That Shakespeare Life
325 episodes - English - Latest episode: 21 days ago - ★★★★★ - 49 ratingsHosted by Cassidy Cash, That Shakespeare Life takes you behind the curtain and into the real life of William Shakespeare. Get bonus episodes on Patreon
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Episodes
Ep 125: University Spies with Robert Stefanek
September 07, 2020 13:00 - 36 minutes - 34 MBWhen Queen Elizabeth sought to root out Catholic uprising in her country, and to quelch potential plots against her in England, it is well known that she turned to spies and spymasters within her court to find, identify, and execute anyone who was a threat to the crown. One key method Elizabeth used to make sure the new generation of English boys supported her government and the Protestant religion was through indoctrination. What better place to teach them how to act, and how to think, than...
Ep 124: The Found Colony of Roanoke with Scott Dawson
August 31, 2020 13:00 - 27 minutes - 18.9 MBHaving been considered lost for centuries, and a huge mystery for historians, our guest today believes he has located the final resting place of the Lost Colony, and indeed, has uncovered artifacts that suggest they were never lost in the first place. Today we welcome Scott Dawson, archaeologist and author of The Lost Colony and Hatteras Island to tell the story of Roanoke Colony that so captured the imagination of Shakespeare’s England in the 1580s, as well as our own imagination into the 2...
Ep 123: Exhumation of Richard III with Mathew Morris
August 24, 2020 13:00 - 39 minutes - 27 MBWithout the actual body of Richard III whose shallow grave was long lost to history centuries ago, scholars have used texts, like Shakespeare, to try and find evidence for the truth about what actually happened to Richard III. For one team of archaeologists, however, it was not enough to leave the sinister Richard III lost to history with more questions than answers. So in 2012, in conjunction with the Richard III Society, a team of ambitious archaeologists led by Mathew Morris at the Univer...
Ep 122: Richard Field with Adam Hooks
August 17, 2020 13:00 - 34 minutes - 23.8 MBWhen William Shakespeare first began his career, we see evidence in his plays as well as life decisions that he was an ambitious man, almost constantly trying to secure connections with the right people in the right places to move his reputation upwards in society. One very key way we see Shakespeare intentionally seek out forward motion for his career is by his connection to Richard Field. Field is a printer who grew up in Stratford Upon Avon, likely going to the same school as William Shak...
Ep 121: Shakespeare's French with Jennifer Nicholson
August 10, 2020 13:00 - 43 minutes - 30 MBOne of the most romantic moments from Shakespeare’s plays is when he writes Henry V stumbling his way through a French declaration of love and wedding proposal to Catherine of Valois in Shakespeare’s Henry V. It is gorgeous scene and one of my favorites, but it presents a few questions since England was strongly pro-England at this point in history, even leaning anti-French (having taken measures like banning the import of French playing cards at this time for example) so what was Shakespear...
Ep 120: Mummy Poison with Stephen Rojcewicz
August 03, 2020 13:00 - 32 minutes - 22.4 MBIn Elizabethan England, there was a strong overlap in the use of drugs as medicine and using them for magic. Real physical diseases like epilepsy or psychological conditions like the pathological jealousy we see exhibited in Shakepseare’s Othello, are all conditions that were just beginning to be fully understood by the medical community of the 16th century. One of the primary drugs used to treat epilepsy and pathological jealously was a drug called mummy, which was extracted from the bodies...
Ep 119: The Red Lion Theater Discovery with Stephen White
July 27, 2020 13:00 - 22 minutes - 15.3 MBUnderneath a housing redevelopment in Whitechapel, England, archaeologists have unearthed what is believed to be the remains of The Red Lion theater. The Red Lion predates Shakespeare’s Globe and is thought to be the earliest purpose built theater known to have been built in the city since Roman-times. Built by John Brayne in 1567, the Red Lion was a predecessor to Brayne’s next construction on The Theatre in Shoreditch which was owned by James Burbage and completed almost a decade later, in...
Ep 118: Characters to Fit the Actor with Scott Newstok
July 20, 2020 13:00 - 31 minutes - 21.6 MBIn the 16th century as Shakespeare was writing plays like Alls Well That Ends Well, Hamlet, and Julius Caesar, Shakespeare turned to classical philosophers like Cicero and Isocrates to find tales exploring not only what constituted decent, or proper behavior, but what happened to people when those invisible rules of decorum were altered or violated. We’ve long lauded Shakespeare for including the works of famous Latin and Greek poets in his stories, but as our guest this week, Scott Newstok,...
