Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 359 - William Shakespeare (Billy Shakes?)

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

What do we known about William Shakespeare the man? And why are his works still popular today? Who was Billy Shakes? We dive into the legacy of the English language's most important author this week, ...examine the claims that Shakespeare didn't actually write all that is attributed to him, learn a lot about the time and place he lived in, and so much more in this literary (and kind of true crime?) edition of Timesuck.  Also - go get those street team stickers! And watch my new special August 27th on Youtube. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Thank you to Courtney Cope, Principal Clinical Operations Manager and David Yadush, Senior Clinical Operations Manager at BetterHelp for their incredibly insightful input! Bad Magic Charity of the Month: Donating $13,800 to the Hill Country Humane Society this month. And 1,533 went into next year's scholarship fund. The Hill Country Humane Society's mission is to use their new mobile spay and neuter station to reduce a rising needs to have unwanted pets euthanized. To find out more, please visit:  https://hchstexas.com/Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp tickets are ON SALE!  BadMagicMerch.com Get tour tickets at dancummins.tv Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/7raYOeDT1oAMerch: https://www.badmagicmerch.comDiscord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard?  Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcastSign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits

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Starting point is 00:00:00 All the worlds of stage and all the men and women merely players William Shakespeare as you like it act to scene seven and so true Life often feels like a big game doesn't it like we're putting on a show for some celestial audience William Shakespeare said that over four centuries ago He lived from 1564 to 1616 and man did that do leave a legacy behind 64 to 16, 16, and man, did that do leave a legacy behind? One that has survived and influenced everything and everyone from future playwrights, authors, people who write for TV and movies and more for over 400 years. His word continue to help all of us understand the human condition to this day, to realize
Starting point is 00:00:38 that while our world has improved tremendously when it comes to industry, medicine, technology, and more, it's changed in so many ways. We are still in a lot of ways no different from many of Shakespeare's characters. We still have ambition that gets us into trouble. Unrequited romance that emotionally leaves us gutted. We still have people. We thought we're our friends who betray us and on and on. Shakespeare captured the universal human experience so very well and thus his word still ring true today.
Starting point is 00:01:07 And they still will a thousand years from now. Shakespeare is considered England's national poet and one of the greatest playwrights and authors of all time. Many of us probably associate Shakespeare mostly with high school memories of reading plays out loud in class and poorly written essays we wrote the night before. And most of us probably did not ever spend any time trying to get to know Shakespeare the man. Shakespeare was a country boy and the small yet bustling town of Stratford upon Avan. He received a standard education and never attended university. He got married to the age 18 and after the birth of his twins, he disappeared from the
Starting point is 00:01:40 historical records for seven long years and re-emerged in the London theater scene is both an actor and playwright and incredibly talented superstar in the making Soon after his reemergence Shakespeare became a shareholder in an acting company known as Lord Chamberlain's men Later renamed the Kingsmen with Shakespeare's plays and some of London's most popular actors the the Lord Chamberlain's men, became the most successful. One of the most successful, if not the most successful, companies of its day. Audiences were captivated by Shakespeare's tragedies, histories and comedies that are fully captured, the struggle of the human condition, romance, war, politics, betrayal, family conflict, vaulting ambition, and so much more. Shakespeare was a beloved figure, well known to
Starting point is 00:02:25 many in London and the surrounding areas in his life, and his popularity has only soared in his death, since his death. He's long been one of the most recognizable names in the world. Thanks, largely to his friends, putting together the first folio, a collection of his place. Without that, we might not have any copies of Shakespeare's plays today, which is insane to think about. His works could have easily been lost to history, just like so much of his actual life was. We know so little about Liam Shakespeare, the man, but so much so that some scholars actually don't think he was a real person. They think that some of Elizabethan contemporary wrote the plays and poems.
Starting point is 00:03:00 We attribute down to Shakespeare and took on a pen name to hide their identity for various reasons, depending on this suspected real author This week I will share what we do know about the life of William Shakespeare and some of his most famous works We'll meet some of his contemporaries a few friends and rivals and discuss the anti-stret 40 in theory The theory that William did not write his place and also and you're not gonna find this almost anywhere else other than here some true crime speculation. With William Shakespeare, was he a serial killer known as Billy Shakes? All this and more in another literary.
Starting point is 00:03:35 How much did William Shakespeare influence the stories we continue to create and consume today in the very language us English speakers used to make and manage our lives, addition of TimeSuck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to TimeSuck. You're listening to TimeSuck. Well, happy Monday, Maitsaks and welcome to the cult of the curious. I'm Dan Cummins, the master sucker, Dick West's meth dealer, Jerry Brutosis shoe cobbler, and you are listening to Time Suck.
Starting point is 00:04:12 Hail Nimrod, Hail Luciferina, praise B to Bojangles, good boy Bojangles, and glory be to triple M. And if I, you know, have a little awkward pauses in today's show, I just have one of those little head colds. It's not that big of a deal, but it just makes you feel a little space pauses in today's show. I just have one of those little head colds It's not that big of a deal, but it just makes you feel a little spacey almost like you're a little bit high all the time So that's where I'm at right now. I don't feel that bad just a little bit foggy But I think we're gonna have a fun show nonetheless. I got some cool new free stuff I want to announce at the start of the show who doesn't like free stuff and then we're off into the book of the show stuff. I want to announce at the start of the show who doesn't like free stuff. And then we're off into the book of the show, uh, starting off with excited to bring back an old
Starting point is 00:04:48 favorite, uh, something that we missed last year, something I really missed, uh, doing the 20, 23 bad magic street team. Straight team is back. Get some fucking stickers stuck all over the place. Stickers are going to be available on Wednesday, August, second, new, pacific time. We'll have 500 packs of 10 available to ship out. And the sticker packs are free. You only have to pay for shipping. And since they're free, please limit your purchase to one pack. So more of you can get in on the fun.
Starting point is 00:05:13 We're not going to do more than 500 packs. This year, hopefully, they'll be gone pretty quick. And they'll be available bad magic merch.com Wednesday, August, second, and new, Pacific time. Stick them all over the place. Uh, you know, uh, wherever you feel comfortable on your forehead, your neighbor's forehead, your butthole, your neighbor's butthole, that cool spot
Starting point is 00:05:31 in the record shop bathroom where everyone puts stickers. Somebody's butthole in that bathroom. I remember in past years, finding them on hiking trails, ski lifts, rest stops, stalls, like in garbage cans out in sidewalks, wherever just all over the place. It was super fun. And then post pics of where you put the stickers, get creative,
Starting point is 00:05:48 Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, little videos, static images, whatever, and then hashtag it with Bad Magic Street team. So we can find it. And you can tag us in the photos. Thanks for helping us get the word out about our show. It's about time we started to, you know, try to grow again, been too long, but going week to week too long here. The contest will last October 2nd, noon Pacific time, and we'll look up posts based on the hashtag in October and the winner, whoever we think did the best job, putting stickers all over the place, is going
Starting point is 00:06:20 to get $200 in a bad magicicmerge.com store credit. And then, Mark your calendar, Sunday, August 27th, the 4 p.m. the debut of my newest stand-up special, trying to get better. Record a back-of-many app list this past December, finally releasing it, releasing it as is the current trend for most comics for free on YouTube. We self-produced it, thankfully, actually owned this thing,
Starting point is 00:06:42 so I can post clips on socials later, and I get fucking trademark and copyright strikes on my own shit. I'll be there in the comment feed for the initial release on August 27th at Sunday at 4 p.m. Pacific time. Hopefully I'm watching it along with a lot of you. Hope you like it. If you do like it, please just tell your friends to also watch it. I had a great time doing it. My buddy Michael Dare directed it. I think he did an awesome job and I'm proud of how it turned out. If you don't like it, I am just not fucking capable of making you laugh because it's, uh, it's the best I can do. Again, Sunday, August 27th, 4 p.m. on the Bad Magic Productions YouTube channel, the new special trying to get better, but an hour and 20 minutes long, and then I'll
Starting point is 00:07:20 be working on new material and spoke in at the Spokane Comedy Club this weekend August 4th and 5th And now one more cool free thing Happened at the end of this episode Free professional advice not advice from me Professional mental health advice that I'm just relaying just a messenger Since the show started and thanks to the vocal community that has grown up around it I've become an advocate for mental health Come back to what I used to study Psychology it's something each and every one of us deals with has grown up around it, I've become an advocate for mental health. I'm back to what I used to study. Psychology.
Starting point is 00:07:47 It's something each and every one of us deals with. I often don't feel qualified to give the right advice though, but recently I was lucky enough to be able to partner with better help. For an occasional special edition of Time Sucker Updates, we're all share some insight and advice given to me to give to you by a licensed therapist. And all of this advice is based on questions we receive from many of you Meet's Acts. So thank you for sharing what you were curious about. And again, that will be after today's story at the end of the episode.
Starting point is 00:08:14 Right now, let us get theatrical. We simply must head to the theater post-haste. So how am I laying out today's show? For our first order of infotainment business, we'll talk about the theatrical world of Shakespeare's day and place, the Elizabethan theater. After that, I'll present a brief overview of Shakespeare's famous writing style, a full timeline of what we know about his life, including some very disturbing true crime speculation. It's pretty grisly shit. Followed by an explanation of the anti-strat 40-in-theory, the theory that Shakespeare was not Shakespeare. Before all that, real quick, the very first order of business today. Why does Shakespeare
Starting point is 00:09:00 matter at all? Why do we care about his place and his poetry? Who cares about Willie? And the answer is, most of us don't fucking care because we're not Renaissance fair fucking nerds. Most of us in all honesty, I know I'd said something different up top, but honestly, most of us don't give a fuck about William Shakespeare and we find the theater in general, including all the stupid plays he wrote, to be super fucking boring.
Starting point is 00:09:23 Most of us actually like cool shit, like sex, or putting up a new personal record on the bench press, or streaming some show on an awesome new 70-inch plasma, some show full of fucking bad guys, getting blasted by alpha males, and tons of hot titties being flashed on screen. Most of us like inner dicks wet and getting drunk, and high, and not being a fucking dork.
Starting point is 00:09:45 Okay, that was way too aggressive. I think most people who don't like the theater do still at least acknowledge. Shakespeare is pretty cool. Come on, admit it. And even if they don't much of the media, they do watch, has been influenced by Shakespeare in some way. You can make the argument that essentially all modern storytelling has a little Shakespearean. According to the now online encyclopedia Britannica, a place providing a succinct summary that
Starting point is 00:10:10 seems to share some of the same sentiments that many other publications believe. Shakespeare remains vital because his plays present people and situations that we recognize today. His characters have an emotional reality that transcends time and his plays depict familiar familiar experiences ranging from family squabbles to falling in love to war. The fact that his plays are performed and adapted around the world underscores the universal appeal of his storytelling. Shakespeare's contemporary fellow poet and dramatist Ben Johnson wrote that Shakespeare was not of an age, but for all time.
Starting point is 00:10:44 And Benny boy fucking nailed it. It's insane though, over 400 years after his death nearly the entirety of Shakespeare's body of work is still being reproduced. Successfully, to packed houses. Every year on stages around the world and continuously adapted to TV, film, and more, you cannot say that for literally any other author from Shakespeare's day or from before his day. Shakespeare truly stands alone in the longevity of his immense success, especially when you think about the entirety of his catalog. John Russell Brown arguably the world's leading Shakespeare scholar for decades before his death in 2015 at the age of 91 wrote, it may be audacious even to attempt a definition of his greatness. But it is not
Starting point is 00:11:26 so difficult to describe the gifts that enabled him to create imaginative visions of pathos and mirth. That, whether red or witness in the theater, fill the mind and linger there. He is a writer of great intellectual rapidity, perceptiveness and poetic power. Other writers have had these qualities, but with Shakespeare, the keenness of mind was applied not to abs truce or remote subjects, but to human beings and their complete range of emotions and conflicts. Other writers have applied their keenness of mind in this way, but Shakespeare is astonishingly clever with words and images, so that his mental energy when applied to intelligible human situations finds full and memorable expression, convincing and imaginatively stimulated. As if this were not enough, the art form into which his creative energies went was not
Starting point is 00:12:10 remote in bookish, but involved the vivid stage of impersonation of human beings, commanding sympathy and inviting vicarious participation. Thus, Shakespeare's merits can survive translation into other languages and into culture's remote from that of Elizabethan England. That is why he still matters. Universal relevance, baby. He wrote plays that brought audiences to tears or had them laughing out loud back in the late 16th century and those same plays still bringing people to tears, still making people
Starting point is 00:12:39 laugh over four centuries later. Who else, at least in the Western world, can claim that? Sophocles, the ancient Greek playwright who wrote in the fifth century BCE, a full two millennia before Shakespeare's time, we do still perform a few of his plays today, mostly Etappus Rex, but we don't perform all of them regularly anymore. And I would say the effect they have is more historically interesting than it is like emotionally appealing to date.
Starting point is 00:13:08 Not that it doesn't have still some emotional weight. And he's not quoted nearly as often as study to Sturley Shakespeare. Also for us here in America and in any other nation where the primary language is English, no other writer from before during or after Shakespeare's time in, you know, who wrote in English has been as heralded as much as he is. He really is the goat, right? It's fucking crazy. How relevant he still is. Widely regarded as the greatest writer in the history of the English language. If he wrote what is it attribute, what is attributed to him, which again, we will get into later.
