That Shakespeare Life

Elaborate theatrical performances in Shakespeare's lifetime presented before the reigning monarch were known as court masques.   These intricate and complex stories were presented in grand fashion, sparing no expense on costumes, props, and special effects. The most famous masque has to be that of Robert Dudley who hired actual performers from the Comedia del Arte in Italy to perform amazing feats...

In Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream , Puck has a line that says "And now they never meet in grove or green, By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen..." In Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio uses this term again saying, "What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty..." In a similar description again from Midsummer, Lysander says "Fair Helena, who more engilds the night Than all you...

Christopher Marlowe is one of the most fascinating—and mysterious—figures of Shakespeare's lifetime. A university-educated playwright at a time when that alone set him apart, Marlowe rose quickly through London's theater world, dazzling audiences with bold language, ambitious characters, and stories that pushed the boundaries of what the stage could do.  But Marlowe's life wasn't confined to poetr...

In Shakespeare's England, the middle of summer was a time of celebration. While the summer season begins at May Day, the longest day of the year, from June 23 into the 24th, was celebrated as the holiday of Midsummer, and Christianized as St. John's Eve and St. John's Day. It was the longest day of the year, and for the life of William Shakespeare, this holiday was marked with celebrations of feas...

Shakespeare is famous for his costume changes in his plays, including characters that swap genders and seemingly fool the world as their true identity simply by a change of clothes. Since Shakespeare's playing companies were all male, and still manage to portray some of the most powerful women characters ever created on the stage, we have to think there was indeed great power in costume. What was...

In Shakespeare's plays, there are over 150 references to the word "hair" across which Shakespeare talks about a barber fixing someone's hair, about hair being dyed, about losing your hair being a natural product of old age, combing your hair, and even the weight of someone's hair. Clearly, there was a significant cultural focus on the care and maintenance of one's carefully selected coif. But exac...

In Shakespeare's plays, he uses the word "gauntlet" a total of 6 times. In one instance, the stage directions declare that a character "throws down his gauntlet." In  Hamlet , stage directions again refer to a gauntlet by saying that attendants bring "foils and gauntlets" into the scene of Act V.   But do you know what you should be seeing on stage in these moments? Do you know what object Shakesp...

Zounds! Your Bunched Back toad! In Shakespeare's plays we find a hoard of truly fabulous one liners, zingers, and impressive insults that frequent the lips of our favorite characters.  When they were written in the 16th century, some of the words we find most hilarious today were actually bordering on a line between legal and illegal, and even sometimes blasphemous, which in a Protestant England w...

In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet declares "Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face, Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek" Katharina in Taming of the SHrew talks about painting your face, and Timon of Athens makes a connection between painting and your face saying "wear them, betray with them: whore still; Paint till a horse may mire upon your face, A pox of wrinkles!" And of course, Hamlet h...

Immigration, labor tensions, and social unrest were pressing realities in Shakespeare's England—and few events capture that strain more vividly than the 1517 uprising known as Evil May Day. In this week's episode, historian Shannon McSheffrey joins us to unpack the economic frustrations, guild restrictions, and growing immigrant communities that fueled this riot in Tudor London. From the role of t...

For the 16th century, a vagrant was someone who operated outside of societal norms, someone who moved around without a fixed home, or produced a profit without the oversight of a noble patron. In a culture that highly prized both hierarchy and organization, someone who fell outside these categories was cast under severe scrutiny, seen as a potential threat, and faced harsh punishments specifically...

In Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 , Hotspur delivers a chilling threat against King Richard:  "I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak  Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him  To keep his anger still in motion."  It's a line rooted in the politics of kingship and rebellion—but it also hinges on something strikingly practical. The idea of teaching a starling to speak wasn't poetic fancy. It...

In Shakespeare's Othello , the Second Senator in Act One warns of a Turkish fleet bearing down on Cyprus. Later in that same scene, the Duke of Venice remarks, "The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for Cyprus. Othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you." References to Cyprus appear again and again throughout the dialogue—calling attention to wars, naval battles, and the conf...

