{"title":"现在的天堂:莎士比亚花园和早期现代园艺书籍中渴望的英国伊甸园","authors":"Claire Eager","doi":"10.1080/17450918.2023.2193566","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This essay contends that Shakespeare locates paradise squarely in the here and now. In this, his speakers’ language resembles that of the garden books and husbandry manuals that have engaged a number of recent studies. Rather than a lost ideal or a conventional commonplace, Eden is an object of present desire, an object that is potentially attainable. However, the plays’ language of desire is also the language of conquest. Paradise is nigh, but it belongs to someone else. In plays as disparate as Richard II and The Tempest, the paradisal garden is reimagined and redeployed for the purposes of the characters at hand. Such transformations of the idea of paradise to meet local circumstances and serve present needs echo nationalist discourses of Eden found in contemporary horticultural publications. Behind the practical instructions lie dreams shared by the dramatic characters: to seek and claim paradise close at hand. Sometimes the books seem as ambitious as any claimant to the English throne; at others they acknowledge the material limitations they face at the hands of weather, climate, and fortune. Underlying this singular focus on paradise is the threat that an Eden so obtained may no longer be Edenic.","PeriodicalId":42802,"journal":{"name":"Shakespeare","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Paradise Now: Desiring English Eden in Shakespearean Gardens and Early Modern Horticultural Books\",\"authors\":\"Claire Eager\",\"doi\":\"10.1080/17450918.2023.2193566\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"ABSTRACT This essay contends that Shakespeare locates paradise squarely in the here and now. In this, his speakers’ language resembles that of the garden books and husbandry manuals that have engaged a number of recent studies. Rather than a lost ideal or a conventional commonplace, Eden is an object of present desire, an object that is potentially attainable. However, the plays’ language of desire is also the language of conquest. Paradise is nigh, but it belongs to someone else. In plays as disparate as Richard II and The Tempest, the paradisal garden is reimagined and redeployed for the purposes of the characters at hand. Such transformations of the idea of paradise to meet local circumstances and serve present needs echo nationalist discourses of Eden found in contemporary horticultural publications. Behind the practical instructions lie dreams shared by the dramatic characters: to seek and claim paradise close at hand. Sometimes the books seem as ambitious as any claimant to the English throne; at others they acknowledge the material limitations they face at the hands of weather, climate, and fortune. Underlying this singular focus on paradise is the threat that an Eden so obtained may no longer be Edenic.\",\"PeriodicalId\":42802,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Shakespeare\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.4000,\"publicationDate\":\"2023-04-03\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Shakespeare\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1080/17450918.2023.2193566\",\"RegionNum\":3,\"RegionCategory\":\"文学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"0\",\"JCRName\":\"LITERATURE, BRITISH ISLES\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Shakespeare","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17450918.2023.2193566","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE, BRITISH ISLES","Score":null,"Total":0}
Paradise Now: Desiring English Eden in Shakespearean Gardens and Early Modern Horticultural Books
ABSTRACT This essay contends that Shakespeare locates paradise squarely in the here and now. In this, his speakers’ language resembles that of the garden books and husbandry manuals that have engaged a number of recent studies. Rather than a lost ideal or a conventional commonplace, Eden is an object of present desire, an object that is potentially attainable. However, the plays’ language of desire is also the language of conquest. Paradise is nigh, but it belongs to someone else. In plays as disparate as Richard II and The Tempest, the paradisal garden is reimagined and redeployed for the purposes of the characters at hand. Such transformations of the idea of paradise to meet local circumstances and serve present needs echo nationalist discourses of Eden found in contemporary horticultural publications. Behind the practical instructions lie dreams shared by the dramatic characters: to seek and claim paradise close at hand. Sometimes the books seem as ambitious as any claimant to the English throne; at others they acknowledge the material limitations they face at the hands of weather, climate, and fortune. Underlying this singular focus on paradise is the threat that an Eden so obtained may no longer be Edenic.
期刊介绍:
Shakespeare is a major peer-reviewed journal, publishing articles drawn from the best of current international scholarship on the most recent developments in Shakespearean criticism. Its principal aim is to bridge the gap between the disciplines of Shakespeare in Performance Studies and Shakespeare in English Literature and Language. The journal builds on the existing aim of the British Shakespeare Association, to exploit the synergies between academics and performers of Shakespeare.