Starting point is 00:13:38 As someone who in a sense has made a living as a writer, nearly his entire adult life, I am blown away by Shakespeare's talent. And stand up comedy, it is so much easier to put on a well-received show if you rely on pop culture references or whatever is trendy, right? Follow the trends like crowd work right now, whatever it is, then it is to build an act based on universal truths, an act that will be just as enjoyable
Starting point is 00:14:01 to listen to 50 years from now as it is today. Very few comics have ever done that. Richard Pryor has done that in many moments. George Carlin has, Billy Connelly, Bill Cosby. I know Bill the man, Crindy is fucked now, but some of his early albums about his family, they are about as universal as stand-up kids. Anyway, the list is small. Now let's look at the state of theater and Shakespeare's time and place, get a feel for the world that brilliant mind spraying forth from Shakespeare wrote plays during the Elizabethan and Jacobian ages. Simply put, these were the periods during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth first and King James first. The Elizabethan age began on November 17th, 1558,
Starting point is 00:14:43 when Queen Elizabeth, the first took throne after her half-sister Queen Mary, the first, died from illness at the age of 42. Queen Elizabeth, like Queen Mary, one of the daughters of the infamous King Henry VIII, that dude who was married six times and had two of his wives executed, right off with their heads. And the dude who broke England away from the Catholic Church, when the Pope would not grant him an annulment Which kicked off all sorts of Catholic versus Protestant bloodshed in the UK for centuries going forward His daughter Elizabeth was Protestant Mary was a Catholic
Starting point is 00:15:19 Elizabeth was imprisoned in the Tower of London by her sister due to suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels She was worried her sister was coming for her iron throne. It was some real game of throne. She had a Queen Mary was known as bloody Mary by English Protestants The worry to her sister was coming for her iron throne. It was the world game of throne, shit. Queen Mary was known as Bloody Mary by English Protestants. During her brief five-year reign, she had over 280 religious to centers burned at the stake. BAN THE WHICH! In this case, just being a non-catholic Christian, in her land, during her reign was grounds for being either imprisoned or killed. Then when Elizabeth became queen, the anti-proscient madness ended and was replaced by anti-Catholic
Starting point is 00:15:51 madness. While your basic Catholic wasn't burned at stake and they were instead imprisoned and were fined, their priest, if cock, was often beheaded or executed in some other manner. A large portion of Shakespeare's plays were written during the Elizabethan period and perhaps the fractured side he lived in Helped him write tales such as Romeo and Juliet Like the Montague's and Capulets added to other's throats in a fight for political supremacy of one family Similar to how the Protestants and Catholics were added to other's throats in Shakespeare's day the Jacobian age
Starting point is 00:16:23 Jacobus meaning James and Latin, is the name of the artistic period during the reign of James I, King James I, from 1603 to 1625, and that period considered very similar to the Elizabethan age. The persecution of Catholics continued, and connecting this to our witchcraft suck from a few episodes back, literal witch hunts were common during both these ages. Shakespeare was surrounded by people being tortured and killed for nothing more than gossip and superstition. Shakespeare's most famous tragedies were written during the Jacobian age, the last 10 years of his career. Also King James, who was Bloody Mary's son, was that King James, as in the man who commissioned
Starting point is 00:17:00 the King James version of the Bible, first published in 1611, the most widely published book in the history of the world. Pretty crazy that the most printed author of all time, William Shakespeare, his works have been printed over four fucking billion times, and the most printed book of all time, the King James Bible printed between five and seven billion times, come from the same place and the same time. They're both coming out of essentially London, both of them are based in the same period of time within a few years. Very strange coincidence. But back to burning the witches, providing an escape for many from the insanity of witch hunts and the plague, plague outbreaks were common in London
Starting point is 00:17:43 during Shakespeare's day, something else you had to deal with. And other madness like wars and just, you know, living a typical shitty 16th or 17th century life was the Seattle. Melissa Thomas from Cedar Crest University, an expert on the theater culture of early modern England, writes long before the invention of modern technologies, such as radios and televisions, movies, video game systems, and the ever popular internet, people in the Elizabethan age created an elaborate system of activities and events to keep themselves entertained. Anyone poor or rich could go to the theater to watch plays, but it was mostly the poor who went.
Starting point is 00:18:19 Members of the upper class disapproved of how the poor had access to the theater, as also used as a place for sex workers and their customers to maybe go on dates or to, you know, get some dates. And because plays were performed in the afternoon, people had to leave work, which the upper class also frowned on. I wonder how many members of the upper class who disapproved of peasants not working had literally never worked themselves in their lives. Thanks to the money they were born into. Disgusting how the lazy, unruly and downtrodden masses
Starting point is 00:18:48 waste their slavvantly lives at the theater. They should be working and making something of themselves. And another thing, where's my fresh pot of tea? Where's the shortbread I asked for 20 minutes ago? How am I supposed to sit in my pleated leather chair and complain about the lazy pole in my mansion in front of the fire of my seven Still keep me full of tea and shortbread everyone's lazy and my feet are cold. Where's Martha? I need my blanket adjusted
Starting point is 00:19:12 Many theaters were not actually located in London. They were built on the south bank of the river Thames Just outside the city that was because the city had strict regulations against theaters since 1575 because the city had strict regulations against theaters since 1575 due to plague outbreaks and unseemly behavior. And I will say theaters back with, then they were pretty fucking unseemly. Thanks to a real problem in London and the surrounding areas with poop, with paint about it. This is so fucking gross.
Starting point is 00:19:40 London and Shakespeare's Day had about 200,000 people living in this in the city. No modern plumbing, just think about that. There's 200,000 people living in this in this in the city No modern plumbing. Just think about that. There's 200,000 people I live in in India urban conditions, and they don't have plumbing. No indoor plumbing best case yet like a a privy or a cesspit in your home a Little pit dug beneath your toilet and you're supposed to have these pits emptied out by this brotherhood of sewage removal professionals known as gong farmers, toshers,
Starting point is 00:20:08 rakers, night soil haulers, and more. Uh, their job was to shovel out the shit from your privy or cesspit, dump it into a hand drawn or horse drawn cart, and then carry the shit out of the city and sell it as fertilizer. And they were doing this back when hand sanitizer and hot showers did not exist. When fucking no one had a glade plug in Well, not everyone could afford to have these dudes keep their privies and says pits clean and so their shit
Starting point is 00:20:33 literal shit excuse me would back up and sometimes overflow Into say a neighbor's basement or living room think about just like tipping an outhouse outhouse over in your neighbor's basement or living room. Think about just like tipping an outhouse, outhouse over in your neighbor's living room. Or they'd illegally have their pits funnel out into a ditch or some creek or the river tems. And not everyone even had a privy or a cesspool. So they would have best case, you know, a chamber pot and they would shit and piss into that
Starting point is 00:20:59 or just an old wooden bucket. And then they would just dump that literal bucket of shit into the street or the river. Or just wherever they could sneak off and dump it without getting caught and find. Imagine how London smelled just in general on a hot summer's day. And early theaters, right, the context of all this shitty, just no designated bathrooms. And apparently this, I looked in so many stores, I'm like, this has got to be a fucking nonsense, but I guess not. People would just piss anywhere they felt comfortable pissing, oftentimes in like, especially the general cheating area
Starting point is 00:21:32 of the theater, where there wasn't a signed city. It was like, I'm more like a standing like the pit. Many, you know, maybe on the back wall of the theater, maybe on one of the buckets or chamber pots, they would just hand, like toss around for that exact purpose, like, during shows, maybe they would step outside of the theater, maybe one of the buckets or chamber pots, they would just hand like toss around for that exact purpose, like during shows, maybe they would step outside of the theater, piss in the river, or against an exterior wall of the theater. The Globe Theater built in 1599 by Shakespeare's acting company, Lord Chamberlain's Men, had an area we might call the pit today. Big area directly in front of the stage had no seats. It was, you know, for people who couldn't afford seated tickets,
Starting point is 00:22:04 it was cheaper, unreserved tickets, and know, for people who couldn't afford seated tickets, it was cheaper, unreserved tickets. And people standing for the entirety of the production, they were called groundlings. They might just stand and piss there, hopefully into a bucket, while the play is being performed. And if nature dialed an extra number, when she called, they might just shit in that bucket as well. Like a theater of people all tearing up as Juliet, you know, realizes Romeo is dead and maybe one terri-eyed groundling who just is having some stomach problems. There's also taking a dump, right? Just, oh, happy Dagger, this is his eye of sheath.
Starting point is 00:22:40 Oi, who just cut out third of such stink? My heart bleeds from my Romeo and my eyes burn from the shit of some grounding for fuck's sake! And extra fun. All this showbiz was happening a few centuries before the advent of toilet paper. They would use an assortment of stuff to wipe their asses. Maybe some moss, maybe no rag, tree leaves, cabbage leaves, tea leaves, pamphlets, and other scraps of paper that came from a book other than the Bible. And that's not me adding commentary. According to some sources, that really was the only paper that was off limits, the Bible, for ripping up and wiping your ass with. And sometimes I really wish I was making this up. They would use their fucking shirt
Starting point is 00:23:21 sleeves. If they didn't have anything else handy or they just wouldn't wipe at all What the fuck like just don't wipe? How how is wiping shit on your shirt sleeve better than just leaving it on your ass? I mean I guess you're not gonna get a rash, but fuck the smells and these dirty savages Which is keep standing there in their filth Watching a little bit of hamlet or whatever. Ah, feeling real grateful to be alive today right now.
Starting point is 00:23:49 So grateful. Too bad Shakespeare can't get into time machine, you know, come from the 16th century up to now and be like, oh, this is how people were supposed to watch my shows. While the bathroom situation wasn't very sanitary back then, the content of the production themselves was sanitized to a degree. The theaters were censored by the office of the Rebels, presided over by the content of the productions themselves was sanitized to a degree. The theaters were censored by the office of the Rebels, presided over by the master of the Rebels. The office of Rebels was dedicated to reading play manuscripts before they were performed, removing any material
Starting point is 00:24:15 deemed offensive or unseemly. Make sure there was any witchcraft, bullshit, snuck into the script. Right? Make sure no jokes are being made, it the expense of the king, or that the material wasn't too anti-catholic or anti-pronestant or anti-whatever was fucking not supposed to be against at that time. Who worked at the office of the Rebels? What kind of kill joy was eager to do some censoring? And how different would some of Shakespeare's plays be now if he hadn't been censored? O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore, out of Romeo, how I long for your prick, your meat spindle, your inflated fiddle to pierce the tender recesses of my bikini burger for the very first time. Hey, Luciferina. I mean, maybe bikini burger, burger wasn't vaginal slang from the correct era.
Starting point is 00:25:02 It just makes me laugh though. I don't, I can't remember hearing Bikini burger as a euphemism for vagina before this week. That kind of shit probably would have played well for the crowds of Shakespeare's day. Much of the audience was dudes, upper and lower class women also visitors to the theater, but not as common.
Starting point is 00:25:19 wealthy women, the least common attendees. When they did show up, they typically wore masks to hide their identities because it was frowned upon for women of a certain status to watch performances, although Queen Elizabeth herself loved the theater. And when I say Queen Elizabeth, I, I do want to make it clear that I don't mean the recent queen who died in 2022 because I, I can see how that would be confusing. She would be Queen Elizabeth the second, but I want to like make that clear because
Starting point is 00:25:49 due to her very advanced age towards the end of her life, I could see how some of you might think that she was born in the 16th century. So most of the audience was men and all the actors were men. The performance is real sausage fest. As many of you most likely learning your high school English classes, women not allowed to perform for centuries. According to a lecture by Lawrence Sennelick, professor of drama and oratory at Tufts University, from the dawn of time women's presence in the theater has been the exception rather than the rule. The theater is grounded in religion and having women on stage was not considered de course. Their realm is the home. And staff writer Ken Gowertz once wrote for the Harvard Gazette, the irony is that the religion from which ancient Greek theaters spring up was the worship
Starting point is 00:26:30 of Dionysus, the god of ecstasy, whose rights were carried out principally by women. But when these rights evolved into theater, women were banished from the stage and their parts taken by men. The Greeks believed that allowing women to perform publicly would be too dangerous, and that having men portray them neutralized the danger. So dangerous to let women perform publicly. It might be seen as overtly sexual. They might say things in the play that people think they really believe, controversial things. Women were not allowed to perform until later in the 17th century, just after Shakespeare's
Starting point is 00:27:03 time, when female opera singers started performing. And even then, many still didn't approve. Pope Clement, the Eleventh, said, a beautiful woman who sings on stage and keeps her chest to the, is like a man who leaps into the tibia and keeps his feet dry. Ah, man, well, fucking weirdo. So dangerous. Performing a passionate role, perhaps playing a character with a romantic relationship or interest in another character inevitably leads to that devil pussy getting wet.
Starting point is 00:27:33 That chased Vakini burger, getting all moist, the whole room. Now a few words on how the theater was evolving in England before and during Shakespeare's day. In England in the early 16th century, just before Shakespeare's time, there were two groups, types of theater in England, small groups of professionals who performed in various halls, ends and markets, taking gigs, wherever they could get them, or groups of amateur actors who sometimes performed for the royals or assorted gentry just for funsies. By the second half of the 16th century,
Starting point is 00:28:05 some of London's professional acting troops had become quite popular, and were able to remain in London for performances, instead of taking their dog and pony shows down the road. In 1576, when Shakespeare would have been 12, professional Thespian, theatrical producer, and now theater builder, James Burbage, establishes the theater.
Starting point is 00:28:24 That's actually what it was called, the theater. The first successful permanent space dedicated to performing plays in London. And the first true theater of any kind in England since Roman times. It sat just outside of London, due again to the mayor of London banning plays due to concerns about plague outbreaks. Another theater, the Red Lion, had been built just before the theater, but didn't even last a year before shutting down. So Burbage's theater would last until just after his death, which ended his lease in 1598.
Starting point is 00:28:50 So that had a nice 26 year run. James Sun, Richard Burbage, Dickie B, baby, no dick quest, but still a fine dick. We'll go on to be Shakespeare's greatest actor, more on that dick later. More theaters will be constructed in the years following the opening of the theater, being able to have a dedicated year around theater, hosting production after production, just like what
Starting point is 00:29:10 happens on Broadway in New York or the West End and today's London, or in theater districts in virtually every major city in the world, that is now a thing in Shakespeare's London, which greatly helps him. Most ages during the Elizabethan age in London were
Starting point is 00:29:25 platforms. Sometimes the largest 40 square feet in the middle of a yard surrounded by mostly standing or only standing spectators. Platforms were usually raised four to six feet, had a roof which was called the shadow or the heavens. The roof was meant to conceal an area where production objects, set decorations were raised or lowered. At the back of the stage was a multi-level facade with two large doors at stage level and a space for discoveries of hidden characters. Few props would be used during performances and larger props usually stayed on stage throughout the play. Oftentimes actors didn't spend much time rehearsing, usually only receive their personal lines. Play productions clearly a lot more raw back then.