In Shakespeare's plays, we see 6 total references to tennis. Polonius mentions an argument over a tennis game in Hamlet. Henry V and Pericles talk about tennis courts and there's even a couple of references to "tennis balls" showing up in Shakespeare's other plays, talking about them being played with at the game of tennis, as well as being stuffed as part of the process of making a tennis ball. W...

Shakespeare's only reference to Easter comes up in Romeo and Juliet Act III when Mercutio talks about buying a new doublet for Easter. Despite only a single reference to this holiday, for the people of 16-17 th  century England, Easter was a major event. Holidays in Shakespeare's lifetime  largely followed  the life of Jesus Christ, and the resurrection of Jesus that is celebrated on Easter Sunday...

In this episode of That Shakespeare Life , we explore the surprising presence of monkeys, apes, and baboons in early modern England and the role these animals played in the culture of Shakespeare's world. Shakespeare refers to primates dozens of times in his plays, and those references were not purely imaginative—exotic animals were arriving in England through global trade, kept as fashionable pet...

What toys did children play with in Shakespeare's lifetime? In this episode, historian Dr. Julia Martins joins That Shakespeare Life to explore the games, dolls, rattles, hobby horses, and playground activities that shaped childhood in Tudor England—and how these playful details appear in Shakespeare's world.      

Joined this week by historian Susan D. Amussen , we take a close look at the historical evidence that confirms William Shakespeare as a real working playwright and actor in early modern England. Drawing from Susan's book What's in a Name? , we explore the documentary records—from theater company memberships and tax records to property purchases—that trace Shakespeare's life from Stratford-upon-Avo...

In this episode, we explore what the "Ides" actually meant in ancient Rome and how March 15th transformed from an ordinary—sometimes even festive—date on the Roman calendar into one of history's most infamous days. Jörg Rüpke explains how Romans understood their calendar, what rituals or superstitions may (or may not) have surrounded the Ides, and how news of Caesar's assassination would have spre...

In this episode, we explore how time was measured in Shakespeare's England — from weight-driven household clocks to elite pocket watches imported from Germany. With Dr. Jane Desborough, we uncover how early modern clocks tracked not only hours but lunar phases, zodiac signs, and seasons, and why "accuracy" meant something very different before minute and second hands became standard.

In Shakespeare's lifetime, travel wasn't reserved for grand tours or royal progresses — it was woven into daily life. Ordinary Elizabethans crossed rivers, walked muddy roads, boarded boats, hired horses, and rode in wagons for business, family visits, market days, court appearances, and worship. England was constantly in motion. But how did people without titles or servants actually get from plac...

In Shakespeare's play, The Winter's Tale, Autolycus talks about "selling all my trumpery." The reference made me wonder if Autolycus was packing up all his attic junk and random periphery collected over the years to sell them in what might be considered a yard sale for Elizabethan England. Did Shakespeare's England have garage sales where people sold their gently used items to their peers and neig...

There are many men who lived alongside William Shakespeare in turn of the 17th century England, but today's featured contemporary is a man who served as King James' ambassador to Venice in the 1600s. This man was named Henry Wotton. At grammar school, he received the same humanist education as Shakespeare, but unlike Shakespeare, Henry went on to university, studying at Oxford where he was tutored...

From delectable marchpane in Romeo and Juliet, and the herbs of the Merchant of Venice to stew'd prunes of Henry IV, and carving capons in Love's Labour's Lost, there is a wide gambit of meals consumed in Shakespeare's plays that span from bawdy feasts to elite noble banquets, and even popular meals eaten as much to control your behavior as they were seen as nourishment. The details about food fou...

When Shakespeare wrote Hamlet , he gave the melancholy Dane two university friends with peculiarly Danish names—Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. For many centuries, audiences assumed these were simply fictional creations. Yet history reveals that Frederik Rosenkrantz and Knud Gyldenstierne were real men—Danish noblemen who traveled to England during Shakespeare's lifetime as part of an official embas...