That Shakespeare Life

Society in Elizabethan England is well known for being divided by class. There were workers, peasants, aristocracy, and even a kind of middle class but what was the definition of a labourer? When it comes to exploring the roles of characters like Ariel and Caliban in Shakespeare’s Tempest it is important to understand the 16th century mindset towards labor. Under Catholic England, the monasteries had decided they placed a higher value on the ability to commune with your thoughts and labor at intellectual pursuits, whereas Protestant England had leanings toward a more active, physical labor as being more valuable, particularly an emphasis on trades like making gloves, shoes, or wool. The practical aspects of everyday life in England like food to eat, houses to live in, and clothes to wear were all built on the value of craftsmen, tradesmen, servants, laborers, and what Henry V might have called England’s yeomen. But what is an industrious servant precisely? Can we recognize one when we see them on stage? What are the appearances, actions, or conditions of a servant for Tudor England, and what was Shakespeare trying to draw attention to with characters like Ariel who spend most of the play, The Tempest, yearning for his freedom. To explore the realities of servanthood, including where superstition overlaps with practicality to create a suspicion of magic associated with good craftsmanship is our guest, James Tink.

Following its prominent use in the decisive victory of the English against the French in the Battle of Agincourt, the English longbow was a stalwart image of English patriotism well into the 1590s. Having been a favorite weapon for the famous Kings of England like Henry V, but also Edward III and Elizabeth I's father, Henry VIII, the English longbow was a tried and true military technology that was as uniquely deadly as it was uniquely English.

While it may have fallen out of favor among England's young men by the time Shakespeare staged Henry V, the longbow nevertheless influenced the life of William Shakespeare. But what was this weapon? How was it used? And why was it effective against strong defenses like metal armour in battle? Here today to share with us how the English longbow is made, which materials are best for crafting the large and heavy bow, as well as how the English longbow became established as a permanent fixture in the history of England is our guest Alan Odinson.

Following its prominent use in the decisive victory of the English against the French in the Battle of Agincourt, the English longbow was a stalwart image of English patriotism well into the 1590s. Having been a favorite weapon for the famous Kings of England like Henry V, but also Edward III and Elizabeth I’s father, Henry VIII, the English longbow was a tried and true military technology that was as uniquely deadly as it was uniquely English. 

While it may have fallen out of favor among England’s young men by the time Shakespeare staged Henry V, the longbow nevertheless influenced the life of William Shakespeare. But what was this weapon? How was it used? And why was it effective against strong defenses like metal armour in battle?

Here today to share with us how the English longbow is made, which materials are best for crafting the large and heavy bow, as well as how the English longbow became established as a permanent fixture in the history of England is our guest Alan Odinson.

Tracey Hill is here to tell us about Whifflers in 16th c England. A traditional fixture in pageants that appears in Shakespeare's Henry V.

Tracey Hill is here to tell us about Whifflers in 16th c England. A traditional fixture in pageants that appears in Shakespeare's Henry V.

Inside Tiffany Stern's book titled "Shakespeare in Parts" which she co-authored with Simon Palfrey, there is a picture of a piece of paper captioned "The part of Orlando from Robert Greene's Orlando Furioso" from the 1590s. The image represents the historical reality that for Shakespeare, plays were always distributed in parts--meaning a single actor would have had a copy of what his character was supposed to say, but when he was on stage to perform those lines, he would be hearing the words of his fellow characters often for the first time, generating, as you might expect, some pretty dramatic responses from the players themselves. This image of the lines for Robert Greene's Orlando is additionally fascinating because not only is it hand written in ink on paper (instead of printed with type pressed letters the way we find plays inside the First Folio, for example) but aside from some lines across the page periodically to indicate a separation between spoken lines, there isn't anything else on the page at all. It surprises me, quite honestly, because visually, this 16th century script looks totally different from modern play scripts. So why is the script written in a single part instead of having everyone's lines all together? Is this the way players acted in the theater--everyone in their own part instead of bringing it all together as a group? Here to help us answer these questions and explore the research from her book, Shakespeare in Parts, about the history of scripts, performance, and the assumptions we make about what really happened when Shakespeare's actors performed 16th century plays, is our guest Tiffany Stern.