Starting point is 00:30:05 Or maybe people are a lot better in memorizing lines back then than they are now. Back when they lived in a world where fewer people had access to books, no one had access to the internet so you couldn't just easily look something up when you forgot it. Because of a lack of rehearsals compared to today, some of the most important scenes in plays usually involve just a few characters, and often just one character dominated the scene. The less back and forth dialogue, the easier to get the production up and running. Female roles were performed by boys or young men, which is why in many of Shakespeare's plays, women are not the stars and often do not remain on stage for very long.
Starting point is 00:30:38 And hopefully, the boys weren't too young. I'm having some weird visuals right now in my head, like a production of Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo is played by some large beefy, I don't know, fucking 30, 40-year-old bearded dude, and then Juliet is played by a way fish baby face like a 11-year-old boy, just a bit cringy. Despite being more simplistic than today's productions, Elizabethan plays did have special effects,
Starting point is 00:31:02 such as smoke, cannons, fireworks, and flying entrances where actors will be rigged up to the roof areas. Pretty cool. They were able to do that back then. The stage also had trap doors that allowed ghosts to rise from the graves. And of course, productions evolved to incorporate cooler stage tricks and become more polished as more theaters spun up, providing more of a true scene for actors and set designers and theater carpenters, producers, et cetera,
Starting point is 00:31:26 to work on their craft, right, where they pushed each other to get better and better. And some theaters, a wall covered by a curtain separated backstage from the dressing room. This was called the Eris. The theaters overall shapes around, square, or octagonal, and typically had thatched roofs that covered part or all of the space above the audience.
Starting point is 00:31:44 Spectators could usually either stand in the yard, sit on benches, sit in a private box, or even sit on a stool on stage if they had enough money. And that is fucking weird. What if the actors hated that? They must have. It makes me think of performing a stand-up set with some, you know, King Shit VIP literally on stage with me. Someone who paid so much I can't just have them kicked out.
Starting point is 00:32:08 If they get too rowdy or disruptive, no thank you. I can see that set up leading to some actors really losing their shit. I have to spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which all leaps itself and falls on what you shot the fuck up Jonathan Do you really have to piss and a fucking bucket on a stage right now you piece of shit? It's the middle of my pivotal Seleniquy Theater performances are usually about three hours long Plays were formed each day with different plays performed every day theaters put up flags on performance day and occasionally put a picture up
Starting point is 00:32:46 advertising the next day's play. Black flags were used for tragedies, white for comedies and red for histories. Why the colors? Well, because people were largely illiterate back then. A lot of these audiences were also obnoxious assholes audiences, typically we're not quiet during performances. Which sounds horrific to me. They would talk throughout the entirety of the play,
Starting point is 00:33:06 often arrive late and leave whenever they wanted to. They would interrupt actors, yell at actors, sometimes get up on stage and insert themselves into the play, and the whole throwing Rotten Tomatoes thing that has not made up. Some audience members would actually bring Rotten vegetables to throw at performers. Ah! As someone who's been a traveling performer for the majority of my life, up, some audience members would actually bring rotten vegetables to throw it performance. Ah, as someone who's been a traveling performer for the majority of my life, what a
Starting point is 00:33:30 fucking nightmare. The theater crowd that Shakespeare produced his works for it, not at all like the theater crowd today. Eddicate has thankfully improved dramatically in the past 400 years. And audiences are showing a lot more respect for the works of Shakespeare now than they ever did in his lifetime. Pretty sad that the audiences that watch Shakespeare's works today are just so much better than the audiences he actually saw in his lifetime. Let's now discuss a brief overview of his writing style. Shakespeare was a creative
Starting point is 00:33:59 genius who, like all creative people, genius or not, was inspired and influenced to some degree by the authors who came before him. For example, historical characters written about in Chronicles by Raphael Hollinshed published in 1577 when Shakespeare was 13, very likely directly inspired the plays Macbeth and King Lear. Chronicles was a collaborative work that covers British history. Raphael Hollinshed was an English chronicler, most known for writing chronicles, big sets, tracks. His work became a source that helped inspired many dramatists of the
Starting point is 00:34:32 Elizabethan era. Shakespeare was also inspired by ancient Greek writers like Avid and Senica, Cardenio, one of Shakespeare's lost works, most likely based on parts of Don Quixote, One of Shakespeare's lost works, most likely based on parts of Don Quijote, Cardenio, or the history of Cardenio, and loves Labor 1 are both considered by many to be Shakespeare's lost plays. There may have been others that we just have not found references to, with Cardenio, I think I was saying Cardenio, we know based on historical documents that the Kingsmen performed it, we just don't know its contents. Like they had something to do with the character Cardinio from Don Quijote. Same for Love's Labor One, except something this was an alternate title for one of Shakespeare's known place, so maybe that was not an extra play. Now, let's go full fucking high school literature class and blow spit watts at the teacher when he or she is writing on the chalkboard with her back towards us. Or let's talk about Iambic pentameter.
Starting point is 00:35:25 Iambic pentameter is the name given to the rhythm that Shakespeare used in his plays in Sonnets, a rhythm he did not invent, by the way. It was a poetic writing style already popular in England during his day. He just made it famous. The rhythm of Iambic pentameter is like a heartbeat, with one soft beat and one strong beat repeated five times.
Starting point is 00:35:43 And I am is a foot or beat that consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed symbol. Right example words, delight, the sun, guess that's not a word that's too, for lorn, one day, release, pentamines five meters, so I am bit pentameter means five feet or five sets of stressed syllables and unstressed syllables. A popular website dedicated to everything Shakespeare, no sweat Shakespeare, writes, putting
Starting point is 00:36:10 these two terms together, Iambic pentameter is a line of writing that consists of ten syllables, in a specific pattern of an unstressed syllable, followed by a stressed syllable, or a short syllable, followed by a long symbol, syllable. One example from Shakespeare's writing is, shall I compare the two a summer's day? I guess that's a some version of that, I'm not saying, but it would make it sound a lot cooler than I just did. Myambic pentameter's popular during both Elizabethan and Jacobian ages, according to no sweat Shakespeare, Iambic pentameter is a basic rhythm that's pleasing to the year and closely resembles the rhythm of everyday speech or a heartbeat.
Starting point is 00:36:47 In addition to having a pleasing rhythm, Shakespeare also was a fabulously entertaining writer, tragedy, comedy, or historical play. He knew how to keep his audience's crying, laughing, or at least, you know, interested in what they were hearing and watching. He had a little bit of loose afina in him. Hail loose afina. Shakespeare's audiences were often laughing, interjecting, and shouting at the actors because his plays were full of sexual innuendos, that he managed to sneak past the master of the rebels. Here's some examples from Hamlet, Act 3 scene 2. Lady, shall I lie in your lap? No, my lord.
Starting point is 00:37:20 Do you think I meant country manners? Oh, wait, sorry. Did you think I meant country matters? Oh, wait, sorry. Did you think I meant country matters? I think nothing, my lord. That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs. Well, during the Elizabethan era, nothing was slang for pussy. And country was pronounced with a lot of emphasis
Starting point is 00:37:38 on the first syllable, so, cunt, re. So, you know, talking about pussy there, I mean, it's X, ham know, talking about push there, I mean, sex, hamlet talking about getting in and out and in and out and in and out of or fee a Filias bikini burger. Here's more hot and steamy Elizabethan erasectinus from the poem Venus and Adonis. Graze on my lips and if those hills be dry stray lower where the pleasant fountains lie Fuck yeah bro eat my plus and From Titus and Drone kiss act four scene two Thou has undone our mother
Starting point is 00:38:16 Villain I have done thy mother Mm-hmm throwing in a little I fucked your mom. Uh, reference back in the late 16th century. Uh, from the 12th night act 2, scene 5, By my life, this is my lady's hand. These be her very seas, her use, and her tease. And thus make she her great peace. During the Elizabethan era, this line would have been read as her very sees her use, and instead of, and in her teeth.
Starting point is 00:38:47 So, you know, cut. As in, again, Bikini Burger. Little more about Sweet Willie's, not a style now, and then what happened was timeline. Shakespeare's early plays were written in the conventional style of his time, which means they were written with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases that didn't always align naturally with these stories plot or characters. Over his career, Shakespeare adapted this traditional style. He incorporated the metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, also called blank verse, that we just went over. And there are passengers passengers in his plays that deviate from iambic pentameter and use simple prose.
Starting point is 00:39:22 passengers in his plays that deviate from anemic, Iambic pentameter and use simple pros. Shakespeare wrote between 37 and 39 plays from approximately 1590 to 1613. The most common themes of his plays were histories, tragedies, comedies, and tragic comedies. Most of his plays were histories. Plays like Henry VI, parts one, two, and three, dude had a fucking trilogy.
Starting point is 00:39:42 Just like film franchises so often do today Henry the six was his very own back to the future franchise or something like that. He also wrote Richard II Henry the fifth all these plays focus primarily on the actions of corrupt rulers. Julius Caesar was meant to showcase the drama and chaos of Roman politics which may have been relevant to the times because of Queen Elizabeth the first. She had no heirs leaving leaving the throne open and conflict inevitable, a topic undoubtedly on the minds of his audience members. Shakespeare also wrote comedies like a mid-Summer night stream, Merchant of Venice, much you do about nothing, as you like it, and twelfth night. Shakespeare transitioned to tragedies after 1600 writing classics like Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth.
Starting point is 00:40:27 Hamlet aka the tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, won a Shakespeare's most well-known plays, exploring darker elements of human nature. Hamlet is still considered among the most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language with a story capable of seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others. It's been adapted over 50 films into over 50 films and counting. I personally love the 1996 version with Mel Gibson, Glenn Close, Helena Bottom Carter. She is fantastic. During his final period, Shakespeare wrote tragic comedies
Starting point is 00:40:56 like Symboline, The Winters Tale, and The Tempest. On The Tempest has been made in numerous films and inspired many others, including the awesome sci-fi thriller, X Machina, and let's look into all of that right after today's mid-show sponsor break. Thanks for sticking around me to sex. Now it is actually time for the timeline. on the boots soldier were marching down a time some time line uh... despite how prolific of a writer shakesper was like a mention earlier
Starting point is 00:41:34 we don't know a lot about his personal life the only official documentation of shakesper is church and court records uh... william uh... that being said here we here we go uh... william zips app shakesper was born on april twenty third fifteen sixty four Williams. William, but that being said, yeah, here we go. William Zippsapp Shakespeare was born on April 23rd, 1564. His middle name is usually not mentioned because it sounds just pretty silly today, but Zippsapp was a super common middle name in England in the mid-16th century. People who had it typically went by Zippy or Zappy.
Starting point is 00:42:01 It is thought that Shakespeare's closest friends and family did know him as Zippy, Zippy Willie. And that is nonsense, of course, but it's makes me laugh to think about it. Makes me laugh to think about the greatest playwright in the history of the English language. Being a dude commonly known as Zippy Willie. What was actually common when and where William was born was not to have a middle name. There are actually no birth records for Shakespeare, but the parish register of his local church states that he was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford upon Avon April 26, 1564. The origins of that church built in 1210 CE on the site of an even older church. More than 200,000 people a year now visit that church because of Shakespeare. It's
Starting point is 00:42:44 believed that based on Zippy Willie's baptismal date, he would have been born three days earlier, which would have fit baptismal traditions of England at that time. So born on April 23rd, 1564, stratford upon Ava on located over 90 miles northwest of London, according to biography.com. It was a bustling market town along the river Avaugh and bisected by and bisected by a country road. Historians think it would have taken Shakespeare traveling by stagecoach about three days to make the journey between a strafford and London. What a different time.
Starting point is 00:43:16 Now if you have a car drive above the speed limit and drive above the speed limit, a bit like the average person, you can knock that journey out and listen two hours if you don't hit too much traffic. The first residents of the Stratford area were an Anglican tribe called the Weecha, or Weechae, a Germanic tribe that settled in the area after the Romans left. Settlement was absorbed into the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom
Starting point is 00:43:38 around the six century. That's what it's got its name. First written Anglo-Saxon reference to Stratford occurred between 693 and 717. The town was named eight Stratford the Isles of the Fort. According to the Shakespeare birthplace trust, presumably it was the establishment of the Holy Trinity Church that drew written attention. So the original church may have been built, you know, a long time before 1210. The small settlement at the time consisted of a church, a monastery, a water mill, and a community of about 20 families.
Starting point is 00:44:10 And then Danish raiders, fucking Vikings destroyed all that. And 1015 while doing some literal raping and pillaging in the area. A terrible time to be alive. At some point during the 11th century, the Holy Trinity Church was rebuilt with stone and then rebuilt again in 1210. During the 12th, 13th, 14th centuries, residents of Stratford lived under the feudal system. The settlement became a planned town with griddle streets and houses on narrow plots of land. Around 1269, the guild of the Holy Cross took municipal responsibility for the city and would remain in control until 1547. The guild was the central institution of
Starting point is 00:44:45 Stratford Civic and Cultural Life, which catered for the town's spiritual needs and fulfilled a range of political and social functions, such as building and maintaining a hospital. A number of historical buildings associated with the guild still survived today. In the early 14th century, John Dys Stratford became the first Stratford resident to attend university. He graduated in 1311 he would eventually become the archbishop of canterbury and donate money towards pave the streets and church renovations back in stratford upon a bond when the guild of the holy cross was abolished in 1547 following declining membership thanks to all of the religious and political turmoil in uncertain
Starting point is 00:45:21 deningland at that time right? Fucking Henry the eights mess. The town had no local government for the next six years. Shake out Wild West. The guild system was then replaced by what was called the corporation. Sounds terrible. The townspeople took ownership of guild property and the town once again became self governing, self governing under authority of the crown, of course. A group of 28 local big wigs ran the show
Starting point is 00:45:47 kind of like a city council today, excuse me, due to a lack of records, not totally clear how they were elected or exactly how they ran things. Many Stratford residents at that time, now we are in Shakespeare's time, relied on the wool trade and sheep farming. Stratford was a regional center for the processing, marketing and distribution of various sheep products. It's a fucking classic sheep farming. Stratford was a regional center for the processing, marketing, and distribution
Starting point is 00:46:05 of various sheep products. It's a fucking classic sheep town. Stratford was considered a very economically successful town. Let a lot of good wool, so many good sheep's. By the time old Zippy Willie was born, Stratford would later go on to experience further economic growth in the 18th century, mostly due to Shakespeare's reputation. By the end of the 1700s Stratford
Starting point is 00:46:26 already become a tourist town. In 1769, actor and playwright David Garrick organized the Shakespeare Jubilee, the very first festival celebrating Zippy Willie in his hometown. In the 19th century, the Shakespeare birthplace Trust was established, which provided cultural capital to attract more tourists. And now Stratford is the second most visited location in all of the UK. London is number one, right? And then Stratford is number two, approximately 2.7 million people a year visit Stratford. That's fucking wild. One guy, still making all kinds of people, all kinds of money.
