Sooooooo William Rowley’s The Birth of Merlin actually has very little to do with Merlin or any other part of the Arthurian legend, and it’s more of a history play than its title would suggest. We re-introduce you to playwright William Rowley, who apparently loved to write himself into all of his plays as a “fat clown;” we give you A Taste of Text from Act IV involving a little antic spirit; we talk about how this play doesn’t fit neatly into any particular genre because it is doing The Literal Most at all times, but for all that it’s not even that great; then we gossip a bit and that’s that. Don’t believe anyone that tells you this play was written by Shakespeare, and definitely don’t believe them if they say it’s their favorite play.

Birth of Merlin 101

What happens when two bawdy, Early Modern word-nerds sit down to talk about all things Shakespeare? You get &quot;The Hurly Burly Shakespeare Show!&quot;: an irreverent mix of entertainment and scholarly content suitable for novices and hard-core “Bardolaters” alike. Jess (The Scholar) and Aubrey (The Teaching Artist) discuss the plays of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries, as well as other fascinating aspects of the Early Modern period’s lively theatre and print culture. “The Hurly Burly Shakespeare Show!” features the latest “Shakes-bubble” gossip, Burbage Breaks, a Rhetorical Device of the Week, and absolute havoc as Jess and Aubrey attempt to summarize each play in five minutes or less. Oh, and we also make all our sound effects live, because original staging conditions are a thing. Come for the Hurly, stay for the Burly: we guarantee you’ll learn something new with every episode.

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Well, friends, this episode marks the last for the pod. We give you a short list of things we love about Shakespeare and about making this podcast together, we play a few games, and we say our goodbyes. With lots of bird-walking and rabbit holes along the way because when we promise Vintage Whamlet, we deliver. Thank you for making the last 6 years so fantastic. Whamlet OUT!

10 Things We LOVE About Shakespeare (And Us)

This week, for our penultimate episode, we decided to get some sh*t off our chests and make a list of 10 things we hate about Shakespeare. That’s it. No other segments. Oh and we list our bottom 5 plays in the canon, too. But don’t worry, as the saying goes, hatred isn’t the opposite of love, it’s indifference. We bitch because we love.

10 Things We Hate About Shakespeare

For our final 101 episode, we take you back to the Spanish Golden Age with House of Desires and its proto-Mexican, female playwright Sor Juana (a nun!). We tell you a little about this Metal AF nun in Meet the Contemporary, and we summarize the play and read a very silly cross-dressing scene from the second act for A Taste of Text. We compare translations of the scene a little bit, and then gossip a lot about yet another Oxfraudian, anti-Stratfordian overture made by the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition (aka SAC - which, like, LOL at your dumb acronym, bros). Listener beware: if the authorship “debate” fills you with white-hot rage, you may just want to skip the last 15 minutes of the episode. That aside, someone please produce House of Desires so we can go see it. We think it’s a delight and we hope you agree.

House of Desires 101

CW: Today’s episode involves one of our classic tangents, this time into the topic of incest and incest porn. 

That said, today’s episode is a 101 all about dynamic playwriting duo Beaumont and Fletcher’s “tragicomedy” A King and No King. We summarize this bonkers play for you - spoilers: it’s only a fake incest plot to lure you in - and ready a portion of act 3 for a Taste of Text. We talk a little about why incest tropes are so popular in modern media, particularly in pornography but also in early modern drama, we gossip a little about the still-unraveling Cleveland Playhouse debacle, and call it a day. Also, there’s a minor character in the play whose name sounds like BI-CURIOUS, so start the fan fictions engines NOW.

A King and No King 101

It only took us 4 years, but we have finally circled back to Love’s Labour’s Lost for a deep dive into what some fussy Victorians - Hazlitt and Tennyson - had to say about the play, plus a little bit about the moral implications of the ladies’ “homework” for the boys at the play’s conclusion. There also may or may not be some extensive bird walking into a little-known whodunit called The Moonstone #sorrynotsorry. We gossip a little and also deliver A Big Announcement About the Podcast.

Birth of Merlin 101

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