Ep 117: Hans Holbein the Younger with Susan Abernethy
July 13, 2020 13:00 - 21 minutes - 15.1 MBOne of the best ways many Shakespeare scholars use to explore the real historical counterparts to the historical figures that show up in Shakespeare’s plays is to examine what they looked like. Centuries before the advent of photography, when you wanted to capture someone’s likeness and preserve it, history used paintings. People like Henry VIII, Anne of Cleves, Jane Seymour, Edward VI and many others were all given this kind of immortality when they were painted by Hans Holbein the Younger,...
Ep 116: Pontefract Castle with Neil Redfern
July 06, 2020 13:00 - 24 minutes - 17 MBOne of the most notorious castles in all of English history is Pontefract Castle. Just one step down in the levels of punishment a criminal could receive short of being sent to the Tower of London was to find themselves imprisoned in one of the town castles, and none was more notorious in it’s reputation for death and imprisonment than Pontefract Castle. Known as Pomfret in Shakespeare’s plays, the bard paints a compelling story about the death of Richard II at Pontefract Castle, but what ...
Ep 115: History of Oranges with Dorian Fuller
June 29, 2020 13:00 - 29 minutes - 20.4 MBLike so many of Shakespeare’s words, even a single line can have an elaborate history. When it comes to the word “orange” there is just such a history to be found if you know where to look. For the 16th century, oranges were a staple item for seasonal eating on tables from the average person all the way to the nobility. While the real “rage” in history for it being fashionable to have orange houses called orangeries in England would not hit in full force until after Shakespeare’s life...
Ep 114: The Tabard Inn with Martha Carlin
June 22, 2020 13:00 - 38 minutes - 26.8 MBFor the entirety of Shakespeare’s life, the Tabard Inn was a well established public inn on the mainstreet of Southwark, leading to London Bridge, and it was famous because Chaucer had set the opening scene of The Canterbury Tales there, but according to a 27 page hand written document once owned by famous antiquary David Laing, the Tabard Inn served as a frequent meeting place for William Shakespeare, who gathered there with famous friends like Richard Burbage, Ben Jonson, and other “royste...
Ep 113: Supernovas & Eclipses with Michael Rowan Robinson
June 15, 2020 13:00 - 30 minutes - 21.3 MBIn 1572, when William Shakespeare was 8 years old, a large supernova streaked across the sky making a lifelong mark in the memory of not just a young William Shakespeare, but across the consciousness of all of England who saw it that night. At the height of Renaissance thought, and during the time Galileo was presenting his ideas in Italy, William Shakespeare was writing Hamlet, King Lear, and other plays which not only allude to the work of famous physicists and astronomers of the 16th ...
Ep 112: Cutlery and Forks with Brigitte Webster
June 08, 2020 13:00 - 42 minutes - 29.5 MBWe sit down to a properly set table and expect to see at minimum a fork, knife, and a spoon. More elaborate settings may have more utensils, but for William Shakespeare, his lifetime was the first moment in England’s history when dining habits were caught somewhere between the age of eating with one’s hands, and the advent of proper utensils at the dining table. While the invention of the fork happened centuries prior to Shakespeare, the fashion of using them to eat with at a table for meals...
Ep 111: Aqua Vitae and Scotch Whisky with Rosie Wilmot
June 01, 2020 13:00 - 23 minutes - 16.2 MBDo you know the origin of the word “whiskey”? Turns out we have Scotland to thank for not only the drink we know as whiskey today, but the word we use to describe it as well. The earliest record of whiskey on paper happens in 1494 with a reference to aqua vitae in the Exchequer Rolls, but there was a great interest--and a good deal of illicit smuggling of Scotch whiskey-- happening not just in Shakespeare's lifetime, but under the title "aqua vitae" (which is used no less than 6 times in Sha...
Ep 110: The Paston Letters with Rob Knee
May 25, 2020 13:00 - 32 minutes - 22.1 MBThe Paston Letters are a collection of over 1,000 pieces of correspondence between 1422 and 1509 which, while never intended to last into the modern era, have been preserved throughout the centuries for the unique light they shed on the everyday events in 15th century England. John Paston was a lawyer in England, and while the letters sometimes represent the communication of John Paston to members of the aristocracy most of the letters are written by his wife Margaret, who is writing to her ...