Starting point is 00:47:03 Just hundreds and hundreds of millions, probably billions of pounds, four centuries after his death. A little over 30,000 people now live in this town, and only three, or maybe four of them, are able to make a living without hanging off a zippy-willy's nuts. And that is a quote from the Stratford Shakespearean Economic Society, or it would be if that society existed. But for real, tourism is far and away the leading provider of jobs and strat for
Starting point is 00:47:28 it upon even all due to one dude. In a very real way, Shakespeare built that city, not star ship, like they claim in their $9.75 chart topper. And that's a corny 80s rock reference, if you're confused right now. Let's transition back to Shakespeare. Shakespeare was a third child of John Shakespeare in Mary Arden. John and Mary had eight kids,
Starting point is 00:47:49 sadly their first two daughters died as infants, which made Shakespeare their third progeny, their oldest living child. Shakespeare and sister Joan died a few weeks after being born and his sister Margaret died at the age of one. Man, watching your first two kids die before the age of two. It's fucking brutal. I do not wish that on anyone, but it was common back then.
Starting point is 00:48:07 It was the norm at this time, really. Like, you were the anomaly if, you know, one or more of your kids didn't die during childhood. Shakespeare had five younger siblings. His brother, Gilbert. Gilbert was born in 1566, died in 1612, Joan 1569, died in 1646, and born in 1571, and died in 1579. Richard got a lot of the nonstop suck first, Dick Parade born in 1574, died in 1613, and Edmund, born in 1580, and died in 1607. Record suggested Gilbert was a Haberdasher,
Starting point is 00:48:47 and might have spent most of his time in London. There's a record of a Haberdasher named Gilbert Shakespeare in St. Brides, a church on London's famous Fleet Street. Fleet Street spent around since Roman times. Now famous for having some of England's oldest banks, finest hotels, and became known for printing and publishing towards the end of Shakespeare's life at the start of the 16th century. By the 20th century, most British national newspapers
Starting point is 00:49:09 operated from Fleet Street. In Shakespeare's day, a Haberdashia was a person who sold small articles for sewing, dress making, and knitting, such as buttons, ribbons, and zippers. Later it became a term for someone selling men's clothing specifically suits. Joan was the only sibling who would outlive Shakespeare. She married a hatter named William Hart, William the Hatter Hart in the 1590s. All these old-timey jobs. I love it. Habard Asher's and Hatter's.
Starting point is 00:49:35 Uh, luckily none of the Shakespeare clan, uh, had to work as a night soil hauler. And night soil might be the best euphemism I've ever heard for poop. You feeling okay, Joe? I am now. I had to pump out a little night soil earlier, feeling way better now. Williams' brother Edmund was a London actor. He died at the young age 27 and his belief Shakespeare paid for his funeral. Too bad we don't know how good he was at acting. There are no records of how captivated or not. Audiences were with his performances.
Starting point is 00:50:06 I would suck to be fucking Shakespeare's brother and just be a shit actor. Always you know playing fucking bush number six in a production. Williams father John was a glove maker in a political figure in town. He served different civic positions, which gave him an elevated status. And that status allowed him to send his kids to the local grammar school for free. And I love that glove making just gloves. No other articles of clothing was a true craft with practitioners all around England going back to at least as far as the mid 14th century. They made gloves from the skins of sheep, do's, horses, goats, as well as from satin silk, velvet, and worsted gloves or pop it or gifts and
Starting point is 00:50:46 featuring wills as presents for mourners. So called chicken skin gloves. We're also a thing. A set of chicken skin gloves. It's got to be a lot easier to find a chicken skin duffel bag right now than it is to find a pair of chicken skin gloves. You get it. Chicken skin gloves are actually made from the skin of unborn calves.
Starting point is 00:51:03 Yeek. And check out this level of decadence. Check out this level of don't give a fuck. The chicken skin gloves were actually made from the skin of unborn calves, yik. And check out this level of decadence. Check out this level of don't give a fuck, right? Just back then. These nasty-esque gloves were popular with royal women for a time because they were so ridiculously thin, smooth, and delicate, total status thing. Like an Elizabethan version of Armani or Prada or Rolex. The sign of getting a legit pair from a true master of their craft was if it passed the Walnut shell test.
Starting point is 00:51:27 And that meant a pair of these chicken skin gloves could be folded down into a shape so tiny, it would fit into a little Walnut shell. And these gloves were so delicate, they were meant to only be worn either a few times or just once, because trying to wash them would destroy them. Little random glove trivia for you today, right?
Starting point is 00:51:44 So they would just fucking take some, not quite born fetus and like, let's fucking kill it so we can make a couple gloves that can be worn one time. I'm sure you were hoping to beef up on your, Elizabethan glove knowledge, this episode. Now a bit about Zippy Willys Mama, Mary Arden, was a daughter of a farmer from the village of Wilmkitt.
Starting point is 00:52:05 She was most likely born between 1536 and 1538, the youngest of eight kids of Robert Arden, old Bobby A, a member of the guild of the Holy Cross. When Mary's father died, she inherited a significant amount of land and a little over six pounds, which is roughly equivalent to around four billion pounds today. No, 30,000 pounds in modern money. About 40,000 bucks, maybe. Very hard to rely on inflation calculators for reliable currency translation from that long ago. Marries between 19 and 21 when she married John,
Starting point is 00:52:35 and there's some evidence that Mary knew how to read, which wasn't rare exactly for a woman at that time, but many women were illiterate. Since schools for girls would not arrive in England until the 17th century. And she was mentioned as the executor of her father's will. Now back to Papa John, better sonnets, better night soil, Papa Shakespeare. John Shakespeare was most likely born in the 1520s. He was a son of a farmer, Richard Shakespeare, fucking cool, another dick for the succs too.
Starting point is 00:53:03 From the village Snitterfield, old dick-esque from Snitterfield. About two miles from Stratford. John moved to Stratford by 1552 at the latest on April 29th of that year. He had to pay a fine of one shilling for creating a mitten heap, a muck heap, in the street. Apparently he threw his shit, his literal shit, out into the street in a way that ran contrary to some kind of local ordinance. Like maybe there was a designated night soil disposal area on one side of the street and he just flung his turds on the other side. John purchased property in 1556 on Green Hill Street and Henley Street where Shakespeare would be born eight years later. John married Mary Arden the following year in 1557,
Starting point is 00:53:45 only the house made him a man worth marrying. In 1556, John was appointed to the civic position of ale taster. That was a common job back then. Still loving all these old-timey jobs. An official ale tester tasted the ale and bread made it a town to make sure that locals weren't eating or drinking anything moldy, rotten, or just, you know, especially not good for whatever reason. They made sure certain standards were being held. So the locals weren't being ripped off and to prevent the town from getting to bad reputation amongst outsiders. I think of them as like, you know, beer inspectors, beer and bread inspectors.
Starting point is 00:54:21 This position led to more civic positions for John, such as Chamberlain, Constable, and 1558, Olderman, and 1564, and High Balif, basically Mayor, and 1568. John was also one of 22 glove makers in town. 22 glove makers, in a town of about 2,500 people. That's one glove maker for over 113-ish people. Gloves were fucking hot and strafered. You either had some sick-ass gloves, you either rocked that sweet chicken skin,
Starting point is 00:54:53 or you were a bare-handed fucking loser. Go lay down in a ditch and die, you naked-fingered fuck. Can't afford a new pair of calf feet as hand-warmers every time you leave the house. How do you keep waking up every morning when you're so poor and pathetic? In addition, every time you leave the house, how do you keep waking up every morning when you're so poor and pathetic? In addition, to being a local glove maker,
Starting point is 00:55:09 John was also a wittower and made his own leather with deer, horse, goat, sheep, and howonskin. Howonskin, my god. Okay, would you like some howonskin shoes? No, I don't want it to fucking how in skin shoes. It's fucking to the horrific John was also a wool bragger in his spare time, which was an unlicensed illegal wool dealer Wool dealing was restricted to state approved wool merchants after a 1553 act of parliament The crown want a piece of every wool shilling made in the kingdom
Starting point is 00:55:43 but Johnny crown want to piece of every wool shilling made in the kingdom. But Johnny, Johnny S wasn't going to wait on no government to give his sweet ass permission to make his fucking wool. Don't tread on me, motherfuckers. No one tells Johnny calf fetus fingers. If he can or can out make his ass some wool, John made a killing with black market wool. He actually did. From 1571 to 1572, he sold approximately 5600 pounds of illegal black market wool. What a funny item to be on the black market, by the way. I picture some guy in an alley with a card of so much wool behind him. Just, hey, hey, hey, over here. You want in on some of these mittens? You're not going to find a better sweater for a better price than this sweet
Starting point is 00:56:26 sexy shit I got right here. Come on, bro. Let me pull the wool over your eyes. You know you want this quilt. John had to go to court in 1572 for illegal wool purchases following this. He was done with local government and he stopped going to council meetings. If they weren't gonna let him make his fucking wool cash, you know, fuck them all. John started mortgaging some of his
Starting point is 00:56:45 land now, starting with a 48 acre purchase, which indicated the beginning of his money problems. He still had the sheep just couldn't make cash off them any more like he used to. They cut off his, you know, his fucking wool dollar flow or what? And now the gloves aren't paying the bills. The local market is flooded with gloves. You can't throw a fucking rock without hitting some schmuck. We're going on some chicken skin gloves. In 1592, John fails to appear in church because of his debts, which I knew exactly why that kept him out, maybe embarrassment, or maybe literally not allowed to go to church, until he paid back some debts. I don't know. However, it seemed like he was able to turn things around because in 1596, John
Starting point is 00:57:22 was awarded a coat of alms, more on that coat arms later. We have very few records about Shakespeare's childhood in education. According to the Shakespeare birthplace, trust Mary Arden would likely have told young Shakespeare fables and fairy tales, like a typical English mother. In English mom would do for her child. That's what folks did there. He was little. These childhood stories would be referenced in some of Shakespeare's plays. Shakespeare also would have read like other children of his day and age, or at least other male children,
Starting point is 00:57:50 the Bible at home, at the age of seven, he attended Petty School, where he learned the alphabet numbers and 10 commandments and the Lord's Prayer. And this was typically written on parchment and made into a so-called horn book. A horn book was a single-sided alphabet tablet, which served from medieval times as a primer for study
Starting point is 00:58:07 and sometimes included vowel combinations, numerals, or short verse. From 1571 to 1579, ages seven to 15 for Zippy Willie. Shakespeare likely attended the local grammar school called the King's New School, which it was established by King Edward VI, a few decades before to offer free education to boys and strafford.
Starting point is 00:58:27 There are no written records of his attendance, but it would have been unusual for him not to have attended that school, especially considering how literate he went on to become. According to the lowest-potter former English professor at the University of Delaware and Shakespeare officianato, while the school's records during Shakespeare's childhood no longer exist, references in his play suggest he knew all the basics that boys would have learned at grammar school. For example, in much ado about nothing, the character Benedict says the line, what? Interjections?
Starting point is 00:58:54 Well, then, some be of laughing as, ha ha, he he. This comes from a section of the William Lillie's grammar book that teachers in England were supposed to use. School taught reading, writing, and the classic Shakespeare would have learned and spoken, excuse me, and written Latin at the school. And he would have studied classic Latin authors, or authors in Latin.
Starting point is 00:59:15 Students also expected to speak Latin to each other during recess and at home. Shakespeare most likely left school at the age of 14 to begin a seven year apprenticeship until his coming of age. There are no records of Shakespeare attending university. As mentioned previously, Shakespeare lived with his family in a house on Henley Street until he was 18. If you did begin in apprenticeship around that time, we don't know what it was.
Starting point is 00:59:37 Johnny Shakespeare owned the house. Zippy will he was born and raised in for approximately 50 years. The house served as a family residence and his Glover shop. John worked on the east side of the building and had a barn and workshops outside where he did his dirty illicit wool trading. About 20 years after the house was constructed, a two-room cottage was added where Shakespeare's sister Joan and her husband William would live. Apparently there were only about 10 fucking names back then to pick for pick from for dudes. Right, we got
Starting point is 01:00:02 William, we got Richard, and we got a couple more. John left the house to his oldest daughter, Susanna when he died, Willie's sister Joan continued renting the house. Susanna left the house to her daughter Elizabeth. Elizabeth had no kids, so the house went to the descendants of Joan Hart and the Hart's own the Henley Street House
Starting point is 01:00:19 until the late 18th century. The house eventually went up for sale and was purchased by the Shakespeare birthplace Trust, which is great, so it can be preserved. Shakespeare's birthplace went up for sale and was purchased by the Shakespeare birthplace trust, which is great. So it can be preserved. Shakespeare's birthplace went up for sale in 1847. The Henley Street property was divided into three entities, the Swan and Maiden head in a butcher shop and a tenement. The entire building was owned by Anne Court for a time.
