‘Elsinore’s ‘unweeded garden’’, Lilla Grindlay
“Shakespeare’s imagery repeatedly creates an image of a garden as an ordered
but fragile space, one that has powerful associations with virtue, chastity and
restraint.”
“Old King Hamlet can be seen as an embodiment of a fragile Eden which
becomes despoiled by sin”
“imagery of the natural world that describes both Gertrude and Ophelia turns
them into victims of a literary legacy of the Fall of Man.”
Garden of Eden (Adam and Eve, paradisical garden, Eve tempted by Serpent [fall
of Man) – “The imagery used to describe the central atrocity of Hamlet, the
murder of Hamlet’s father, mirrors this Biblical tale.” :
“Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me.” [1.5.35-36]
“The serpent is in reality the murderous Claudius” :
“The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
Now wears his crown.” [1.5.38-39]
“Fie on’t, a fie, ‘tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed, things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely”
“Hamlet’s metaphor of the ‘unweeded garden’ evokes a natural world where an
ordered garden has become overrun by the weeds of the wilderness.”
“Even before he is aware of his uncle’s penchant for murder, Hamlet senses that
the world around him is one that is untamed and out of control.”
“Denmark is as poisoned as the Old King Hamlet’s body, and as corrupt as its
new, false king.”
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