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Gathering of Flowers from Shakespeare
by Gerard Brender à Brandis and F. David Hoeniger
Published by Porcupine’s Quill, 2006
Reviewed by Shannon Murray
I have for years daydreamed about planting and tending a
Shakespeare garden: a garden that would boast every flowering
plant mentioned in Shakespeare’s poems and plays. I assure
you, this is not a solitary, invented obsession. Hundreds of
public and countless private Shakespeare gardens exist around
the world, one of the most famous at the Huntington Library in
California, and
these extraordinary gardens offer the twin
pleasures of Shakespeare’s art and
Nature’s beauty.
Gerard Brender à Brandis, and F. David Hoeniger’s A Gathering of Flowers from Shakespeare is a truly beautiful companion to my daydreams. And if you also love beautifully constructed books and the stark power of wood engravings, you will find yourself flipping through this well-conceived and artfully constructed book again and again.
After a brief introduction, each right-hand page contains one of
Brandis’s wood engravings of a flower or herb mentioned in
Shakespeare – opium poppies, honeysuckle, rue, pot marigold,
and almost 60 more –, accompanied on the left by Hoeniger’s
brief and accessible commentary. Some wood engravings show us one
and others multiple plants, some on their own and some in the
context of Renaissance objects or dwellings.
The commentary is tastefully varied, giving us, at various points, descriptions of taste, smell and colour; quotations from the plays; subtle interpretations of passages; the history of horticulture; or advice to the gardener . In the compact section on “chamomile,” for instance, we learn, after a quotation from Henry IV’s Falstaff, that the herb was used on the edges of Elizabethan flower beds, is a “ruinous plant that spreads quickly,” is believed to have medicinal qualities, is supposed to thrive on being stepped on, and is an emblem of humility.
The commentary leaves us with a sense of what gardens and
gardening must have been like in Shakespeare’s own time, how
different in some cases the plants and associations would have
been from our own. The interpretation of Shakespeare’s
characters and verse Hoeniger gives us is clear, gentle, and
sensible. By the end, we have a deep appreciation of how much
Shakespeare’s art relies on a communal memory of knowing,
feeling, smelling, and tasting Nature’s flowers.
You might imagine that the stark black and white of wood engravings would lose one of the qualities that flowers are most prized for: their colour. That’s true. In its place, though, is a heightened attention to texture, line, and movement. They are so exquisite that it is worth buying a second copy, for the chance to plunder one for framed prints.
The publisher, Porcupine’s Quill, has long prided itself on producing books that are both lasting and artful in their design; sewn binding and good quality paper in affordable books are rare finds these days. The book will for me form an essential resource as I plot my Shakespeare garden in rural Prince Edward Island.
Click here to purchase A Gathering of Flowers from Shakespeare
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