The Injurious and Curative Powers of Herbs: Shakespeare in Herb Gardens

• Authors: Agnieszka Szwach

Title variants

Injurious and Curative Powers of Herbs: Shakespeare in Herb Gardens

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

PL

For Galen, the best physician was the one who was able to treat his patients by means other than the knife, particularly through diet and drugs. The fact that basic knowledge of pharmacology was not required came under severe criticism in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. To remedy this situation, herb gardens were established at universities. Some physicians wrote voluminous new herbals based both on the close study of classical pharmacological works, observations and experiments. William Turner (1508–1568), Henry Lyte (1529–1607), John Gerard (1545–1650) and John Parkinson (1567–1650) were the essential figures who established English herbal tradition. This phenomenon was not entirely alien to Shakespeare. The study of tragedies, as presented in this paper, is sufficient to realise how numerous references to both healing and poisonous plants are made in Shakespearean plays.

Keywords

EN

herbs; herbals; medicine; Renaissance; Shakespeare

PL

zioła; zielniki; medycyna; renesans; Szekspir

• Publisher: Księgarnia Akademicka
• Journal: Studia Historyczne
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 60
• Issue: 2 (238)
• Pages: 47-56

Dates

published

2017-06-30

Contributors

author

Agnieszka Szwach

• Jan Kochanowski University, Kielce

Identifiers

DOI

10.12797/SH.60.2017.02.04