Ruta graveolens the isolation of the furanocoumarin chalepensin. The essential oil of "R. graveolens" contains two main constituents, undecan-2-one (46.8%) and nonan-2-one (18.8%). The bitter taste of its leaves led to rue being associated with the (etymologically unrelated) verb "rue" "to regret". Rue is well known for its symbolic meaning of regret and it has sometimes been called "herb-of-grace" in literary works. It is one of the flowers distributed by the mad Ophelia in William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" (IV.5): It was planted by the gardener in "Richard II" to mark the spot where the Queen wept upon hearing news of Richard's capture (III.4.104–105):
Literary influence of Hamlet introducing Maggie Tulliver "who is explicitly compared with Hamlet". Scholar Marianne Novy suggests that Eliot "demythologises Hamlet by imagining him with a reputation for sanity", notwithstanding his frequent monologues and moodiness towards Ophelia. Novy also suggests Mary Wollstonecraft as an influence on Eliot, critiquing "the trivialisation of women in contemporary society". "Hamlet" has played "a relatively small role" in the appropriation of Shakespeare's plays by women writers, ranging from "Ophelia, The Fair Rose of Elsinore" in Mary Cowden Clarke's 1852 "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines", to Margaret Atwood's 1994 "Gertrude Talks Back"—in her 1994 collection of short stories "Good Bones