The Eternal Eden:
The Garden Imagery in Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Yang Lisha
Supervisor
词根记忆法Professor Luo Yimin
A Thesis Submitted in
收入政策Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
M. A. in English
COLLEGE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
SOUTHWEST UNIVERSITY
April 2017
我的第一本书
三寄小读者
Acknowledg e ments
Upon the completion of the thesis, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to tho who offered me great enlightment and encouragement in the painstaking cour of thesis composition.
考核结果运用First and foremost, I am immenly indebted to my beloved supervisor Professor Luo Yimin, a respectable, rigorous and resourceful scholar. With his profound knowledge and learning, Professor Luo guided me into the fascinating wonderland of Shakespeare and aroud my inten interest for Shakespeare’s Sonnets. During the three postgraduate studies, he provided me with great academic assistance, sparing no efforts in instructing me how to collect materials, how to think logically and how to compo appropriately. Besides, he is ready to share his illuminating ideas with others and encourages me to take an active participation in academic activities. In the process of thesis writing, Professor Luo has offered me patient guidance and constructive suggestions, and he was willing to offer a helping hand when I was in the moor of logic confusions. In addition, Professor Luo is such a thoughtful and loving teacher that he cares about the health of his students. In a word, Professor Luo is not only my academic mentor, but also my idol of life.
I am also greatly obliged to all my distinguished teachers in the College of Internationl Studies of So
uthwest University. My hearfelt thanks go to Professor Liu Lihui, Professor Yan Kui, Professir Li Li, Professor Wen Xu, Professor Liu Yu, Professor Du Shihong, Professor Guo Fangyun and Professor Luo Lang, from who erudite knowledge, enlightening lectures and prudent attitudes towards academic rearch I have benefited a lot.
Last but not least, I am grateful to my dear fellow friends Wang Yaoyao, Tang Xue, He Fang, Chen Jiangyue, Yang ying, who have offered me great spiritual support, accompanying me to conquer physical dia so that I can accomplish my thesis.
Contents
Contents
Acknowledg e ments (i)
妈妈的吻儿歌Introduction (1)
Chapter One The Heavenly Eden: the Garden of Beauty (15)
A. The Garden Tradition from Classics to Renaissance Literature (15)
B. The Analogy Between Garden Imagery and Human Body (18)
C. The Youth as the Incarnation of Heavenly Beauty (21)
Chapter Two The Lost Eden: the Garden of Time (28)
A. The Prelapsarian Garden: the Abnce of Time (28)
B. “Devouring Time” and “Fading Sweets” (31)
C. “Eternal Lines”: Ways to Defy Time (35)
Chapter Three The Eden Regained: the Garden of Love (42)
A. The Love－Garden Analogy from Classics to Renaissance Literature (42)
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B. Love’s Libra: “the Better Angel” and “the Worr Spirit” (45)
C. Love’s Pilgrimage: the Way to the Eternal Garden (49)
Conclusion (54)
Works Cited (57)
Abstract
The Eternal Eden:
The Garden Imagery in Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Abstract
Shakespeare’s Sonnets as a whole quence is a brilliant treasure in the world literature. With its numerous and profound images, skillful and delicate conceits, and beautiful and preci language, the Sonnets are endowed with rich philosophical connotations as well as unique aesthetic values. Garden, a prevalent and prominent imagery in the western literature, is revisited and reinvented in Shakespeare’s Sonnets. As the soul of poetry, the garden imagery in Shakespeare’s Sonnets is not only a part of poetic construction, but a golden key to unlock the door of themes in the poetry. The garden imagery is cloly related to such dominant themes as beauty, time and love, thus constituting three diver dimensions of garden: the heavenly Eden: the garden of beauty; the lost E
den: the garden of time; and the Eden regained: the garden of love. The three dimensions of garden make a basically complete narrative; which mirrors the meditations of Renaissance “man” upon the motif of eternity and his longing to go back to the heavenly Eden, thus illuminating the humanistic thoughts of Shakespeare.
The thesis consists of five parts: introduction, three chapters of the body part and conclusion.
The introductory part briefly reviews the development of rearches on Shakespeare’s Sonnets and states the purpo and significance of the thesis. For over four hundred years, the criticisms of Shakespeare’s Sonnets have shifted their focus from “peripheral” biographical speculations to “ontological” thematic and linguistic studies. In regard to imagery studies, most scholars and critics concentrate on the function of imagery as a rhetoric device, ignoring the clo interrelationship between imagery and thematic connotations, which spares more space to explore. Bad on former studies, this thesis endeavors to relate multiple garden images to the dominant themes in the Sonnets, and to interpret the garden imagery from the following three
Abstract
perspectives: the garden of beauty, the garden of time and the garden of love, hoping to gain a comp
rehensive understanding of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
Chapter One expounds the clo relationship between the garden imagery and the theme of beauty. This chapter sketches out the quintesntial gardens in the Classic and Christian traditions, revealing their similarities that aim at prenting an original state of perfection. With the ri of humanism, it is commonplace that Renaissance writers associate garden imagery with human body, thus constituting the “garden-human” metaphor. In Shakespeare’s Sonnets, there are a large number of garden imageries, either providing a beautiful and natural tting in the poetry, or suggesting the beauty of man, which both echo the ideal state of traditional Edenic paradi. In the Sonnets, the Fair Youth is the object of Shakespeare’s admiration and laudation. The young friend, as fair as “Beauty’s ro”, is endowed with feminine beauty in appearance and moral virtues in spirit, thus making himlf the incarnation of heavenly beauty. In this n, the beauty of the young man coincides with that of Plato, which greatly inspires the poet to pursue beauty and to perpetuate beauty.
Chapter Two explores the intricate relationship between the garden imagery and the theme of time. Owing to disobedience against God’s will, Adam and Eve, the originals of human, were expelled from the heavenly Eden, bringing about the degeneration from the eternal garden to the lost one gov
地道美语
erned by the God of Time. In Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Time prents itlf as a scythe or a sickle, a sandglass or a mirror, or an old man, which highlights its destructiveness, swiftness and shortness. In the garden of time, all living creatures including plants, animals and human beings are hard to escape from Time’s injurious hand. Besides, the young friend, the embodiment of fairness, kindness and trueness, is also threatened by time’s destructive force. In order to resist against the destructiveness of Time’s scythe and prerve the heavenly beauty of his young friend, the poet comes up two effective and traditional solutions, namely, procreation and his poetic microcosms.
Chapter Three elaborates on the intimate relationship between the garden imagery and the theme of love. The relationship between garden and love has a long pedigree, which can trace back to the garden of Venus where the God of love was born and raid, and the eternal Eden where the first love of human beings germinated and bloomed. It is