Ep 109: 16th Century Playing Cards with Kathryn James
May 18, 2020 13:00 - 28 minutes - 19.4 MBWith court records of Mary Queen of Scots playing cards, as well as James I of England preferring the game Maw when entertaining royal dignitaries, we know that playing cards was not just popular for royals but a pastime at all levels of society during Shakespeare’s lifetime, and it was a relatively new arrival to England overall. Playing cards did not reach Europe until 1360, and the first mention we have of playing cards in England comes in 1463 when King Edward IV banned the import of pla...
Ep 108: Elizabethan Corsets with Cass Morris
May 11, 2020 13:00 - 27 minutes - 19.2 MBThe first historical written reference to a separate undergarment for women is found in the wardrobe accounts of Mary Tudor. There, the records indicate Mary had “Item for making of one peire of bodies of crymsen satin| Item for making two pairs of bodies for petticoats of crymsen satin | Item for making a pair of bodies for a Verthingall of crymsen Grosgrain” The fashion of using a “pair of bodies”, which clothing historians explain is another phrase for corsets, was a staple item for w...
Ep 107: Beer & Taverns with Rebecca Lemon
May 04, 2020 13:00 - 34 minutes - 23.8 MBDuring the life of William Shakespeare, plain water was often unclean and filtration, while available, was rudimentary at best. It was not safe to drink the water of the Thames river, and in order to compensate for a general lack of fresh drinking water, the most popular beverage in Elizabethan England even for regular meal times, was beer or ale. Drunkenness was a common occurrence, as was the consistent consumption of large amounts of alcohol. There are court records showing the monarchs o...
Ep 106: Rudolf II and the Hapsburg Family with Peter Wilson
April 27, 2020 13:00 - 20 minutes - 14 MBThroughout Shakespeare’s lifetime one of the most widely circulated and reported on current events was the state of the Holy Roman Empire. Ruled for much of Shakespeare’s lifetime by an eccentric named Rudolf II, who secluded himself in Bohemia to the neglect of his Empire. Rudolf II and his weird choice to isolate himself in Bohemia would have been enough to make Shakespeare’s references to Bohemia in his plays make sense, but on top of Rudolf II there was also Don John of Austria, the half...
Ep 105: Guns in Elizabethan England with Grace Tiffany
April 20, 2020 13:00 - 29 minutes - 20.2 MBFamously, William Shakespeare’s Globe burned down from canon fire in 1599 and several of Shakespeare’s plays mention guns, gunpowder, and bullets. While we think of Shakespeare’s era as one of romantic sword battles, duels with a rapier in the streets, and even the massive naval battles with the Spanish Armada, for the life of William Shakespeare everything was under constant strain and a theme of developing the new. The development of new weapons technology was no exception as the late 16th...
Ep 104: Mary Queen of Scots with David Schajer
April 13, 2020 13:35 - 33 minutes - 23 MBAfter a long, and tense back and forth of letters, threats, offers of sisterhood, and ultimately betrayal, Elizabeth I ordered Mary Queen of Scots to be executed in 1587, when William Shakespeare was 24 years old, right in the middle of what is called Shakespeare’s Lost Years, because historical records leave a gap here in the timeline of the bard about exactly what he was doing in these years of his life, but looking at broader history, it turns out much of England was confused about what, ...
Ep 103: Corn Famine & Coriolanus with Lauren Shook
April 06, 2020 13:00 - 34 minutes - 23.9 MBAs William Shakespeare sat down to write Coriolanus, the Corn Famine of 1608 was in full swing. While the King, James I, took actions to combat the shortage of corn in England, theater seems to have played a role in communicating the citizens unrest and unhappiness over the famine. Not only was Shakespeare writing Coriolanus, where Roman citizens face a similar fate to the Londoners viewing the story at The Globe, but Church pastors all over England were writing, and in some cases performing...
EP 102: Richard Miller on Ophelia's Flowers
March 30, 2020 13:00 - 27 minutes - 19 MBWhen you study Hamlet, especially in school or when you read or watch a commentary on the play, it is not surprising to have someone point out to you that the flowers Ophelia carries in her bouquet as she sings her sad song after the loss of her Father, Polonius, hold powerful 16th century historical significance. It’s so important that I even included a nod to the flowers specifically in my 3 Minute Animated version of Hamlet that just published on Amazon Prime but even when I included them...