Starting point is 01:00:40 Anne's husband Thomas Court had restrictions in his will on how the property could be sold. The will stated that after Anne's death, the house had to enter a public auction. And when it did go up for auction, there was so much interest, as you can imagine, from people like Washington Irving, Charles Dickens. By the 1830s, the Royal Shakespearean club was involved in the restoration of Shakespeare's bust and grave at the Holy Trinity Church. The club was already discussing the idea of buying the house before the sale was even public knowledge. They then established the Shakespeare birthplace committee and intended to buy the property with a bunch of pooled money. The committee was divided between Stratford and London. One of the London members was Charles Dickens, arguably the most famous English author next to Shakespeare. The committee needed to
Starting point is 01:01:21 raise enough money to buy the house as well as have enough additional money to properly restore and maintain the property. The Henley Street House went up for sale in 1847 with an auction schedule for September 16th. There were rumors that PT Barnum was going to purchase and ship the house to New York for a fucking theme park. So glad that never happened. Does Shakespeare really scream theme park. Do we really need to be able to eat massive ice cream sundaes, huge sodas, you know, overpriced hot dogs while waiting in line for some much ado about free fallen. Some roller coaster ride. The Tempest underwater adventure. Romeo and Juliet's House of Holes. The committee posted pamphlets and flyers to ask for donations and were able
Starting point is 01:02:05 to raise 3000 pounds by September 16th. The purchase of property highest offer was 2100 pounds until the stratford and London committees gave their bid letter offering the 3000 pounds and won the auction. After they purchased the property and started restoration, the committee changed their name to the Shakespeare birthplace trust, which has been a big source for this episode. The trust still works today to preserve the house as much as possible. So visitors can experience what it was like during Shakespeare's time.
Starting point is 01:02:31 So thank you, Dickens. And based on tourism numbers, I'm gonna say that they have some serious CD pockets now and do not have to worry about needing to sell the property anytime soon. And if they did, I have no doubt that the British government would claim and maintain the property.
Starting point is 01:02:44 November 28th, 1582, 18-year-old Shakespeare now marries 26-year-old Anne Hathaway after they had already started fucking for sure. So much prick and bikini burger action. Anne Hathaway will outlive her younger husband by over seven years. She lived from 1556 to 1623, dying at the age of either 66 or 67. A little confusion there since we know the year, but not the day or month of her birth. We actually know very little in general about her. Most of what we know comes from old legal records.
Starting point is 01:03:13 We know that Anne was from Chauterie, a little village near Stratford about a mile away, that long ago was absorbed by Stratford. The homes she grew up in now called Anne Hathaway's Cottage, 12 room farmhouse. It's also been preserved, thankfully, also by the Shakespeare birthplace trust, the bought it in 1892. And sometimes called Agnes, she grew up less than 1.5 miles from Zippy Willie. Her dad was a farmer and he left her with some of the money in his will so she could get married.
Starting point is 01:03:40 According to that trust, William and Anne might have done a hand-fasting ceremony before their official wedding. Hand fasting was usually done on August 1st, Lama's Day, a harvest festival, and hand fasting was an unofficial wedding. Kind of similar to giving somebody a promise ring today, maybe a little more serious. It would have been a pledge to get married. And was three months pregnant when she married Shakespeare, a couple in a rush to get officially married before she started the show.
Starting point is 01:04:05 Shakespeare submitted a marriage application to the bishop's court in Worcester, two farmers from Chauterie, went with him to serve as guarantors for the 40 pound fee they would be required to pay if their marriage was found to be invalid. William was still considered a minor at that time and was legally required to have permission from Anne's father to marry her because the age of legal adulthood was 21 back then, which surprised me for some reason. It's younger now than it was then. Her early marriage also meant he could not legally complete his apprenticeship if he even was in one. So many rules back then. Shakespeare's marriage license allowed him to get married outside of Stratford upon Avon. There are two documents within the Worcester dius boy
Starting point is 01:04:50 Diosis and archives that confirm William and Ann were married in November of 1582 But the documents don't say where exactly they got married Bond dated November 28th There was only one reading of the bonds which was an announcement of the upcoming marriage that would allow people to raise objections That was usually done, you know three times in the three weeks leading up to the wedding. Has anyone ever been to a wedding where someone actually did object or is that only in the movies? I don't think I know anyone who has witnessed an actual marriage objection. That would have had a lot of entertainment value to the wedding if that did happen. Some scholars believe that the two only married because Anne was pregnant,
Starting point is 01:05:24 but that's just speculation. They might have been perfectly happy. William and Anne would be married until William's death for 34 years on May 26, 1583. Shakespeare's daughter Susanna is born and then baptized. Scholars believed that Susanna went on to receive a private education and therefore would have been able to read and write while there still wasn't proper schools know, proper schools for girls yet, you could hire a tutor to give your daughter an excellent education. If you had the money and they for sure had the money. Susanna Shakespeare will marry physician John Hall at the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford, June 5th, 1607. February 2nd, 1585, Shakespeare's twins, Hamnet and Judith are born and baptized. 1585 Shakespeare's twins hamnet and Judith are born and baptized
Starting point is 01:06:09 Hamnet and Judith named after family friends hamnet and Judith Sadler tragically hamnet dies of unknown causes at the age of 11 fucking brutal That she seems worse Maybe the the losing child under the age of two right still so young but also old enough to have really developed a Strong identity so you can start to see what kind of adult they were becoming. So many more years of bonding. Hamnet was buried in the Holy Trinity churchyard August 11th 1596. And many Shakespeare scholars believe that the speech of the character constants in the play King John reflects Shakespeare's pain at losing his child. From King John act three, scene four, grief fills the room up of my absent child, lies in his bed, walks up and down with me.
Starting point is 01:06:48 Put on, his pretty looks, repeats his words, remembers me, of all his gracious parts, stuffs out his vacant garments with his form. Then have I reasoned to be fond of grief? Fair you well, had you such a loss as I, I could give better comfort than you do. I will not keep this form upon my head when there is such disorder in my wit. O Lord, my boy, my author, my fair son, my life, my joy, my food, my all the world. Man, that pain is the fucking pain that scares me the most. It scares me so much more than, you know, like my own inevitable death.
Starting point is 01:07:23 The pain of losing a child, my heart truly goes out to parents who have experienced that fucking horrific tragedy. Also, Hamlet obviously pretty close to Hamlet, and many things Shakespeare named the tragic protagonist, you know, after his son. In 1616, the year of Williams' death, 31-year-old Judith will marry 26-year-old Thomas Quini, the son of a prominent local family. This was a big scandal because Thomas' lover Margaret Wheeler had given birth to a child just a month after the wedding. And then both Margaret and her baby would die during childbirth.
Starting point is 01:07:55 Thomas was sentenced to perform penance before the congregation for three Sundays in a row because of this. He also had to donate five shillings to the poor. Okay. Hey, dickhead, you knocked up some poor peasant girl. You never intended to marry and she died giving birth to your bastard. You're in big trouble, motherfucker. You have to say sorry three times over the course three weeks and cough up five shillings. Backing up a bit now, Shakespeare completely
Starting point is 01:08:20 disappears from historical records for the seven years following the birth of his twins in 1585 called the lost years by the birth of his twins in 1585 Called the lost years by scholars. There are many theories about what was going on You know during this time the main theories that Shakespeare went into hiding after poaching from local landlord Sir Thomas Lucy Shakespeare allegedly poached deer off his off of his off of my god off of his oh my god off of Sir Thomas is a state. I guess I could have said his a state. I don't know why I was trying to you his is I don't think that's the thing you ever say Who's is that? Oh, that's his is Animal that's his is property. Get us to have his property
Starting point is 01:09:00 Anyway, yeah, he allegedly poached him dear off this guy's estate called a charlotte coat park and then fled the city to avoid punishment after getting caught. And if you're thinking he fled for seven years over poaching seriously, that's what I thought as well. I thought how much trouble could you get in for shooting a deer on the property of some local noble? Well, it turns out quite a bit, a lot. A common punishment for poaching in England in the 16th century was to have your fucking
Starting point is 01:09:28 ear cut off. Yeah, mutilation. I would go into hiding as well. The next most popular theory is that Shakespeare left to go work as an assistant schoolmaster in Lincoln, sure. John Aubrey and noted English historian and author born a decade after Shakespeare's death wrote in 1681 that Shakespeare was a schoolteacher in the country. Others believe Shakespeare worked as a lawyer's clerk or as a soldier. He may have been running the family business of glove-making.
Starting point is 01:09:54 And then there is the true crime theory I've teased out a few times. The Billy Shakespeare. In late 1580s, young women living in both Stratford and London began to go missing. And then in the early 1590s, when women kept going missing, now some of their bodies started to turn up. Very mutilated bodies. Someone possibly a glove maker, or someone who may have been a glove maker's apprentice, someone very skilled with a sharp knife had skinned their hands perfectly, as if the skin was being used as a really really macabre glove.
Starting point is 01:10:35 And the same sick fuck-carved words into the stomach of at least one victim. Much ado about Satan. Sound familiar? Finally, one of the women was still alive when she was found in her dying words were Billy Shakespeare's. Pretty suspicious. And this is almost never mentioned in the sources why maybe it didn't happen. Or maybe the Shakespeare birthplace trust has been working for decades to erase it from the historical records. Moving along now. Historians believe that Shakespeare was definitely living in London by the mid to late 1580s
Starting point is 01:11:13 and maybe killing. He may have worked initially as a horse attendant, some of the London theaters tending to the horses of those who rode them or rode a carriage pulled by them to the theater horses who pissed and shit just outside the theater while theater goes pissed and shit inside the theater and also outside the theater so much night soil to be hauled. Again, so thankful to live in a world full of indoor plumbing. Seriously, I know I complain a lot about this or that. It's like any other meat sack, but we do live in amazing times. There's evidence that by 1592 Shakespeare was working as an actor and played right in
Starting point is 01:11:46 London and already written several plays. The September 20th, 1592 edition of the stationers register includes a reference to Shakespeare from another playwright named Robert Green. The stationers register was a publication of the stationers company of London, a trade guild, given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with England's publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers. Company Charter gave it the right to seize elicit editions of published works and to bar the publication of unlicensed books and allow publishers to document their right to produce a particular
Starting point is 01:12:24 printed work in the register, which thus constituted an early form of copyright law. So they're working on, you know, protecting intellectual property back then, which is cool. Robert Green was an English prose writer who died in 1592. He was considered Shakespeare's most successful predecessor in blank first romantic comedy. And he was one of England's first professional writers and one of the earliest English autobiographers. And in a way, one of England's earliest theater critics, green wrote about Shakespeare, there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers. That with his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, supposes is as well able to bomb us out to blank first as the best of you. And being an absolute Johans facto facto,
Starting point is 01:13:05 uh, facto, facto, in his own conceit, the only shake scene in a country. Uh, scholars differ on how to interpret all that shit. The general message is that green was saying that Shakespeare was reaching above his rank. Not, uh, fucking stain in his lane, not known as place, in an attempt to, uh to match their playwrights who were more well known than him. So maybe this guy was jealous.
Starting point is 01:13:30 According to Britannica, this quote appears in the book Greens, Grotesworth of Whitt, bought with a million of repentance 1592, which was published after Greens death. A mutual acquaintance of the men, interestingly prefaced the book with an apology to Shakespeare, which indicates that Shakespeare had powerful friends in the industry by the time of that book's publication. Green is most known for the plays Goonies, Predator, Total Recall, Gremlins, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and The Lost Boys, all of which were adapted to films in the 1980s.
Starting point is 01:14:05 Uh, no, none of his plays had even close to the longevity of Shakespeare's works. Uh, zero of them have made an impact on modern pop culture. I would love it if somehow the fucking lost boys was written in this, uh, Shakespeare's time in England. Um, in the early 5090s, Shakespeare is thought to write the first of his plays we know today, Henry the six part one, Henry the six six part two Henry the six part three. The two gentlemen of Verona and Titus and Johnicus. Historians debate which play was written first.
Starting point is 01:14:35 Shakespeare's first print of works would have been a would be sold in the early 1590s. Two poems instead of plays Venus and Adonis and 1593 and the rape of Lucrese in 1594. Here's the first answer from Venus and Adonis. Even I don't know why I want to read all these new weird voice, but even as the sun with purple colored face had tamed his last leave with the weeping morn rose cheek to Donus tried him to the chase, hunting he loved but love he laughed to scorn. Sick thotted Venus makes a mane unto him and like a bold factored souter, Jins to woo him.
Starting point is 01:15:13 Probably sounds cooler when Shakespeare expert reads it. Here's the first answer of the rape of Lucris. Her lily hand her rosy cheek lies under, coesening the pillow of a lawful kiss. Who therefore angry seems to part in sander, swelling on either side to want his bliss, between whose hills her head entombed is, where like a virtuous moment she lies to be admired of lude on hallowed eyes. Dark poem, literally centered around a Roman nobleman
Starting point is 01:15:43 being raped. Dark crimes, dark crime stories, you know, popular Roman nobleman being raped. Dark crimes, dark crime stories, you know, popular now, and they were also then. Also, does that poem add more credence to the Billy Shakespeare? I mean, who writes about rape? Anybody could. But would a rapist be more likely? A serial killing, hand-skinning rapist.
Starting point is 01:16:06 While the original primary sources have been erased from the record somehow, secondary sources say that Billy Shakes likely was continuing to kill and London and also in Stratford. Bodies kept turning up in both places. Bodies missing the skin on the women's hands. Both of those poems were dedicated to one Henry Rossley, the third Earl of South Hampton and a patron of Shakespeare, the Shakespeare birthplace Trust Rights, to succeed at any
Starting point is 01:16:36 artistic project in Tutor England you would need a patron. A patron was a wealthy aristocrat who could find you work and support some of your living needs. The reason patrons were so crucial was because it was equally important for an artist to have a reputation amongst elite high society as it was for them to be talented. Writing plays would not be enough to ensure Shakespeare his reputation in the competitive world of Tutor England. The only way to achieve this reputation was to have someone who is a member of the nobility
Starting point is 01:17:02 to vouch for you. Well, luckily for Zippy Willey, it was considered fashionable of the nobility to vouch for you. Well, luckily for Zippy Willie, it was considered fashionable for the nobility to vouch for and support artists. Quoting that birthplace trust again, it was the aim of most of the elites to gain political power by situating themselves or their family members in the royal court. And how was one to attract the attention of the queen and her courtiers by being the epitome of the current culture. And there was another way it was useful for nobles to support artists.
