticulture contributed to the action on the stage, and at the same time, consider the extent to which these images must have reflected the assumed interests and knowledge of his audiences.
Dr Jill Francis is an early modern historian, specializing in gardens and gardening in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries. She was awarded her PhD in 2011 by the University of Birmingham where she teaches as a visiting lecturer for both the Centre for Midlands History and Cultures and the Winterbourne House and Gardens program of activities. She is also currently involved with delivering the online program of lectures for the Gardens Trust and works at the Shakespeare Institute Library in Stratford-upon-Avon. Her book, Gardens and Gardening in Early Modern England and Wales, was published by Yale University Press in June 2018.
