That Shakespeare Life

In 1616, the year that William Shakespeare died, anatomist Helikiah Crooke published a book of medical diagrams that included a surprisingly high level of detail about human anatomy for a society that didn't yet have powerful instruments like a microscope. However, noticeably absent from his medical drawings are any anatomically correct terms for the female body. For example, Crooke's drawings cor...

It wasn't only people who served as performers in Shakespeare's lifetime, animals, too were often trained to perform in street demonstrations, and one very unique animal captured the hearts of the popular entertainment word as a famous dancing horse named Morocco. Morocco was famous during Shakespeare's lifetime, with over 70 woodcuts published showcasing his talents at entertaining crowds of all...

When Shakespeare mentions ballads in his plays, he uses adjectives like odious and woeful, mentioning both the ballad makers in Coriolanus, and the people who sell them, known as the ballad mongers, in Henry IV Part 1. Shakespeare's has over 20 references to ballads throughout his works, all of which tell us that these songs were written in ink, published by printers, and performed in songs that n...

Throughout his works, Shakespeare references math terminology that goes well beyond the artithmetic education we expect him to have received at grammar school. There's history behind the references that shares not only where Shakespeare would have learned about higher mathematics, but Shakespeare's choices for specific math terms reflect major changes in England for the numerals that were being us...

Shakespeare talks about unbuttoning your sleeve in As You Like It, King Lear undoes a button in Act V of that play, and Moth talks about making a buttonhole lower in Love's Labour's Lost. We've talked about clothes here on the show previously, but what about the buttons that hold things like sleeves together, and various buttonholes. What were buttons like for Shakespeare's lifetime, who was makin...

From Hamlet's father being murdered by poison, to Romeo killing himself when he drinks poison, and several instances of hemlock, dragon's scales, hebenon and others in between, Shakespeare utilizes poison as a dramatic device in several of his works. The use of poison was not just an easy tool for a plot twist, however, since poison was both a pervasive fear at all levels of society as well as a c...

Ep 320 | Phil Withington Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Shakespeare's plays, he uses the word "glass" over 80 times, including to talk about specific kinds of glass like a pilot's glass in Alls Well That Ends Well, and "the glasses of my sight" in Coriolanus. We can see from the surviving building of Shakespeare's Birthplace in Stratford Upon Avon, that window glass existed, and there was even an old glass house in the Blackfriars where the Blackfri...

Throughout Shakespeare's plays, he references the mind over 400 times including talking about having a quick mind, an unclean mind, and even being out of your mind. Understanding how your brain worked, and what you as an individual could do to control it, and respond to it, was a hot topic for Shakespeare's lifetime. The rise in books meant that works by authors exploring this topic of the mind, m...

British sign language has existed in some form among deaf communities at least since the 15th century, when some of the earliest records of sign language reveal descriptions of specific signs, many of which are still in use today. However, for Shakespeare's lifetime, sign language was far from formalized among the Deaf, and certainly not widely accepted by the hearing community. Similarly, educati...

Before William Shakespeare was the great playwright of the age, he was "just Will" fromStratford Upon Avon. The one person in the world who not only loved him before he wasfamous, but walkedbeside him for the entire journey from young man with nothing but relentlessoptimism to successful playwright patronized by the monarchy of England, was his wife, AnneHathaway. Anne married William in 1582, and...

Close to 300 years before Shakespeare's birth, in the year 1290, King Edward I expelled anyone of Jewish descent from England all together. It would not be until 40 years after Shakespeare's death that Jews would be allowed to return to England. This law makes it somewhat confusing to find over 100 references to Jews and "Jewry" in Shakespeare's plays. How did he know about Jewish people if there...

There is something uniquely fascinating about the place where someone famous was born and grew up. As many of us travel long distances just for the chance to visit the birthplace of one of our heroes, we seem to recognize the importance of home as the foundation for future greatness. William Shakespeare's home is no exception. WilliamShakespeare's life journey began at his birthplace, making it an...

In October of 2023, the Norfolk Guildhall at King's Lynn, London was undergoing a bigrefurbishment when 600 year old oak floorboards were discovered beneath the floor. A religioushouse in the 15thcentury, the site became a performance venue by 1593, hosting, amongothers, Shakespeare's acting company according to company accounts. That discovery meansthat these newly discovered floorboards could ha...

In Shakespeare's lifetime, sound was often relied upon by playwrights to let an audience know a battle was taking place, an army was taking action, or a particular military event was about to occur. Some of these military sound cues are found in the stage directions of Shakespeare's plays when we see him indicate musicians should sound specific pieces. For example, the musicians are directed to "s...

All total, Shakespeare includes 21 Clowns and Fools in his works, that frequency wasn'tjust personal preference. It was, as you may have guessed, a reflection of actualhistory. The Fool dates all the way back to the Romansas an appointed member ofsociety whose job it was to entertain with honesty, mockery, and behavior that wouldhave been foolish for anyone else. Since it is April Fool's Day today...

One the of the most significant influences on Shakespeare's works is the Holy Bible. There are references to biblical characters and even specific Bible verses found throughout Shakespeare's works. Of course the original Bible was not written in English, but famous translators of the Bible including John Wycliffe who created the first modern English translation of the Bible produced from the origi...

For centuries, the construction method of wattle and daub has been used to contruct buildings. For Shakespeare's lifetime, the Tudor style of house became famous for this form of construction because Tudor homes featured exposed beams held together in the wattle anddaub style. For the uninitiated, however,you may not know what constitutes a wattle or a daub, or how this method of construction was...

Shakespeare uses the word "spectacles" 8 times across his works, and talks about glass eyes in  King Lear . In  A Winter's Tale  Leontes is talking with Camillo when he indicates Camillo should have seen something clearly because of the thickness of his eye glass. It makes sense to think that people in the 16-17th century would have suffered from near sighted ness or farsighted ness and other opth...

In 1571, William Shakespeare was only 7 years old, but the naval battle that occurred that year was pivotal forEngland, and indeed the Christian world, that continued to be celebrated and written about for centuries afterShakespeare. The Battle of Lepanto is the last naval battle fought exclusively with rowing vessels, known as galley warfare, and overall was a surprising naval victory for Catholi...

Explore the real life of Henry VIII against some of the stories inside Shakespeare's play, All is True, with our guest, Kat Marchant. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did you know there were romantic fiction publications in Shakespeare's lifetime? Of course they weren't romance novels , because the novel as a format was not invented, but the romance genre was a live and well. You may recognize chivalric romances, which include knights in shining armor, fighting dragons, overcoming giants, and other quest-worthy elements. In Shakespeare's lifetime, there were ro...

In the play, The Merry Wives of Windsor, as well as Hamlet and Richard III, the phrase "declension of pronouns" that comes up as a description of language. That's not a phrase that I remember being taught in English class, and instead relates to Latin, the language of education for Shakespeare's lifetime, and indeed across Europe. Here today to explain for us exactly what a "declension" might be,...

One of the most famous criminals of Shakespeare's lifetime was Mary Frith, known as MollCutpurse. Her character is featured in several plays contemporary to Shakespeare, and itseems her real life persona was even more flamboyant than those represented onstage. MollCutpurse was a notorious pickpocket who made a name for herself in early modern England asa thief and an entertainer, who stood out fro...

Plague is the horrible sickness that reoccurs throughout the life of William Shakespeare, and many listeners will know that plague is to blame for several closings of playhouses around London throughout the 16-17th century. However, what does that word mean, precisely? What symptoms did people have when afflicted with plague, and how was it transmitted from person to person? The play Romeo and Jul...