Starting point is 01:17:29 The theater was the general public's primary form of entertainment during this time, which would give the nobility a way to influence them, a large audience, right? Have their playwright make favorable references to them and unfavorable references to their opponents. Spin, baby, right? Get the narrative you want out there to the people. Henry Rossley came from a Catholic dynasty, which was controversial England at that time, as we went over earlier, by the 1590s, Catholics not in favor in England. Rossley's father would be caught helping Jesuit Edmund Campion escape capture to avoid being executed. Henry's father would then be in prison in the Tower of London for a year and a half
Starting point is 01:18:04 for his involvement and all that. And Henry would be raised by Queen Elizabeth's chief minister, Lord Burgley, to prevent him from being corrupted by his Catholic father. And he became a member of the Royal Court. Rossi loved literature and Shakespeare used this to his advantage to secure his patronage. Shakespeare addressed his poem Venus Adonis to the right honorable Henry Rosley Earl of Southampton, bear and of Titchfield. And then in 1594 he dedicated the rape of the crease to Rossi as well. The love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end.
Starting point is 01:18:36 Whereof this pamphlet without beginning is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honorable disposition, not the worth of many untuded lines makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours. What I have to do is yours being part in all I have devoted yours. Were my worth greater my duty would show greater mean time as it is, it is bound to your Lordship, to whom I wish long life, still linked and with all happiness, if I could have your lord's cock in my mouth every moment of every day, I would suck upon it. I don't know, he's just really fucking kissing his ass there.
Starting point is 01:19:17 If you were wondering exactly what all that meant, I have no fucking idea. It seemed really it's superfluous there with all the, you know, ask kissing. Shakespeare scholars also argued there's reference to a beautiful boy in his sonnets were references to Rosley. Right? Even the legendary Shakespeare had to kiss a mass to his name and history books. And 1594 the Lord Chamberlain's men is formed after an outbreak of plague. Shakespeare and other actors from
Starting point is 01:19:42 various companies formed the Lord Chamberlain's men under the patronage of, not surprised, Lord Chamberlain, aka Henry Kerry, first Baron, Hunston. Shakespeare would be a partial owner or a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain's men as well as an actor and a playwright. I gave for getting zippy willy was also an actor. He has thought to have worked as an actor for 15 years. Was he any good? We don't know.
Starting point is 01:20:05 They didn't push record on the video camera. But if you did it for 15 years, you probably was pretty good. He was said to favor Kingley Parts with legend having Hamlet's father as his farewell role, fitting for the father of Hamlet. His acting company, the Lord Chamberlain's men, arguably the most important company of players, aka actors in London and in all of the UK, if not in all of Europe, during the Elizabethan and Jacobian ages. In earlier incarnation of the acting company, a group of traveling Thizbyans called the Hunstens men, also patronized by Henry Kerry, first Lord Hunstens. Can be traced from 1564 to 1567. Hunson became Lord Chamberlain
Starting point is 01:20:47 in 1585. Another Lord Chamberlain's men company was under his patronage and traceable up to 1590, then in 1592, London theaters closed down for well over a year due to fucking plague, all these plague outbreaks. They reopened in 1594 and a good deal of reorganization and amalgamation between various theater companies took place. A new version of Lord Chamberlain's men emerged from this reorganization after Chamberlain died in 1596. The company patronized now by his son George Kerry, the second lord, Hunston. The company was renamed Hunston's men a second time until Kerry became Lord Chamberlain in 1597. time until Kerry became Lord Chamberlain in 1597.
Starting point is 01:21:26 Company went back now to be known as Lord Chamberlain's men. And until King James I would take the throne in March of 1603. And then the company would fall under royal patronage and were renamed the Kings men. They've gotten so popular. The King was like, I want them. Give them to me. They're mine now. And the King got what he wanted. Meditate of current leaders, not just the guy in North Korea
Starting point is 01:21:45 can do that kind of shit, right? Does he hear in the state? I like Amazon, based out, gives I business to me. I like Stephen King. He now writes for the king. I like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's mine now, it's the king's cinematic universe. The King's men company, their only rival would be a company
Starting point is 01:22:04 known as the Admiralemalsmen, later renamed Prince Henry's Men. And the Ademalsmen were the acting company that produced the plays of Shakespeare's most noteworthy contemporary, but really a predecessor, Christopher Marlow. Marlow was London's most esteemed playwright right before Shakespeare. He died young at the age 29 and 1593, and he was the first to make a name for himself in writing blank verse, unrived poetry, often in Iambic pentameter. And no one quite knows how he died.
Starting point is 01:22:32 On May 30th, 1593, he had dinner with a man named Ingram Frizzer, a fight supposedly broke out between the two men over the bill, and Marlow ended up getting stabbed in death over it. Some fucking argument over dinner. But plenty don't think that happened. Too much you get into here, something he faked his death, then began writing under the name of William Shakespeare. But there's not any proof of that.
Starting point is 01:22:54 You know, passed the timing of his death and some style similarities to the bond. Back to Lord Chamberlain's men, Shakespeare was the company's regular dramatist and wrote an average of two plays a year for about 20 years. Throughout his career, Shakespeare wrote 38 plays or 37, maybe 39, and at least two narrative poems, 154 sonnets, and assorted additional poems. And none of Shakespeare's original manuscripts exist today. The actors of the King's Company, what Lord Chamberlain's men again evolved into, will collect his place for publication after his death, and they were published in the first folio, the first collection of his work, that contained 36 plays, but no poetry.
Starting point is 01:23:34 And then later publications will include poetry in a couple extra recovered plays. Shakespeare's first plays believed to have been written before or around 1592 and 1598 writer Francis Mears publishes a positive review of Shakespeare His acting is not mentioned, but his writing is because this review we know that by this time Shakespeare was well known for his work and had produced at least a dozen plays including the classics Romeo and Juliet a mid-Summer night stream The merchant of Venice loves labor's lost rich Richard II and Titus and Droneckis. The Lord Chamberlain's men had one of the best actors in London, Richard Burbage. Fuckin' dick Burbage, dickie B. Son of James, pioneer of London, theater building, dicklet from 1567 to 1619.
Starting point is 01:24:21 And according to contemporary records, he was the first actor to play the role of Richard III, Romeo Henry V, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear. Born three years after Shakespeare, he would also die three years after Shakespeare. The Bard's Brad Pitt, his Al Pacino, his Denzel Washington, or Leonardo DiCaprio, or whatever leading man you prefer. By the age of just 20, Richard was already a very popular actor. He was a member of the Earl of Leicester's company and remained with the company through its absorption into the Kingsman company, also a shareholder in the globe and Black Fryer theaters. More about the Black Fryer's theater a bit later,
Starting point is 01:24:59 Richard was a very in demand actor and performed not just in plays written by Shakespeare, but also plays written by others. When Shakespeare died, he left money in some of his possessions to a few friends starting with Richard Burbage. And Burbage came from a family of performers. In addition to his dad being a producer and theater builder, his brothers were also actors. They were truly theatrical family. To live is to be popped off the theater. According to the Shakespeare birthplace, Truss Shakespeare would write some of his most famous leading roles, such as Richard III, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, and Prospero, just for Burbage. The two men often performed together on the stage and even lived near each other and
Starting point is 01:25:37 shortage in the East End of London and would inspire and motivate each other, you know, collaborate together. Burbage was the Robert Nero to Shakespeare's Martin Scorsese, the Beavis to Shakespeare's Mike Judge, the Ernest P. Warle to Shakespeare's John Cherry. Forget those last two comparisons. The Lord James men were so renowned, they performed 170 times at court for Queen Elizabeth first and King James the first during Shakespeare's lifetime. Now back to Zippy Willey's pals. Another friend of William Shakespeare's was Hamnitt Sadler, right? We mentioned him earlier, his late son's name'sake. These two likely group his friends, Hamnitt's family lived very near the Shakespeare's in Stratford. They both got married, had kids around the same time. And Shakespeare's, I said earlier, named his twins after Hamnitt and his
Starting point is 01:26:24 wife Judith. So very good friends. Hamnut spent his life and strapped for it upon Avaughan and would die in 1624 and was recorded as a witness to Shakespeare's will. Another one of Shakespeare's friends was Ben Johnson noted dramatist poet and literary critic. Consider the second most important English dramatist during the reign of James I next to Shakespeare. Most known for his plays, Every Man in His Schumer, The Silent Woman, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair. The Alchemist is one of the very few non-Shaix-bearing plays of this era that is still performed pretty commonly and publicly, obviously.
Starting point is 01:27:01 Back to Shakespeare's acting company. From the summer of 1594 to March of 1603 the Lord Chamberlain's men stayed in London in the fall of 1577 1597. They did a little provincial tour. Then in 1603 they traveled outside of the city during an outbreak of plague in London. It was successful enough that the company went on tour in the summer and fall almost every year after that for a while. And it seemed like they were celebrating pretty much wherever they went, right? In the days before the internet, TV, radio, they were in many ways the closest thing to rock stars that 17th century England had.
Starting point is 01:27:36 All the worlds are staged and we are its finest performance, you motherfuckers. Backing up a bit, starting in the fall of 1599, when not on tour, the company moved to the Globe Theater, constructed by Richard and his brother, Cuthbert Burbage, following the death of their father, James, and the subsequent loss of the lease that ended the run of his performance space, the theater. The owners of the company called housekeepers shared the profits of the productions they held. Acting companies were always looking for new material to perform and usually paid freelance writers on a piecework basis, also known as a task basis. Shakespeare,
Starting point is 01:28:09 though, not a freelancer because he was a shareholder in the company, you know, and wrote his plays for the company. We don't know what Cutty got, but we know we received, you know, a decent percentage of profit for the plays he wrote that were performed at the venue he partially owned, you know, probably a pretty fat cut considering how much land he will buy towards the end of his life as we'll learn soon. Most acting companies didn't want to sell their plays to publishers, especially if they're popular. Some companies sold their plays when they disbanded or were forced to shut down due to again the plague. Can't believe how much the plague was constantly disrupting the theater scene or when their plays were no longer popular. Once a writer sold their play to a company,
Starting point is 01:28:45 they no longer had intellectual property rights to it. And that reminds me of how like big television and film studios used to operate decades ago, I had to contract actors, actresses, directors, writers, et cetera, to only work for their company so that none of their competitors could profit off of their talent. You know, now it's different. Now a show creator might create a show for Netflix and sell their next show to HBO, then
Starting point is 01:29:07 the one after that to Sony or funded themselves, their own production company to sell to, you know, whoever plays were usually published in a Quarto, large piece of paper divided in four pages, double-sided, eight pages in total. Some plays printed in Octavo, which was 16 small pieces of paper. So very important back then to be concise with your words. You only had so much paper to write it all out on. About half a Shakespeare's plays were printed in Quarto. Some of the other plays issued in unauthorized volumes. If this happened, the acting company would then commission an authorized version. For example, a title page from a copy of Romeo and Juliet from 1599 called the
Starting point is 01:29:45 second corto states that this version is newly corrected, augmented and amended, as it has been sundry times publicly acted by the right honorable, the Lord Chamberlain his servants. Circle back now to Shakespeare's family. Explain that coat of arms, his dad got. As mentioned previously in 1596, John Shakespeare granted a code of arms the Shakespeare birthplace trust rights During this time of increasing social mobility a code of arms was an essential symbol of respectability and they were highly sought after It has been estimated that William might have paid as much as 20 pounds for it between 1570 and 1630 there were 45 men with a title of gentlemen in stratford, which meant they had an official Crown Sanction Code of Arms. The term gentleman to note
Starting point is 01:30:31 the status in the class system that of a man who is entitled to bear arms, though not ranking among the nobility. So just one step kind of in between the nobility and the peasants, the gentleman. Total population was 2200 per night 1595 records in Stratford and 28 were born gentlemen, 17 applied for and received the title. So only 45 total gentlemen out of the, you know, 2000 plus people after receiving the title, the Shakespeare's display, their coat of arms above the entrance of their home, set it into windows and carved it into furniture. They're fucking proud of that shit. Super big deal socially. And financially, since it lived with their status and the eyes of their home, set it into windows and carve it into furniture. They're fucking proud of that shit. Super big deal socially.
