That Shakespeare Life

A tradition from Shakespeare's lifetime that continues into the present day is that of the Lord Mayor's Shows. It is an annual occurrence which exists to introduce the Lord Mayor to the people, the monarch, and London in particular. The way this occasion is marked today, though, is far and away removed from the wild and festive nature of the event when William Shakespeare and his contemporaries were celebrating the day in the early 17th century. The event is so influential on history and society, and indeed the world, that many of our modern conventions and even terminology connected with parades and civic paegents come from the words and celebratory practices that occurred at The Lord Mayor's Shows.

Here to walk us through the history of this event and help us get to know what this would be like for Shakespeare is our guest, Samuel Jermy.

A tradition from Shakespeare’s lifetime that continues into the present day is that of the Lord Mayor’s Shows. It is an annual occurrence which exists to introduce the Lord Mayor to the people, the monarch, and London in particular. The way this occasion is marked today, though, is far and away removed from the wild and festive nature of the event when William Shakespeare and his contemporaries were celebrating the day in the early 17th century. The event is so influential on history and society, and indeed the world, that many of our modern conventions and even terminology connected with parades and civic paegents come from the words and celebratory practices that occurred at The Lord Mayor’s Shows. 

Here to walk us through the history of this event and help us get to know what this would be like for Shakespeare is our guest, Samuel Jermy. 

When Queen Elizabeth wanted to punish Robert Devereux for his imprudent behavior at court, she placed him in charge of handling the Irish rebels and sent him off to Ireland with strict instructions on how to handle that situation. His campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, due to reasons that can, and have, filled volumes on the history of the Nine Years War, as well as the Irish Rebellion, but where this elaborate Irish history finds an intriguing connection to Shakespeare is hidden in a seemingly nonsensical line about the death of Irish rats in Shakespeare's play, As You Like It. In a single line Shakespeare invokes a popular legend about the ability of Irish poetry to kill rats by rhyming them to death. While the bard could simply be referencing the power of words here, we've invited an expert on Irish legends, poetry, and Shakespeare, Dr. Kelly Fitgerald, to sit down with us and take us back to 1599 when As You Like It was written, as well as the year Essex was sent to Ireland, and explain what this line implies with its' suggestion of outright political commentary by Shakespeare, during a time when it was quite dangerous for a playwright write something so pointed.

William Shakespeare's presentation of Richard III portrays the king as a villain, with a great focus on his hunchback and other disabilities as a justification and contributing factor to Richard's malalignment morally. For centuries, historians have wondered if the late King really was as twisted as legend has rendered him to be, or if the tales were merely the product of centuries of conflation, born out of the winter of a collective discontent. Other kinds of disabilities from Pistol's mispronunciation of Irish Gaeilic in response to a French question being asked in Henry V, to questions of madness and mental stability from characters like King Lear. With the advent of hospitals like Bedlam Hospital to treat mental disorders in England, as well as the very first occupational health scheme established in 1599, Shakespeare's lifetime was full of questions, and diverse answers, concerning what a disabilities was, and how to address it as a society and as an individual living with disease or impairment.

Here today to help us explore the world of regional accents in a dialogue based theater, the twisted spine and subsequent hunchback of King Richard III, as well as the historical opinions, hospitals, and medical treatments available for those living with a wide range of disabilities in the 16th century is our guest, Dr. Susan Anderson.

When we think of unicorns, we most often think of the mythical creature roaming forests in Europe or if you are from the UK, you'll likely make a connection with the famous nursery rhyme about the Lion and the Unicorn. In addition to being the national animal for Scotland, and a symbol of their strength and independence, for Shakespeare and the 16th century society in Scotland, the unicorn is a type of currency.

Scotland's unicorn is not only a national legend and official symbol, but also a coin minted originally by James III of Scotland, and the symbol would become under James VI of Scotland, also James I of England, part of the national symbol for Britain as a whole. Here this week to help us explore the advent of the Scottish unicorn on Britain's royal coat of arms, as well as the numismatic history of the Scottish unicorn as a coin, is our guest Dr. Crystal Lake.

Crystal B. Lake is Professor of English Language and Literatures at Wright State University in Dayton, OH. She is also the co-founder and editor of the online magazine, the-rambling.com. Crystal's book, Artifacts, will be published in paperback by Johns Hopkins University Press in Spring 2020, and you can read more about her research at crystallakephd.com.

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In the infancy of the British Empire as Scotland, England, and Ireland were unified for the first time in history under James I, William Shakespeare writes the play Cymbeline. While the actual date he wrote it is unknown, the first performance of Cymbeline is thought to be in 1610, just three years before Shakespeare's daughter, Susanna, is falsely accused of adultery in a very public trial, at which she won, and proved her innocence. The play Cymbeline famously applies what's known as the calumny narrative, which is when a woman is accused of something unchaste and then is proven innocent, revealing that the charges were slanderous. Just like his daughter Susanna, the character of Innogen in Shakespeare's Cymbeline is innocent, despite the ordeal of being falsely accused. While the play is not a representation of Shakespeare's own experience since it was written before his daughter's trial, the themes in Shakespeare's Cymbeline bring to light a controversial side of England's history by challenging what we often consider to have been status quo for 16th century England. But just how much of the play's narrative is reflective of real life, and can we really tell what life was like in the early 17th century England just from the performances of these characters on stage?Our guest this week, Valerie Wayne, points out in her introduction to the Arden Shakespeare's Cymbeline, that Shakespeare's personal experience reflects what happens in the play, and that parallels to historical accounts of England's past monarch's,along with political commentary about James' unification ideas, resonate throughout the performance to paint a puzzle for us in posterity that, when examined more closely, can function as a glimpse into Shakespeare's life, his opinions about women, and the turmoil at home politically, at the turn of the 17th century.