Celebrating the art of biodiversity

In nature’s infinite book of secrecy, a little I can read.

Anthony & Cleopatra, Act 1, Scene 2: Soothsayer

Celebrating the biodiversity of Shakespeare

The works of Shakespeare are filled with plants, birds, trees, insects, farm animals, wild beasts, fish, reptiles, amphibians and fungi. They are not simply the background to the art, they are integral to the art itself.

Many of us are less engaged with the natural world than Shakespeare and his contemporaries. This project aims to celebrate the stories of the Shakespeare species and to explore our changing relationship with them.

In this year, 400th since the publication of the First Folia, I am aiming to publish a nature blog once a week and to share a Shakespeare Species quote each day until the end of November 2024.

“I think the King is but a man as I am. The violet smells to him as it doth to me”

HENRY V, Act 4, Scene 1: King Henry

I have worked as an archaeobotanist, ethnobotanist and conservationist in many parts of the world. I first became interested in the natural history of Shakespeare as part of a public participation project called the Patchwork Meadow and I quickly realised the richness and diversity of wildlife and nature imagery contained in the plays and poems. These short blogs are a celebration of the Shakespeare species and how their stories have intertwinned with ours over the past 400 years.

Seona Anderson, November 2023