Starting point is 01:31:07 And financially, since it lived with their status and the eyes of other people with more money, you know, got a more business. The grant documents shows a drawing and description of the Code of Arms says, gold, on a band, diagonal bar, sable, black, a spear of the first, so gold, steel, agent, with a silver tip, and for his crest
Starting point is 01:31:28 of falcon, his wings displayed, Argent, which is silver, standing on a reeth of his color, supporting a spear, gold, steeled as Afacad, which is actually reference more silver, set upon a helmet with mantles and tassels. The model that goes along with the coat of arms is non-sons droid, which is French for nut without right. To get an official coat of arms, you had to go through a very formal application process, submit your claim application to the required amount and the required amount of money to the college of arms, headed by the Earl Marshall. Think of it kind of like a like a posh department of motor vehicles, a bureaucratic institution
Starting point is 01:32:04 that handled and still handles Granting new coats of arms genealogical research and the granting of various pedigrees You would submit design element considerations and then the college of arms will make the actual design Making sure your coat of arms doesn't match some other family making sure it looks regal and proper enough has a right symbolism etc All the sound of the bit too pompous to me at first, but I guess if they didn't do that, you know, some idiot, some fucking Derek Skietzkeet, Mollett would eventually toss up a coat of arms made of an eagle with a dick for a head, you know, shitting on a hedgehog. Or I don't know, fucking just a bunch of huge tits all woven to the coat of arms is,
Starting point is 01:32:42 oh shit yeah, Yeah. Check out. Fuck it. Sick. Why new code of arms? Looks moving along to 1597 now. By 1597, Shakespeare had written published 15 plays, maybe probably difficult to date. Most scholars have reached general consensus for the plays written from 1588
Starting point is 01:33:00 to 1601, 1605 to 1607 and from 1609 onward. 1597, one Shakespeare or Shakespeare for sure purchased new place, the largest house in Stratford for 120 pounds, the glove maker's son, now the fucking biggest fish in the Stratford pond. Recently discovered archaeological evidence from new place shows that Shakespeare split his time
Starting point is 01:33:23 between Stratford and London and in his final years spent more time in Stratford than scholars initially thought. Shakespeare came home often to visit family, use his library, and of course to write, and you know, maybe do some other stuff. Maybe uh, to kill. In 1597, eight young women's bodies were found in Stratford, missing the skin off of their hands. And six bodies in the same condition found in East London, carved into one of the women's stomachs,
Starting point is 01:33:53 with words, to be or not to be satan. Very similar, obviously, to what Shakespeare once wrote. And carved into the dirt next to a few of the bodies was an apparent calling card, Billy Shakes. Back to what we now know for certain amount of Shakespeare. During his time in London, Shakespeare lived with the Mount Joys, a family of French Huguenots. He testified on their behalf in a lawsuit in 1612.
Starting point is 01:34:21 Shakespeare's friends with Christopher Mountjoy, the head of the family, who was a successful manufacturer of ladies ornamental headpieces. Chris was apparently wealthy, made a lot of wig money, fucking love it. The son of a successful glove maker ends up becoming close friends with a guy who makes a lot of doce-elling wigs. Family had a large house at the corner of silver and monk well streets in the cripple gate ward of London. By 1598, Lord Chamberlain's men's patrons had fallen out to favor with the queen. And the theaters landlord gills Allen planned to cancel their lease and tear down the building.
Starting point is 01:34:54 Allen owned the land, but he didn't own the building. And when James Burbage died, the lease to him became null and void, and he didn't have to renew it. So buy by the theater. Also in 1598, while we don't have any existing letters written by Shakespeare, we do have one letter written to him by a man named Dick Quini, right? Well, Richard Quini, but again, fucking, so many fucking dicks back in Shakespeare's day, addressed from the bell in in London. And it just said to my loving good friend and countryman, Mr. William Shakespeare, delivered these. And he requested a loan of 30 pounds from Shakespeare.
Starting point is 01:35:27 So not a real exciting letter, something. Show Shakespeare had money to lend or at least a dick thought he did. Dick Quenney's son Thomas will eventually marry Shakespeare's daughter Judith. December 28th, 1598 after the company leases a new theater location in South work, Cuthbert and Dick Burbage lead the initiative to take the theater building apart, loaded onto barges, and shift the materials across the Thames. The company reconstructed the theater as fast as they could.
Starting point is 01:35:54 Because the new site was on Marshy Land, they had to build a strong foundation, they dug trenches, filled them with limestone, built brick walls above the stone, raised wooden beams on top of the bricks, a lot of work. A funnel captured rainwater drained it into the ditch around the wooden beams on top of the bricks. Lot of work. A funnel captured rainwater, drained it into the ditch around the theater and then out into the river. And that is of course where a lot of people would,
Starting point is 01:36:11 you know, piss and shit. The new theater was 30 meters across, had 20 sides, which gave it a circular appearance, just like the original. The theater could hold up to 3000 people, which may have been the same as the original. We don't have a firm number for the original capacity of James Burbage's The Theatre. The best source I could find said between 1500 and 3000. So at
Starting point is 01:36:30 worst, the globe was the same size as the theater and it best. It was twice as big. In early 1599, Shakespeare personally contributed about 12.5% of the cost to building theater based on some records. This again gave him a share in the company profits and a share in the theater if they were ever to sell it. Officially approved playhouses and officially approved acting companies had only been around for about five years when the globe was built. Lord Chamberlain's men one of just two companies licensed to perform in London at that time. They had to build the globe because they couldn't use black friars. Another space built in 1596 by James Burbage. Burbage built black friars as a replacement for the theater.
Starting point is 01:37:07 When he knew the lease was about to expire, but then the blackfriars surrounding residents persuaded the government to ban him from using it for plays for a while. Not sure why they did that. Blackfriars would survive James's death, but the venue was much smaller than the theater with the capacity of only about 400.
Starting point is 01:37:23 At the end of 1598, before James passed, the company had already decided to build a new theater, but the Burbage's couldn't fund it because their inheritance was tied up in blackfires, a theater space, you know, they couldn't use. And that's what led them to form a consortium with Shakespeare and four actors. And then all became co-owners of the globe. And the globe would be very successful. So successful that by sixteen away, the company would have enough to also operate black friars. They'd work things out apparently with the locals.
Starting point is 01:37:50 And this was great because now they can truly perform a year round. The open air globe would sometimes have to shut down, you know, for the coldest months of the year. It's roof did not completely cover it. It didn't cover the yard. That standing room only general admission area in front of the stage, but black fires was totally enclosed. Sadly, that theater will be destroyed in the great fire of London in 1666. And then a version of it will be reconstructed in the London in 2014.
Starting point is 01:38:16 Part of the rebuilt Globe Theater, now called the Sam Wannemaker Playhouse, back and up again. By May of 1599, Shakespeare and his fellow co-owners were ready for the globe's grand opening. Dick Burbage named the theater of the globe after the story of Hercules carrying the globe on his back. A flag of Hercules was raised above the theater with the Latin motto, totis mundis egut his strong, oh, fucking something, history, history on them, and every to glad. Meaning all the worlds of playhouse.
Starting point is 01:38:46 I love it and I agree. We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep. Shakespeare's words spoken by the magician Prospero to Ferdinand in the tempest. Hail, Nimrod! Some of the early plays that were formed there were Henry V, Julius Caesar, as you like it, Hamlet measure for measure, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Anthony and Cleopatra. Anthony, sorry, I think I added a slight h there. 1601 Shakespeare's father John dies, and there is also a little embodies, turning up with
Starting point is 01:39:22 no skin on their hands. Who incidents? A cooling off period. Hard to say. William inherits his father's house on Henley Street and leases it out to tenants. House is then divided into two properties. One of Shakespeare's tenants was his sister Joan, the other was Louis Hercox. Wonder what kind of deal he gave Joan. Hopefully a good one.
Starting point is 01:39:43 Pretty fucked up if she had to pay rent to live in her childhood home to her brother after their dad died. That'd be, you know, more than a little awkward. Since we've been over this, I only increased the rent to fair market value. If you don't like it, there are many other landlords in Stratford who would be happy to have you. Please don't make me kick you out of your old bedroom. Shakespeare buys more properties in Stratford and 1601, then purchases over 100 more acres
Starting point is 01:40:06 of land near Stratford and 1602, 1603. After King James, the first took the throne, Lord Chamberlain's men becomes the Kingsmen. Shakespeare will walk dressed in royal livery at King James coronation in 1604. He's a fucking big deal now, at least in London and in Stratford. He wasn't globally popular like he is now because, you know, communication limitations of the day, but very likely like the rock star of London now. 1605 Shakespeare purchased leases for several more pieces of real estate near stratford for
Starting point is 01:40:37 440 pounds. These leases soon doubled in value and he earned about 60 pounds a year off of it. I had no idea that fucking zippy willy was a real estate tycoon. Shakespeare was business savvy and some historians think that his wise investments are what allowed him to write full time. Right at the theater had some lean months, you know, a bad year. There's another outbreak of plague. He's okay. In 1605, Shakespeare also purchases a share of the Stratford ties, which meant he would be buried in the chancel of the church. Chancel or area around the altar reserved for the burials of the most
Starting point is 01:41:10 important people. And his remains still lie inside the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford upon Ava on today. So baptized, married, and buried there. 1608 Shakespeare's mom, Mary dies. He has her buried at the bottom of a privy just outside of town on one of his newly purchased properties. She and Willie didn't get along very well apparently in his, you know, her final years. And I guess he thought it would be funny to be able to literally shit on her time to time. And then once she'd become one with the night soil, he apparently used her to fertilize his guard. No, it's absurd. No, she was buried in a now unknown area of the Holy Trinity Church cemetery.
Starting point is 01:41:48 Shakespeare's first grand chanel is with Hall, only one born during his lifetime, born in baptized February 21st, 1608, 1609 Shakespeare's sonnets are published for the first time. Most scholars date Shakespeare's sonnets is being written between 1593 and 1600. Shakespeare's sonnets printed in Quarto in 1609. The Quarto contained 154 sonnets and ended with a long poem titled, a Love is Complaint. 126 sonnets are addressed to a fair youth and the remaining sonnets are addressed to a dark lady. Scholars have been spent, you know, it's been spending hundreds of years trying to identify these people,
Starting point is 01:42:25 which has led to all kinds of speculation about Shakespeare's possible romances, sexuality, and fidelity. Some think that the Dark Lady is an odd to the women killed by Billy Shakes. By 1609, the total body count estimated to be around 43 victims. Fuelling rumors of the dark lady being someone willy had an affair with back on March 13, 1602, lost to John Manningham.
Starting point is 01:42:54 Made an entry in his commonplace book alleging that Shakespeare had been unfaithful. According to Manningham, Shakespeare had overheard a woman at a performance of Richard III, making an appointment to secretly meet with Richard Burbage and after hearing that, he allegedly went to the arranged meeting place and was entertained by this woman and was at his game, i.e. getting as dick fooled around with when dick Burbage arrived. That source remains unverified. So who knows, could be nothing more than gossip. Other scholars think that some of the Shakespeare's sonnets suggest an attraction for men, such as sonnet 20.
Starting point is 01:43:30 But again, just gossip. Who knows if he was writing from his own point of view or taking artistic license when he would write passages like, a woman's face with nature's own hand painted haste, though, the master mistress of my passion, a woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted with shifting change as if false women's fashion, an eye more bright than theirs, less false enrolling, gliding the object whereupon it gaze it, a man in hue, all hues in his
Starting point is 01:43:58 controlling, which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth. And for a woman would thou first created till nature as she wrought the fell adotine and by addiction me of the defeated by adding one thing to my purpose nothing. But since she pricked the out for women's pleasure, mind by thy love and thy love's use, their treasure. I don't know what the fuck include, I just read. Maybe just thinks that some dudes are handsome, right? I don't know. I think Brad Pitt and Idris Elba are pretty handsome. Doesn't mean I want to stroke their spindles. Sonnet 20 seems to be about love between two male friends.
Starting point is 01:44:34 The sonnet has a line about one friend being equipped with one thing to my purpose, nothing. And continues, but since she, nature, pricked the out for a woman's pleasure, mine be thy love and thy love's use that treasure. There are several male characters in Shakespeare's plays and Tonyo and Sebastian in 12th Night and Tonyo and Bisonio in the merchant of Venice and Achilles and Patroclus in Troyless and Cresceda or Cresceda who also depict seemingly romantic relationships. Shakespeare also explored bending gender roles in his plays. For example, in the 12th night, the character Viola dresses as a young man named Cesario,
Starting point is 01:45:12 falls in love with Duke or Sino. Back then, these characters were usually played again by teenage boys. And interpreting any of that is proof of Shakespeare's sexuality though, it's a total speculation. If it's gay or bisexual, we'll likely never have conclusive proof of that.
Starting point is 01:45:27 We don't know much about his personal life in general, let alone any potential secret life. And you know, his secret life also likely revolves around fucking murder, so much fucking murder. If you was homosexual and act on his homosexuality, certainly get that a carefully guarded secret. The punishment for Sodomyia or bugery, as it was known, was death. Attempted Sodomia was punished by imprisonment
Starting point is 01:45:51 and public humiliation, and there were all kinds of other laws around sex, not just homosexual sex, either. But homosexual acts carried the most severe consequences, circling back to his work now. Many believed that the sonnets were published about Shakespeare's, published without Shakespeare's consent. Supporters of this theory argue that Shakespeare would have also given the printer an authoritative text and dedication, but Shakespeare's sonnets has no
Starting point is 01:46:15 dedication. The text is full of errors. Sonnets were published by Thomas Thorpe or Thope. Some argue that Shakespeare was betrayed and someone gave the poems to the publisher or a thief stole the poems for their own profit fucking bootlegers. Some believe that Shakespeare wouldn't have wanted the sonnest to be published because again, you know, they discuss possible sexuality. Maybe a hint of attraction towards men. The author of the dedication listed as TT. Thought to be Thomas Thorpe. I think it is Thorpe the publisher, the beginner of the sonnets is listed as Mr. WH. Some argue this was Henry Rosley. Others say it was one of the people listed in the dedication of Shakespeare's first folio. Some believe the beginner of the person who gave the poems to Thorpe. So a lot of the stuff with obviously with Shakespeare, a lot of speculation. Seems like Shakespeare began his retirement around 1612. I started spending more time in Stratford than in London.
Starting point is 01:47:08 Curiously, 11 young women's dead bodies were found in Stratford in 1612 and 1613, missing the skin on their hands. Only two will be found in East London. Who, in since? Or not? June 29, 1613. During the performance of Henry VII, the canon that was used at the end of Act I, Cauté Globe's theater, Stache Roof on Fire, and the building was destroyed in about an hour.
Starting point is 01:47:36 No one was injured except for one dude whose breaches caught on fire. He got his fucking breaches on Cauté on Fire. What a weird night for that guy. Went out to watch a little Shakespeare, came home with a, you know, burnt ass. February 16, 14, the Globe Theater is rebuilt. This time it is much more luxurious with a tile roof, less likely to burn, much less likely. The circular theaters roof still open in the center. Many people believe that Shakespeare died on his birthday, Aprilrd, 1616. He would have been 52. Church records show he was buried in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church April 25th, his exact cause of death unknown, believed he died of
Starting point is 01:48:16 some illness as opposed to an injury or an accident. Decades later in 1661, the vicar had Holy Trinity church wrote in his journal Shakespeare, Drreyton and Ben Johnson had a merry meeting, and it seems drank too hard for Shakespeare to die out of a fever they had contracted. But that account has never been verified. Some scholars believe Shakespeare died of typhus. Very curiously, the last young woman's body with no skin covering her hands was found in Stratford, the month before his death, March of 1616.