Inside Tiffany Stern’s book titled “Shakespeare in Parts”  which she co-authored with Simon Palfrey, there is a picture of a piece of paper captioned “The part of Orlando from Robert Greene’s Orlando Furioso” from the 1590s. The image represents the historical reality that for Shakespeare, plays were always distributed in parts--meaning a single actor would have had a copy of what his character was supposed to say, but when he was on stage to perform those lines, he would be hearing the words of his fellow characters often for the first time, generating, as you might expect, some pretty dramatic responses from the players themselves. This image of the lines for Robert Greene’s Orlando is additionally fascinating because not only is it hand written in ink on paper (instead of printed with type pressed letters the way we find plays inside the First Folio, for example) but aside from some lines across the page periodically to indicate a separation between spoken lines, there isn’t anything else on the page at all. It surprises me, quite honestly, because visually, this 16th century script looks totally different from modern play scripts. So why is the script written in a single part instead of having everyone’s lines all together? Is this the way players acted in the theater--everyone in their own part instead of bringing it all together as a group? Here to help us answer these questions and explore the research from her book, Shakespeare in Parts, about the history of scripts, performance, and the assumptions we make about what really happened when Shakespeare’s actors performed 16th century plays, is our guest Tiffany Stern.

When Queen Elizabeth sought to root out Catholic uprising in her country, and to quelch potential plots against her in England, it is well known that she turned to spies and spymasters within her court to find, identify, and execute anyone who was a threat to the crown. One key method Elizabeth used to make sure the new generation of English boys supported her government and the Protestant religion was through indoctrination. What better place to teach them how to act, and how to think, than at university. Universities like Cambridge and Oxford were, during Shakespeare's lifetime and well after, used by the government as a place to teach, as well as to root out, anyone who held sympathies for the wrong cause. As theater and performance formed a huge foundation for education in the 16th century, plays like Shakespeare's Hamlet, were often used as a way to facilitate these goals, frequently blurring the lines between education and the intention to imbue young minds with what Elizabeth saw as the right way to think and believe. Our guest this week, Robert Stefanek, has researched spies in Elizabethan England and how Hamlet being a student at Wittenberg University may be much more than a passing nod as his youth and status as a student. Robert contends that being a student at university specifically is a reflection of the entire culture of spies, undercover agents, and covert operations that defined a university structure that in Tudor England was designed, right down to the very walls of the buildings themselves, to confine, control, and indoctrinate, a new generation of young men that Elizabeth wanted to see graduate as her allies.

When Queen Elizabeth sought to root out Catholic uprising in her country, and to quelch potential plots against her in England, it is well known that she turned to spies and spymasters within her court to find, identify, and execute anyone who was a threat to the crown. One key method Elizabeth used to make sure the new generation of English boys supported her government and the Protestant religion was through indoctrination. What better place to teach them how to act, and how to think, than at university. Universities like Cambridge and Oxford were, during Shakespeare’s lifetime and well after, used by the government as a place to teach, as well as to root out, anyone who held sympathies for the wrong cause. As theater and performance formed a huge foundation for education in the 16th century, plays like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, were often used as a way to facilitate these goals, frequently blurring the lines between education and the intention to imbue young minds with what Elizabeth saw as the right way to think and believe. Our guest this week, Robert Stefanek, has researched spies in Elizabethan England and how Hamlet being a student at Wittenberg University may be much more than a passing nod as his youth and status as a student. Robert contends that being a student at university specifically is a reflection of the entire culture of spies, undercover agents, and covert operations that defined a university structure that in Tudor England was designed, right down to the very walls of the buildings themselves, to confine, control, and indoctrinate, a new generation of young men that Elizabeth wanted to see graduate as her allies.

Having been considered lost for centuries, and a huge mystery for historians, our guest today believes he has located the final resting place of the Lost Colony, and indeed, has uncovered artifacts that suggest they were never lost in the first place. Today we welcome Scott Dawson, archaeologist and author of The Lost Colony and Hatteras Island to tell the story of Roanoke Colony that so captured the imagination of Shakespeare's England in the 1580s, as well as our own imagination into the 21st century, and to tell us about what he has found on Hatteras Island that leads him to believe this colony which once was lost, has now been found