Shakespeare, Plants and Gardens - Was Shakespeare a Gardener?

‘Not of an Age, but for all Time’ – what can we learn about gardens and gardening from the works of our greatest playwright? Throughout his plays, William Shakespeare uses many botanical images both to set the scene on the stage, as well as to illustrate more universal truths. This series of talks will take a wide-ranging view, looking at the various ways in which Shakespeare – and some of his contemporaries - employed a knowledge of plants, flowers and gardens to enhance the action on the stage and the stories being told, and giving us an insight into the world in which the people of the time lived, worked and gardened.

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This ticket is for this individual session and costs £5, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions via the links below, or you may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 4 sessions at a cost of £16 via the link here.

Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and a link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards.

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Week 1. 16 November. Plants and Gardens in Shakespeare: Part of a series of 4 online lectures, £5 each or all 4 for £16.

Week 2. 23 November. Not Shakespeare: Part of a series of 4 online lectures, £5 each or all 4 for £16.

Week 3. 30 November. Hubble, Bubble - Death by Shakespeare: Part of a series of 4 online lectures, £5 each or all 4 for £16.

Week 4. 7 December. Was Shakespeare a Gardener?: Part of a series of 4 online lectures, £5 each or all 4 for £16.

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Week 4. 7 December. Was Shakespeare a Gardener? With Jackie Bennett, in conjunction with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

In this talk, author Jackie Bennett explores the real gardens with which Shakespeare was associated – as a boy and as a man. The five Stratford-on-Avon gardens (and others in London and elsewhere) represent the different phases of his life and help to map out the biography of our national poet - and how he came to know so much about the plants, flowers and gardens of his time. Illustrated with images of the gardens as well as historical illustrations from the archive of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

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Jackie Bennett is the author of seven books about gardens including The Writer’s Garden (Frances Lincoln, 2014) and The Artist’s Garden (White Lion, 2019). She began her career making gardening television programmes and has worked in magazine and book publishing, including working on RHS encyclopedias and spending eight years on the team of The English Garden magazine. As well as writing, Jackie runs writing and poetry workshops for the University of Cambridge Botanic Garden. She lives in Norfolk and for the Shakespeare project in 2016 (to coincide with the 400 anniversary of his death), she was a writer-in-residence for the Hosking Houses Trust, enabling her to spend several months in and around Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare’s Gardens was updated in 2021 to include the contemporary gardens created at New Place.

Images courtesy of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust