THE IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISM OF THE MESOPOTAMIAN GARDEN IN ENGLISH POETRY ?????? ???????? ?????? ???? ???? ???????? ?? ????? ?????????

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THE IMAGERY AND SYMBOLISMOF THE MESOPOTAMIAN
GARDENIN ENGLISH POETRY?????? ???????? ??????
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• Basaad M. Mhayyal

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"In this Mesopotamia between the river
Tigris and Euphrates, Paradise did stand." (
George Abbot, A Briefe Description of the Whole
Worlde (1599
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"When you open your eyes again, everything has
changed. The hanging-lamp dazzles you, striking
brilliant highlights from the yellow brick walls.
The shadows are blacker, more sharply defined,
like those in old monochrome photographs. The
smell of Nebuchadnezzar's perfumed gardens to the
North fizzes in your nostrils, almost (but not
quite) obscuring the underlying stench of the
city itself . Andrew Whitmore, Babylonian
Nights (1998)
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Mesopotamia is situated in the most fertile
expanse in all the Near East known as the
Fertile Crescent, a crescent-shaped region
stretching from Palestine, northward along the
Mediterranean coast to Syria, eastward through
Mesopotamia, and southward along the Tigris and
Euphrates to the Arab Gulf.
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• Sources of our knowledge of ancient Mesopotamian
  gardens
• The first of these two sources includes the
  unearthed treasures of clay tablets, reliefs,
  cylinder seals and the remains of ancient
  Mesopotamian cities.
• The second source comprises the records that
  non-Mesopotamians had made about those gardens.

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The Mesopotamian concept of the garden was
shaped mainly by three factors

• These factors deeply affected the Mesopotamian
  civilization in general. These factors are
• agriculture,
• geography,
• religion.

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At very early stages of the development of
Mesopotamian culture, trees were made to stand
for life and were represented as such on Sumerian
reliefs and seals. Archeologists refer to this
recurrent image of the tree in ancient
Mesopotamia art as the Tree of Life Of all the
trees that grew in ancient Mesopotamia, it was
the date palm in particular that featured as the
tree of life in many of the artistic relics of
the country. The palm was also associated with
wisdom. In a poem written in 100 BC, a poet
said O palm tree of wealth Endowed with all
wisdom, jewel of gold, You are as stable as the
earth.
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• Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400)
• Chaucer was the first known English poet to deal
  with the Mesopotamian garden imagery and
  symbolism as part of the subject matter of
  poetry. Several times does Chaucer refer to it as
  a paradise
• Ther is no place in paradys
• So good inne for to dwelle or be
• As in that gardyn.

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• Chaucers garden description is equally endowed
  with fertility, variety and fluvial imagery
• A gardyn saw I ful of blosmy bowes
• Upon a ryver, in a grene mede,
• There as swetnesse everemore inow is,
• With floures white, blewe, yelwe, and rede,
• And colde welle-stremes, nothyng dede,
• That swymmen ful of smale fishes lighte,
• With fynnes rede and skales sylver bryghte.

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Chaucer immediately introduces the image of the
Mesopotamian garden by mentioning the presence of
tremendous joy, and the absence of disease and
old age  Thair of that place so attempre
was That nevere was ther grevaunce of hot ne
cold There wex ek every holsom spice and
gras No man there may waxe sek ne old Yit was
there joye more a thousand fold Than man can
telle ne nevere wolde it nyght, But ay cler day
to any manes syghte. This garden, as Muriel
Bowden comments, suggests the Garden of Eden
which man may not now enter except in dreams.
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Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) In The Princess
(1847) he reiterates the futility of the Edenic
vision and the dreams of paradise, but at the
same time describes them as indispensable
stepping-stones on the road to a nobler end.
Princess Idas objective to restore this vision
in her society is met with nothing but failure,
but it ultimately gives her the wisdom she needs
to redefine her goals and work for a better and
more practical good.
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Ida hopes to give back to women the individual
Edens they have lost. Idas project to found a
college for women involves the creation of a new
society, a world that is specifically utopian.
Tennyson compares her to Semiramis, The
foundress of the Babylonian wall. What both
women have in common is their firm determination
to assume control and leadership and to provide
mural fortification, symbolizing the desire for
withdrawal, and prevent intrusion. Semiramis, the
Assyrian queen is also introduced as a
princess.
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Sources 1. Abbot, George. A Brief Description
of the Whole World. A facsimile of the 1599
London edition. New York Da Capo Press,
1970. 2. The Ancient Times The Hanging Gardens
of Babylon. URLhttp//tqjunior.thinkquest.org/5
821/baby.html. Retrieved October 21, 2010. 3.
Bennett, H. S. Chaucer and the Fifteenth
Century. London Oxford University Press,
1965. 4. Carr, Arthur J. Tennyson as a Modern
Poet. Critical Essays on the Poetry of
Tennyson. Ed. John Killham. London Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1960, pp.41-64. 5. Hanging
Gardens of Babylon. Burst Media, 1999.
URLhttp//unmuseum.mus.pa.us/hangg.htm.
Retrieved October 21, 2009. 6. Darwin's Imagery
The Tree and the Tree of Life. The Victorian
Web. URLhttp//landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/da
rwin/darwin7.html. Retrieved March 7, 2011. .
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