Thomas Dabbs speaks with Darren Freebury-Jones about his recent book, Shakespeare’s Borrowed Feathers: How Early Modern Playwrights Shaped the World’s Greatest Writer. This is Darren’s second appearance on the series. Early he has spoken about two more recent books, the first entitled ‘Reading Robert Green: Recovering Shakespeare’s Rival’ and the second is entitled ’Shakespeare’s Rival: The Influence of Thomas Kyd.’ The talk is at: https://youtu.be/tX59cYTUCgE?si=cs2Ac3d8w5-Eqeyg 

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:54 - ‘Shakespeare’s Borrowed Feathers’

00;04:20 - Digital attribution and reckoning

00:08:31 - The ethics of borrowing

00:16:08 - Shakespeare as solitary genius?

00:18:10 - Collaboration in Shakespeare’s time

00:22:02 - Shakespeare’s with contemporaries 

00:36:26 - Ben Jonson

00:39:26 - Memory, the skill of remembering

00:43:57 - How is Shakespeare different from other playwrights?

00:51:26 - Darren’s current and future work

00:59:20 - The public face of an editor