That Shakespeare Life

After William Shakespeare made his name in London, established himself as a gentleman at home, he returned to Stratford Upon Avon to seek his status as a gentleman, acquiring not only a coat of arms, but the second largest house in town. New Place was brought with considerable legal wrangling, however, and the story of how Shakespeare came to own his famous house is filled with fights, suspicion, murder, and even a few ghosts. It’s a tale fit for a playwright and here to share this story with us is the man who wrote the book on the Shakespeare history of Stratford Upon Avon, the author of Shakespeare’s Country Families, Mr. John Taplin.

John’s book represents over a decade worth of what he calls “sifting through many a quiet archive shelf” combing over documents, records, and legal language to piece together the story of Shakespeare’s life from the little details a shrewd historical investigator like John can uncover with enough patience to sort it out.

John began working Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in 2002, where his inspiration for this project first began. Now also a successful author about Shakespeare, John regularly contributes articles and scholarly research to the Shakespeare history community. We are delighted he has agreed to share some of his time with us today.

With all of the major advances that have taken place since the The Scientific Revolution, it can be easy to forget how impactful and, indeed, revolutionary the time period was for playwrights like William Shakespeare. The bard was being influenced by high level mathematics, and a very Renaissance minded way of thinking that spills off the page into his productions. Here to help us explore some of the places in Shakespeare's plays where we can see the bard's education in germ theory, atomism, and even algebra, is our very special guest, Dr. Natalie Elliot.

Natalie Elliot is a writer and college professor at St. John's College, where she teaches cross-disciplinary courses in classics, history of science, mathematics, literature, philosophy, and music. She writes about the many ways that scientific theories, experiments, and technologies shape what it means to be human. In addition to her appointment at St. John's, Elliot has held research and teaching positions at The Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions, Indiana University's Hutton Honors College, and Southern Methodist University. She lives in Santa Fe, NM and New York.

She joins us today from her sabbatical in beautiful Montana where she is working on her latest book, and she's here now to be our exclusive tour guide into some of the research she recently completed for her work, Shakespeare's Theater of the Universe, where she examines the intersection of math, science, literature, art, and theater that makes William Shakespeare a true Renaissance man.

Elephants being given as gifts to the monarch, lions being tamed inside theaters, and bears chasing people off stage in A Winter's Tale. Where did these exotic animals come from? Why were they being used on stage? Peta Tait visits with us this week to explore exotic animals in Shakespeare's England.

Elephants being given as gifts to the monarch, lions being tamed inside theaters, and bears chasing people off stage in A Winter's Tale. Where did these exotic animals come from? Why were they being used on stage? Peta Tait visits with us this week to explore exotic animals in Shakespeare's England.

For William Shakespeare's London, multiple races were commonplace on the streets near The Globe theater where plays like Othello and Merchant of Venice boldy portrayed blackness and multiple ethnicities in performance, but what was the 16th century perspective on race when they saw various ethnicities on stage? Othello was first portrayed by Richard Burbage, who was a white man, so did Shakespeare use blackface makeup? Was that costume technique offensive to his audience the way it would be in a modern theater?

Here to help us explore the role of race on stage, and the cultural understanding of ethnicities for people like William Shakespeare is our guest, Andrea Stevens.

Andrea Stevens is Associate Professor of English, Theatre, and Medieval Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign specializing in the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. She is the author of Invention of the Skin, which explores costumes, makeup, and representations of race on stage in Shakespeare's lifetime, and the role of blackface makeup in performance on stage for 16th century theater.

From rapiers to broadswords, weapons fly in Shakespeare's plays, but how many of these dramatic weapons were an established part of daily life for the bard? Did people really carry around rapiers and daggers in the streets of London or at home in Stratford upon Avon? Find out when we talk with author and professional sword maker, Sean Flynt, as he introduces us to the weapons of Shakespeare's life.

From rapiers to broadswords, weapons fly in Shakespeare's plays, but how many of these dramatic weapons were an established part of daily life for the bard? Did people really carry around rapiers and daggers in the streets of London or at home in Stratford upon Avon? Find out when we talk with author and professional sword maker, Sean Flynt, as he introduces us to the weapons of Shakespeare's life.

Whether it's Lear calling Goneril a plague-sore, or Mercutio cursing the families in Romeo and Juliet by saying "A plague on both your houses!" Shakespeare's works testify to the fact that rampant plague was a very real, and very prevalent, part of Shakespeare's daily life. But what were the concerns about plague that Shakespeare was considering when he wrote these works that refer to the disease? For Shakespeare and his contemporaries, there was a real plague culture in England that impacted the entertainment industry including theater, literature, and even music. Here today to help us unpack what we can learn about plague for Shakespeare's lifetime is an expert on this subject, Rebecca Totaro professor of literature and culture of early modern England at Florida Gulf Coast University and author of several books on plague including The Plague in Print. joins us today to discuss her book, Plague in Print, a work that examines plague literature, and what surviving documents written about the experiences of living with plague can teach about the life of William Shakespeare.