Ep 101: John Florio with Marianna Iannaconne
March 23, 2020 13:00 - 34 minutes - 24 MBThe term "hand-and-a-half sword" is often used in reference to long-swords but is not considered a historical description of the weapon. There is no evidence of the term “hand-and-a-half” having been used during the Middle Ages when the sword saw its heyday in popularity and there’s no reference to hand and a half sword either in English or other languages before the 16th century. But the term does show up during the life of William Shakespeare. Why is that term appearing at this moment to d...
Ep100: David Crystal and How Shakespeare Sounded
March 16, 2020 16:11 - 39 minutes - 27 MBDuring the 16th century, William Shakespeare had his own way of pronouncing words as well, and exploring how to define what that pronunciation was, and how it impacts our understanding of the plays, is a special field of historical linguistics called Original Pronunciation. Our guest this week, Dr. David Crystal is the leading expert in the field of Original Pronunciation and he joins us this week to talk about how an experiment he lead at The Globe theater in London taught everyone involved...
Ep 99: Lynn Bowser and Argaty Red Kites
March 09, 2020 13:00 - 29 minutes - 20.2 MBShakespeare mentions kites seven times in his plays, often using the term to reference specific attributes of the bird to describe someone in the story. He'll refer to someone as "a kite" as if that's bad, or other times, he'll use the bird (or 16th century reputation of the bird) to suggest attributes like suspicion: Although the kite soar with unbloodiebeak? (Henry VI Part II) In the late 15th century, the King of Scotland decreed kites should be killed whenever possible, and that per...
Ep 98: Dawn Tucker and Elizabethan Acrobats
March 02, 2020 14:00 - 28 minutes - 19.5 MBBiron in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost declares “O my little heart:— And I to be a corporal of his field, And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!” And in Romeo and Juliet there are stage directions which call for Romeo to [He climbs the wall, and leaps down within it] These references have gone largely overlooked by theater companies who perform these plays, being glossed over in dialogue, or constraints of the theater space itself determining what precisely it will look l...
Ep 97: Mike Hirrel & 16th Century Props and Scenery
February 24, 2020 14:00 - 36 minutes - 25.2 MBBen Jonson staged a masque at court called The Fortunate Isles which begins with a spirit descending onto the audience, featuring a floating island so elaborately constructed that England’s premiere architectural professional, Inigo Jones, who is the designer behind Whitehall Palace, Banqueting House, and Covent Garden square, was hired to construct an apparatus specifically for this performance. While records do not detail the construction of this magical floating island, we know from vario...
Ep 96: Catherine Loomis and Music on Stage
February 17, 2020 14:00 - 30 minutes - 20.9 MBModern productions of plays include all manner of music, accompaniment, and we almost consider an orchestra pit to be synonymous with theater today. For William Shakespeare, however, his plays were performed in a variety of locations, all of which were void of any orchestra pit but we do know that Shakespeare’s plays included music with works like Hamlet calling for Ophelia to sing a song, but also flourishes to signal entrances as well as exits, along with popular ballads and even a few son...
Ep95: Robin Bates on Finding Ravenspurre
February 10, 2020 14:00 - 30 minutes - 21.5 MBAlong the North shore of England lies the Holderness Coast. Over 500 years ago a small town on this coast, named Ravenspurre, went down under the sea and into history as the spot where Henry IV rallied his troops on his way to dethrone Richard II. It is a story repeated by William Shakespeare in his versions of this historical rebellion, with Ravenspurre appearing as “Ravenspurgh” spelled with a gh on the end, in Richard II, Henry IV Part 1, and Henry VI Part 3. Recent research into the exac...
Ep 94: James Loehlin and the 16th Century Question Mark
February 03, 2020 14:00 - 21 minutes - 15.2 MBNo one asks a question better than William Shakespeare. When we explore his plays, they are full of question marks but it turns out that for the 16th century, the concept of what constituted a question was still a new thing for printers who were in charge of selecting the actual marks which would go on the page to indicate a question. Not to mention, since Shakespeare’s plays were written on paper originally, or recounted in letters, often times the text that printers were working with to co...
Ep93: Julia Lupton and Shakespeare's Role at State Banquets
January 27, 2020 14:00 - 35 minutes - 24.5 MBFor many of the performances we know Shakespeare performed at Whitehall Palace, including staging “Twelfth Night” in 1602, he would have performed at Banqueting House. Unfortunately, the original Banqueting House burned down after Shakespeare died, and while rebuilt in 1622 by the famous Inigo Jones for James I , the structure there today is not the original site where Shakespeare’s company would have performed. Nevertheless, the name Banqueting House reminds us that for Queen Elizabeth the ...
