That Shakespeare Life

"Bait the hook well; this fish will bite." So says Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing , and he's not alone—Shakespeare drops over 70 references to fish and fishing across his plays, from slippery metaphors to full-on fishing scenes, including actual Fishermen characters in Pericles . But behind those lines lies a very real part of daily life in Elizabethan England.  In a world where Protestant ref...

While Shakespeare's plays are filled with references to ale and sack, wine played a central role in both the economy and social customs of Renaissance England. In this episode, we uncork the history of winemaking in Shakespeare's lifetime—what kinds of grapes were grown, how wine was stored and served, and why a cold snap in the 1500s forever changed England's vineyards. Our guest, winemaker and h...

"Romeo and Juliet" may be Shakespeare's most famous love story—but it wasn't entirely his own. Long before the Bard set quill to page, a tale of star-crossed lovers was already circulating in Europe. In this episode, we're joined by filmmaker Timothy Scott Bogart, director of the new musical film Juliet & Romeo , which reimagines the lovers' story in its earlier, 13th-century context. Together, we...

Shakespeare wrote his play Hamlet in the early 1600s and by the late 1600s, well after the death of William Shakespeare in 1616, playing troupes are taking plays including Shakespeare's Hamlet and other works by early modern playwrights, and turning them into performance adaptations using a new medium---specifically, they're using puppets. Puppetry, marionettes, and glove puppets perform miniature...

Shakespeare uses the word "castle" over 40 times in his works. He talks about sieging a castle, the power of castle walls, and even mentions specific real life castles by name including Berkley Castle and "Pomfret" castle which is another name for Pontefract Castle, along with at least a dozen more. These castles were prominent features in the landscape of Shakespeare's lifetime, playing roles bot...

In Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff says "the appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass!" Burning glasses were a specific kind of lens, that allowed you to harness the sun's rays to create fire. They were a predesessor on the road to later lens construction that allowed for the convex shape which allows someone to create prescription glasses. In Shakespeare's lifetime, a sp...

Orlando, from the play As You Like It , talks about church bells knolling, and later in that same play, the Duke talks about how we "have with holy bell been knoll'd to church." There's a conversation in Act II of Pericles where two fishermen discuss a parish getting swallowed by a whale, and they refer to the parish as "The whole parish, church, steeple, bells, and all." These references demonstr...

Elizabeth I is perhaps the most famous Queen of England, reigning from November 1558 until her death in 1603. When you study her life, you quickly learn that she was known as "the Virgin Queen" for her staunch stance against marriage. Despite directives from her court and intense peer pressure from those around her, Elizabeth faced down scandal, rumors, and suspicion throughout her reign, only to...

Since 1939, when Francios E. Matthas wrote it into scientific literature, the Little Ice Age has been known as a period in history between the 15th and 19th centuries, when the climate was significantly colder than what is typical. The history generally divides the Little Ice Age into sections, which alternate with periods of warming to create wild weather phenomena, including long frozen winters...

"Get me the ink and paper." Cleopatra demands in Antony and Cleopatra (I.5) In Henry IV Part I, Peto says "Nothing but papers, my lord." (II.4) These are just two of over 100 references to paper in Shakespeare's plays, with characters reading papers, carrying papers, delivering them, and of course, writing on papers. Naturally, the technology of paper itself isn't that remarkable, being centuries...

In Shakespeare's play, Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra declares "It is my birth-day:  I had thought to have held it poor: but, since my lord Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra." Indicating that she was relieved to be marking the occasion in a better way. Julius Ceasar, similarly declares in Act V, "This is my birth-day; as this very day was Cassius born." In Pericles, the First Fisherman says "h...

This week, we have a special opportunity here on the show to explore the Historic home of Shakespeare's eldest daughter, Susanna Shakespeare Hall, that has been brought to life in a beautiful digital 3Dformat thanks to a pioneering new digital archive that has created an augmented reality exhibition that lets visitors like you and me, visit and virtually walk through Susanna's home known as Hall's...

