Importance Of Natural Philosophy In Hamlet

Interpreting Renaissance natural philosophy by examining the botanical symbolism and natural imagery in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, lends important insight into the way that natural philosophy was evolving at the turn of the 16th century. Hamlet is a relevant vessel with which to explore Shakespeare’s philosophical views on nature, given the importance placed on the interactions between characters and the natural world, the sheer prominence of these themes within the narrative, and the depth at which these themes are explored. This analysis will specifically examine the way that Ophelia’s bouquet relates to the behaviors and dynamics adhered to by the primary cast of Hamlet, how the metaphor of Denmark as a garden is a frequent motif that, by imagining

During the Renaissance, the philosophical ideas surrounding natural philosophy were in a period of immense mutability. Natural philosophy during the late 1500s and early 1600s, the period in which Shakespeare was most active, hovered precariously on the threshold between upholding medieval and classical humanist concepts, and evolving into the first stages of positivistic reasoning – which would later develop into empirical research and the scientific method as the 17th century progressed into the scientific revolution. Research and discoveries by early scientists such as Copernicus, Francis Bacon, Galileo and Kepler, all served to shape societal views on the way the natural world was perceived. A definitive shift away from metaphysics and towards positivism redirected interpretation methods from inductive and qualitative reasoning, and towards deductive reasoning and experimental research. These changes were influential on natural philosophy in the way that it encouraged thinkers to provide empirical and mathematical explanations for their beliefs, as well as systematized their

Aristotle’s influence on the Renaissance was immense, and between 1500 and 1650, 6,653 commentaries on his works were produced (Blum, 2010). Aristotle postulated that the requisites for an entity to be natural were that they possessed motion in the sense that they changed in place (e.g. earth falls, fire rises), they grew and decreased (e.g. a seedling turns into a tree), and they underwent alteration (e.g. a caterpillar turns into a butterfly) (Aristotle & Barnes, 1987). This motion, expressed through any of the aforementioned types, was essential to an object’s being. Generally speaking, the origin of this motion can be attributed to the divine spark, existent in every natural being, that instills them with their sense of purpose and self. Since the divine spark connected all natural beings, all natural beings were inherently related. Aristotle’s conclusion from this was that all natural beings, thus interconnected, all possess a dignity that human beings are morally obligated to