Ep92: Helen Cooper on Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Mystery Plays
January 20, 2020 14:00 - 32 minutes - 22.4 MBTheater began in England as a way for the church to share messages about the Bible with the public. Written in Latin, the Bible was not accessible to parishioners outside of mass and Catholic England relayed the tales of heroism and miracles found in the Bible through dramatic productions. This tradition came with some particular approaches to storytelling, theater, and stagecraft. As with much of what the Church did in the Middle Ages, they had rules about what was acceptable to perform whi...
Ep91: Alicia Andrzejewski and 16th Century Pregnancy Tests
January 13, 2020 14:00 - 24 minutes - 17 MBWhen you study the life of William Shakespeare, one of the first facts you will learn pretty quickly is that his wife, Anne Hathaway was pregnant when she and William were married. We know she was pregnant based on the birth records of Susanna Shakespeare, who was born just about 5 months after the November 2, 1582 marriage of Anne and William Shakespeare. But as anyone who has had children will tell you, until you are far enough along to start feeling the baby, you use a pregnancy test to c...
Ep90: Taresh Solanki and King Edward VI Grammar School
January 06, 2020 14:00 - 35 minutes - 24.4 MBIn the 16th century, King Edward VI before he died quite young, was focused on bringing education to the small towns and villages of England and that included officially chartering a school in Stratford Upon Avon called, fittingly, King Edward VI Grammar School. This school is where all the boys, including William Shakespeare, went to school for their primary education. There are a lot of myths and theories about the education of young William Shakespeare, and our guest this week, Taresh Sol...
Ep89: Mira Kafantaris and the Spanish Matches
December 30, 2019 14:00 - 22 minutes - 15.7 MBWilliam Shakespeare lived in a time when politics and religion ruled the strategy of Kings and Queens throughout Europe, but perhaps the most notable method of securing peace for the self-styled King of Peace was through marriage. Bringing his own form of stability back to England through his marriage and children on the heels of the infamously virgin Queen and heirless monarch, Elizabeth I, James had marriage as a focal point of both his life and his political strategy. One of the defining ...
Ep88: Jared Kirby and Fencing at the Blackfriars
December 23, 2019 14:00 - 39 minutes - 27.6 MBWhen Hamlet and Laertes duel in the final act of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, they are using a very specific style of fencing called rapier and dagger fencing. It’s called for in the stage directions and the dialogue of the text as well. Other plays like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as well as King Lear also use very specific fencing terminology that demonstrates a knowledge of contemporary fencing styles at the highest level of the fencing industries and Shakespeare’s indoor playhouse, the Black...
Ep 87: Kenilworth Castle with Philippa Brewell
December 16, 2019 14:00 - 25 minutes - 18 MBOne of the greatest mysteries about the life of William Shakespeare is where, precisely did the bard first encounter theater. Was it the roving theater companies which speckled the countryside with their pop up performances for which Shakespeare’s father was the town alderman, and therefore would have had to approve the players when they appeared in Stratford? Or was it at Grammar School, where students used theater to learn their Latin, English, and transcription? Well, for many one of the ...
EP 86: Amy Lidster on Philip Henslowe's Diary
December 09, 2019 14:00 - 41 minutes - 29.1 MBIn Elizabethan England, much of what we know about how theaters were operated comes from the diary of a man who ran dozens of theaters during Shakespeare’s lifetime: Philip Henslowe. Henslowe was enterprising and ambitious, setting up the Bear Garden for bear baiting, and establishing the Rose, the Fortune, and the Hope theaters, among others. Throughout his dealings with numerous playing companies including Shakespeare’s The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Henslowe kept a diary about who he paid to...
Ep 85: Anthony Bale and Jews in 16th Century England
December 02, 2019 14:00 - 38 minutes - 27 MBThere were only a few hundred Jews living in England during Shakespeare’s lifetime, and of the ones who were there, they would meet and worship in secret. Outwardly, these Jews would either have converted to Christianity or lied about their faith to keep from coming under suspicion. As callous as it seems for the nation to have been suspicious of Jews, famous Jewish people in high places, like Roderigo Lopez, physician to Queen Elizabeth I, gave the nation cause to be scared of them as Lopez...
