Shakespeare, like many of his contemporaries, draws heavily and widely on the natural world. Sometimes he uses it as a theatrical space --as a space in which to set some of the main action of the drama --and sometimes he uses it as a metaphor -- a figurative landscape through which to express psychological, emotional, or social anxieties. Perhaps most profoundly one of his most dominant and fascinating theatrical spaces is the forest, or the woodland -- most famously perhaps in As You Like It(the Forest of Arden), in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and in Titus Andronicus, and in Two Gentlemen of Verona. In the comedies, of course, the forest is particularly interesting because it offers a space of transformation of magical exploration, of the fulfillment of fantasy, and of a kind of escapism -- a festive escapism. In the tragedies, and most darkly in Titus Andronicus, it’s a place of destruction: a place of brutality and again a transformation but not in a happy or productive way -- in a dangerous and violent way. So in terms of the use of the natural world on the stage and in the drama,it is always significant and it is always used to amplify aspects of the performance. Figuratively, it’s equally powerful and in many ways perhaps more so. The most famous example, perhaps almost instant example, you might bring to mind is in King Lear. There when Lear, sent out by his daughters mad, half naked, and intensely distressed, you see him howling on the heath -- howling to the natural world, to the elements, and to the boundless intemperance of nature. There of course the natural world is at its most significant as a realization of emotional distress or psychological distress.  

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