CORVALLIS, Ore. — From the roses of Romeo and Juliet to the lilies of The Winter’s Tale, William Shakespeare mentioned plants more than 200 times in his plays and sonnets. He understood the power of plants to stir emotion and help tell a story, particularly for audiences in the 16th century.
“Plants meant so much to people who went to see his plays,” said Rhonda Nowak, an Oregon State University Extension Service Master Gardener. “People then were more connected to plants than we are today; they used them for medicinal purposes and knew the tales behind them.”
Roses, Shakespeare’s favorite flower
Even those unfamiliar with the plays recognize the famous line from Romeo and Juliet: “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Roses, his most frequent botanical reference, appear 95 additional times across his works. Oaks are mentioned 36 times, lilies 28, grapes 27 and apples 24.
As a Medford resident, avid gardener and fan of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in nearby Ashland, Nowak began exploring Shakespeare’s use of plants. With a Ph.D. in literary and language arts education, she teaches English composition at Rogue Community College and connects her scholarship with her love of gardening.
Metaphors in bloom
Shakespeare’s plant references are intentional, serving as metaphor and symbol. Roses, for example, represent beauty, health, love and elegance. He invoked the white and red Tudor rose to symbolize the union of the House of York and the House of Lancaster at the end of the Wars of the Roses.
Though Shakespeare’s historical interpretation is debatable, he popularized the image in Henry VI, attributing the imagery to the Earl of Warwick:
“This brawl today,
Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden
Shall send, between Red Rose and the White,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night!”
Whether or not Shakespeare tended a garden himself, he revealed a gardener’s sensibility. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he even referenced rose diseases when Titania relied on fairies to remove cankers from her blooms.
Lilies, symbols of purity and loss
Lilies, often paired with roses in symbolic meaning, appear as signs of elegance, purity and innocence. Sometimes the imagery turns tragic. In Titus Andronicus, Titus laments his daughter Lavinia’s violent attack:
“When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears
Stood on her cheeks, as doth the honey-dew
Upon a gather'd lily almost wither'd.”
“It’s a very violent, gory play and yet in one part he introduces the lily,” Nowak said. “Her father sees her as being pure and innocent, but after her attack he sees her as withered. It’s pretty powerful.”
In later Christian symbolism, the white Madonna lily became closely associated with the Virgin Mary, often depicted in artwork as holding the flower.
“The Madonna lily was venerated as a sacred lily because its petals suggested a spotless body and its golden anthers a soul gleaming with heavenly light,” Nowak said.