Ep 84: Alden Vaughan on Squanto, Jamestown, and Shakespeare's England
November 25, 2019 14:00 - 23 minutes - 16.6 MBThere are several references to Indians in Shakespeare’s plays, which were being written right at the same time famous American Indians like Squanto and Pocahontas were interacting with explorers like Sir Walter Raleigh from the courts of Elizabeth I and later, under King James I. All of these explorations were big news back home in England, with many round trip voyages across the Atlantic to connect Shakespeare with England’s first colony, Virginia. As we celebrate Thanksgiving this week he...
Ep 83: History of Bartholomew Fair with Alicja Zelazko
November 18, 2019 14:00 - 22 minutes - 15.5 MBOne of the biggest and grandest events occurring in London every year was the elaborate Bartholomew Fair. Celebrated in conjunction with St. Bartholomew’s Day, this fair took over the city in Shakespeare’s lifetime for three whole days of merriment that included the selling of wares, drinks and food vendors, as well as performances from stilt walkers, jugglers, puppeteers, and more. Here this week to share with us the history of Bartholomew Fair in Shakespeare’s lifetime, as well as how this...
Ep 82: Shane Ann Younts on Iambic Pentameter
November 11, 2019 14:00 - 28 minutes - 20 MBThe development and use of metered and rhyming lines in theater is unique to the time period when Shakespeare was writing and our guest this week, Shane Ann Younts, professional voice coach and trainer for some of Broadway's most celebrated performers, is here to walk us through the history and application of Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter.
EP 81: Wendy Beth Hyman and Jacquemarts
November 04, 2019 14:00 - 36 minutes - 25.1 MBThe Renaissance in England brought with it the exploration of new lands as well as the invention of new technology. For William Shakespeare, the concept of using something as ordinary as a wrist watch was a brand new thought that most people had never seen before. In fact, one of the ways we even know there were wrist watches in Shakespeare’s lifetime comes from a single reference to an “arm watch” given to Queen Elizabeth I by Robert Dudley. For the regular guy on the street or in the theat...
Ep 80: James Alsop and Elizabeth I's Living Death
October 28, 2019 13:00 - 27 minutes - 19.4 MBThe superstitions surrounding the ideas of ghosts, death, and what happened to your soul as your body approached it’s demise were all inspiring topics for the plays of William Shakespeare. It turns out that these superstitions were not only fuel for dramatic presentations on the stage, but formed the foundation of pretty creepy tales about the real life of one of England’s most famous monarchs, Queen Elizabeth I. According to tales from her handmaiden, Elizabeth was paranoid to a fault, s...
Ep 79: James Knapp and Elizabethan Woodcuts
October 21, 2019 13:00 - 26 minutes - 18.4 MBIn Elizabethan England, one very popular art form was that of the woodcut. This art form is an intricate design, taking great skill and talent to produce, and was a huge innovation in the printing industry for the Renaissance time period. Here today to explain for us how woodcuts were made, where Shakespeare might have seen them in print, and where you and I can explore the ones which survive today is our guest Dr. James Knapp.
Ep 78: Samuel Jermy and The Lord Mayor's Show
October 14, 2019 13:00 - 30 minutes - 21.2 MBA tradition from Shakespeare’s lifetime that continues into the present day is that of the Lord Mayor’s Shows. It is an annual occurrence which exists to introduce the Lord Mayor to the people, the monarch, and London in particular. The way this occasion is marked today, though, is far and away removed from the wild and festive nature of the event when William Shakespeare and his contemporaries were celebrating the day in the early 17th century. The event is so influential on history and soc...
Ep 77: Irish Poetry Kills Rats with Kelly Fitzgerald
October 07, 2019 13:00 - 29 minutes - 20.4 MBWhen Queen Elizabeth wanted to punish Robert Devereux for his imprudent behavior at court, she placed him in charge of handling the Irish rebels and sent him off to Ireland with strict instructions on how to handle that situation. His campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, due to reasons that can, and have, filled volumes on the history of the Nine Years War, as well as the Irish Rebellion, but where this elaborate Irish history finds an intriguing connection to Shakespeare is hidden in a see...
EP 76: Susan Anderson on Disability in Shakespeare's England
September 30, 2019 13:00 - 39 minutes - 27.1 MBWilliam Shakespeare’s presentation of Richard III portrays the king as a villain, with a great focus on his hunchback and other disabilities as a justification and contributing factor to Richard’s malalignment morally. For centuries, historians have wondered if the late King really was as twisted as legend has rendered him to be, or if the tales were merely the product of centuries of conflation, born out of the winter of a collective discontent. Other kinds of disabilities from Pistol’s mis...