In Shakespeare's plays, he talks about "Travel" or "Traveller" just under 80 times, including references that suggest people travelled by foot and by horse, the Queen Mab speech by Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet talks about a wagon used for transportation, and there are references that indicate there were items which would add comfort to someone's travel, and one reference from Comedy of Errors talk...

On previous episodes of That Shakespeare Life, we have talked about the numerous early modern card games that show up in Shakespeare's plays, and even that Ferdinand and Miranda are playing the game of Chess in the Tempest. What you may be surprised to learn is that another form of early modern game playing—the game of dice—comes up over half a dozen times across Shakespeare's works, with referenc...

In Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, there's a famous banquet scene, with a huge food spread and of course, a few ghosts because what's a party without a few spectres, right? This scene is fictional, but it is based on a real historical person, the real King Macbeth of Scotland, and holding banquets in a castle absolutely happened. Here today to share with us what foods would have been eaten at the rea...

The last time we talked about Judith Quiney was to discuss her youth as the younger sister of Susanna Shakespeare, the twin of Hamnet, and the overall blacksheep of her famous family due to her husband's excommunication and the marriage scandal causing her father, William Shakespeare, to re-write his will to exclude Judith. The details of Judith Quiney's life are as sparse, as they are tantalizing...

In  As You Like It, Orlando says " Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher." that's one of a dozen references to ciphers in Shakespeare's plays, which reflects the place of ciphers as a common way to keep secrets, particularly among the elite, for Shakespeare's lifetime. One of the most famous ciphers for Shakespeare's lifetime was written between 1578 and 1584, while Shakespeare was just get...

A "Last Will and Testament" is a document listing out the instructions for how to handle your remaining worldly goods after your death. It is an opportunity for the living to share their wishes from beyond the grave. In As You Like It, Orlando mentions this practice by saying "...give me the poor allottery my father left me by testament; with that I will go buy my fortunes." In Julius Caesar the g...

With all the death in Shakespeare's works, you may not be shocked that the word "Funeral" comes up in Shakespeare's plays over 20 times, but what is surprising is that funeral ceremonies are used by Shakespeare in multiple plays to serve a specific role, almost a character in and of themselves for how they impact the plot. Most notably, and my apologies here for any spoilers, the play is still wor...

The Curtain Theatre was built in 1577 in a section of London called Shoreditch. Constructed only about 200 yards, or 600 feet, away from The Theater, which is the building James and Richard Burbage built as the first purpose built theater in London. For context, this distance about half a city block in Manhattan, and little less than 1 city block in Chicago. In 1585, the Burbages took advantage of...

In Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona, Proteus says "Here's too small a pasture for such store of muttons." Proteus is speaking metaphorically here, but the phrase refers to the relationship between animals raised in a field, and then processed for food to be stored away in a cache that can be drawed upon for consuming later. Stephano, in the Tempest, shares the location of his store of wine, s...

William Shakespeare never mentions the celebration of Candlemas by name in his works, but we know Shakespeare was involved in the celebration of Candlemas in 1602 from a diary entry written by a man named John Manningham, who wrote about attending a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, on February 2 of that year, the traditional Feast Day of Candlemas. This 1602 performance took place at Mi...

Shakespeare uses the phrase, "Hue and cry" twice in his plays. Once in Henry IV Part 1and again inMerry Wives of Windsor. In the Middle Ages, this phrase represented acivilian peacekeeping effort that remained officially on the books in England until the19thcentury. Amounting, on an extremely basic level, to what those in the US mayrecognize as a "citizen's arrest," hue and cry allowed the average...

The spectacular downfall of King Richard II, followed by the successors Henry IV and then Henry V, are famously depicted in Shakespeare's plays. The Life and Death of King Richard II is a prequel to what's known as Shakespeare's Henriad plays, or the Henry Plays, consisting of Henry IV Part 1, Henry IV part 2, and Henry V. Richard II is believed to have been written around 1595, and while the play...

Shakespeare may not mention the word "golf" in his plays, and in exploring history, it seems that the game was a little bit obscure, certainly not something played widely, but nevertheless it was present for Shakespeare's lifetime, with some major moments for golf history overlapping with the life of William ShakespeareFor example, it was England's King James I, patron of Shakespeare's company the...