Starting point is 01:48:47 Carved into her stomach with the words, Billy shakes his sick. Also, in his will, William shakes per left, 61 pairs of gloves, quote, lady-skin gloves, to his friend Dick Burbage, along with the instructions, wear them and remember our bloody fun, sweet dickie. Remember the pain, remember the screams, much ado, about Satan. We all know the Billy Shake stuff is fucking nonsense, right? I hope all of us, but like two or three people know that by now.
Starting point is 01:49:22 And I hope at least one of those people never finishes this episode. That would be so fucking great if someone were to walk away from this truly believing that William Shakespeare is suspected of being a late 16th or at least 17th century serial killer known as Billy Shakes. Some fucking psychopath who skinned women's hands to make gloves. And there's been a huge cover-up to protect his legacy from the truth. Hey, you know what? If fucking QAnon can get some traction, maybe Billy Shakes can. Some kind of stratford illuminati, you know, situation dedicated to hiding
Starting point is 01:49:51 all this to keep those tourism dollars rolling in. I picture them bringing this all up to people at work, you know, whenever Shakespeare has mentioned. You know, he's probably a serial killer, right? Billy Shakes, you heard of Billy Shakes, right? Fucking skinned women's hands over 60 carved words into some of their stomachs. The stratford birthplace trust has been covered up for centuries. Then when she walks away, people are like, what the fuck was Becky talking about? I always thought she was weird, but she's completely out of her mind. I'm probably completely out of my mind for just wanting that to happen. By 1623, a monument of Shakespeare erected on the chancel wall, most likely existed that
Starting point is 01:50:28 is still there today. Pretty impressive monuments that really speaks to again just how famous Shakespeare was. Strangely Shakespeare's grave stone on the church grounds does not have his name on it. It has been believed to be his gravestones in 1656, located in the first in a row of graves for his family. The gravestone reads, good friend for Jesus, sake for bear, to dig the dust and clothes here, blessed by the man that spares these stones and cursed be he that moves my bones. Sheikh Brehramad, Susanna and her husband, John, the executors of his will, left them the majority of his estate. The new place, wherein I now dwell. Susanna and John moved into new place after Shakespeare's death.
Starting point is 01:51:10 Shakespeare probably left Susanna his papers, historians assume that she was involved in the production of the first folio. And half the way was legally entitled to a third of his estate, but Shakespeare specifically left her his second best bed, which led to speculation that the couple was not happily married. But also, not much evidence proved that they were having problems. Shakespeare's will stated, item I give unto my weaf, spelled weird, W-I-E-F, I give unto my weaf, my second best bed, with the furniture, furniture referred to curtains and the bed covers. The Shakespeare birthplace, trust rights rights under medieval common law in England. A widow was entitled to one-third of her late husbands estate for her life or widowhood,
Starting point is 01:51:53 even though it was not specifically mentioned in the will in practice. However, most wives were mentioned usually in terms of affection and trust and were frequently made executive tricks of the will. The request of the second best bed, though, not in itself, unusual, uh, wills were not places for the expression of personal feelings always, the best bed, or indeed, best of any type of item, uh, usually regarded as an heirloom to be passed to the major heir, which would have been his daughter, Susanna. Uh, and a different article to trust rights in Shakespeare's time, a bed was an expensive and luxurious item generally regarded as a valuable heirloom.
Starting point is 01:52:25 To be passed down the generations rather than given to a surviving spouse in a world where social status was highly prized, people were keen to show off their wealth at every possible opportunity. It was not uncommon for the best bed to be kept in one of the rooms downstairs as a way of making sure your visitors could see how well you were doing. It's fucking weird. Gotta show off your bed. Judas got the short end of the stick with the will she received 150 pounds
Starting point is 01:52:48 in a silver bowl and received more money if she and her kids survived three more years. Doesn't seem as if a relationship with her dad was strained likely to zippy willy, which is concerned about her husband, who did not have a great reputation as we mentioned earlier. In November of 1616, Judas gave birth to her first son, named Shakespeare, so probably again, not a strange relationship. Sadly, Shakespeare and her other sons, Thomas,
Starting point is 01:53:12 and Richard would all die as children, fucking three kids. None of them made it to adulthood and another dick this episode. Every fucking fourth character is dick. Shakespeare left more money in some of those possessions to several friends, Richard Burbage, John Heminges, Henry Condal, Thomas Com and Hamnet Sadler, Richard Burbage, John, I really positive on how to pronounce Heminges.
Starting point is 01:53:40 Henry Condal received 26 shillings, eight pens to buy morning rings. All three men will name their sons William. Such a sign of respect, man. All three did it. According to author and Shakespearean scholars, Stanley Wells, this will established an informal contract for the three men to oversee the first folio as well. Burbage, though, would never be a part of the publication of the folio because
Starting point is 01:53:59 he would die before it's published in 1619. Thomas Cohn would receive a sword from Shakespeare. And Shakespeare died seven years after her husband on August 6, 1623 to age 67. Shakespeare's four grandchildren will all die without heirs. And because of that, he has no direct descendants life today. His granddaughter Elizabeth never had any children. Just by being married twice, Judas three sons died in an early age. However, his sister Joan and her husband William Hart did have many descendants. So there are people who are related to Shakespeare indirectly.
Starting point is 01:54:33 Shakespeare's first folio of comedies, histories, and tragedies published just months after Anne's death in November or December of 1623. Five men participated in the production. Their effort was headed by publishers William Blount and William Jaggard. Can't have too many Williams involved in a publishing of another Williams works. Actors John Hemmensch and Henry Condal undertook the effort to collect the 36 plays for publication and Isaac Jaggard printed about a thousand copies for distribution. The full title is
Starting point is 01:55:02 and then the first printed printed printed printed printed printed printed printed printed printed printed printed printed printed printed about a thousand copies for distribution. The full title is the full title is the full title is the full title is the full title is the full title is the full title is the full title is Mr. William Shakespeare's Mr. William Shakespeare's Mr. William Shakespeare's comedy's comedy's histories and tragedies and tragedies published
Starting point is 01:55:11 according to the true original copies. Hemages and Condole used original original original and original and this was the first printed folio that contained only place.
Starting point is 01:55:19 the folio contained the first good text. the folio contained the first good text. the folio contained the first good text. the folio contained the first good text. the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained
Starting point is 01:55:15 the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained the folio contained first good text of a bunch of stuff. The plays were categorized by comedies, histories, and tragedies. About a thousand copies are made, of which 230 still exist today. Pretty impressive for a book that old. In 2020, one of these copies in excellent conditions sold at an auction for just under $10 million. Most expensive literary work ever. So if you have one laying around, you might want to cash it in. Corrections were made during the printing of the first folio making each copy unique. Back in 1623, these folios were sold for a pound each if they were purchased
Starting point is 01:55:56 bound. That was enough back then to buy 44 loaves of bread. The price went down to 15 shillings if they were unbound. And the Shakespeare birthplace trust owns three copies of the first folio. So sitting on some serious fucking cash there, three copies of the first folio have been stolen as well. One was stolen from Williams College, Massachusetts in 1940, one from John Ryland's library at the University of Manchester in 1972, and one from the University of Durham in 1998. Only two have been found. Williams college actually got their copy back the same year it was stolen. This is not a good theft. July of 2010, a man named Raymond Scott convicted of handling a stolen copy of the first
Starting point is 01:56:36 folio. Scott had a lengthy criminal record. He'd been convicted 23 times, had three aliases and was in about 90,000 pounds of debt. He was arrested in 2008 after taking the folio to the Folger Shakespeare Library in DC and telling a tale of a Cuban officer whose mom kept the book in her home for many years. He took the book to Folgers for authentication, said his friends and Cuba gave him the book. I thought, you know, I don't know, it's an old Shakespeare book, maybe it's worth some money. And then the book was identified as the copy of the folio stolen from Durham Cathedral Library, 1998. The book, an early English translation of the New Testament and a piece of a poem by Joffrey Chaucer were all stolen, but only the folio was recovered. And Scott left the folio
Starting point is 01:57:19 in Washington, went back to the UK, and then was arrested. Then in March of 2012, Raymond Scott found dead in his prison cell two years into an eight-year sentence. In December of 2013, a corner ruled that Scott was murdered by the ghosts of one Billy Shakes or died of suicide or that. Shakespeare's second folio was issued in 1632 and the third folio in 1663 and Worth quite a bit less than the first in original printing of the second folio sold in 2016 for just over a hundred and seventy-seven thousand dollars Third folio worth more than the second because a fire in London in 1966 destroyed a bunch of them Only two exist in private collections now and each is valued to be at least a million and a half bucks.
Starting point is 01:58:07 1642 Parliament orders all theaters in London to be closed down. Why? Not the plague this time. Puritanism. Puritan's had taken over Parliament and they felt that the theater was full of quote stage plays representative of lascivious myth and levity. Too much fun. Too much loose to fina. Shut it all down. Fuck
Starting point is 01:58:29 impuretons. Some of those fun hating people who ever lived no longer able to be used. Shakespeare's globe was destroyed. Neither 1644 or 1645 in the land was sold such a shame. Shakespeare's daughter Susanna dies July 11, 1649 buried beside John at the Holy Trinity Church. Shakespeare's daughters, Susanna dies July 11th, 1649, buried beside John at the Holy Trinity Church.
Starting point is 01:58:47 Uh, Shakespeare's daughter Judith buried February 9th, 1662 at the age of 77, and that both his daughters live long enough to see their dad become the most famous playwright in all of England in all the world. The most famous man, for at least most famous non-royal man in England and also saw the entire theater industry in England completely shut down by zealots like how weird what they must have thought of the globe being destroyed and all of England now forbidden to watch performances of their father's place today's book banning zealots right uh spiritual cousins of these puritants banning zealots, right?
Starting point is 01:59:24 Spiritual cousins of these Puritans Hope more people speak up against him 1970 American actor and director Samuel Wanamaker Established the Shakespeare's Globe Trust which would allow him to reconstruct the Globe It would take almost 30 years for them to get permission funding and finish historical research and the Globe theater would open in 1997 Just one street away from its original location. As I mentioned at Sister Theatre, Black Fires, reconstructed in London in 2014 on the same property. And with that, let's hop out of this historical timeline.
Starting point is 01:59:58 Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. You made it back, barely. Now let's look into claims that William Shakespeare was not the guy we think of today. Not the man who wrote all those amazing plays, and let's do that after a very special additional sponsor. Today's time's suck. Is brought to you by Whipple Chill Shakespeare edition. Life can be so up, you know. Sometimes you need to escape all the madness of your life and give yourself down to the theater. Down to the theater, sink into a cozy seat, and quietly enjoy the madness of somebody
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Starting point is 02:01:20 3% bikini burger 14% mandrake juice 100%% opium, 5% Romeo, 10% Julia, and every can is much ado about Whipple Achille. Bring the peaceful entertainment of theater to you with Whipple Achille. To drink or not to drink, that is not the question. There is only drinking. For we are such stuff as dreams are made on. And Whipple, a chill, makes those dreams so deliciously wet.
Starting point is 02:02:00 Whipples are proud, sub-sterestory of bare evil incorporated. That sounds delicious. We should have to can to sink into right now. But alas! I have the question of Shakespeare's true authorship to address. Approximately 150 years after Shakespeare died, people started to question if he actually wrote his plays. The story mostly came from the fact that there's very little info and primary sources about Shakespeare's life, the Holy Trinity
Starting point is 02:02:28 Church, and Stratford government recorded his existence, but no records of his literary career. Historians now began to question how a man with only a basic education could become such a talented writer. Shakespeare never received any higher education that were aware of, unless it somehow took place during those forgotten years, and his name never made it into any school attendance records. How could he write poems in place to demonstrate a mastery of the English language, knowledge of politics, laws, and of the court? Daughters now began to believe that the real William Shakespeare and historical records was nothing more than a successful businessman involved in a lot of real estate deals. Of course, other famous playwrights also have few records of their lives and also came
Starting point is 02:03:08 from humble beginnings like Shakespeare and supporters of Shakespeare. In fact, being the Shakespeare we think of today also argued that Stratford's new grammar school would have provided a plenty good educational foundation for any writer. Also, sometimes genius just strikes people. Doesn't matter what school they went to, or what family they were born into. You know, Michael Jordan didn't have some special training in basketball that others weren't privy to. He wasn't born into some genetically superior basketball family. He was just born with a special kind of competitiveness, a certain fire inside of him
Starting point is 02:03:40 that made him work his ass off to get so much better than his peers. Natural born talent plus lots and lots of determination and hard work. Focused hard work. Shakespeare by all accounts by virtue of so many close friends, naming their children after him as just one example was a special dude. Maybe question of his authorship arose because some people just can't understand that, right? Maybe because they're not that special. They're not exceptional and they have a hard time recognizing it in others. I don't know, that's just my speculation.
Starting point is 02:04:09 So Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare than who did. Some alternative Shakespearean authors proposed over the centuries are Sir Francis Bacon, Shakespeare's contemporary, Christopher Marlowe, Edward Devere, 17th Earl of Oxford, Sir Walter Rale, English poet and scholar, John Dunn and even Queen Elizabeth I. Ever since the 19th century, many people and not just crazy people have believed in these alternative author theories. Henry James, Sigmund Freud, Mark Twain,
Starting point is 02:04:37 Helen Keller, Charlie Chapman, many others have all doubted that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. There are thousands of books and articles dedicated to debunking Shakespeare and propulsion alternative authors now. Helen Keller once wrote that whoever penned Shakespeare's plays and sonnets was a profound reader, a learned scholar, a courtier, a lawyer, and a traveler. None of those attributes match the historic facts of Shakespeare's life, Keller argued. And she surprised me here. I mean, people, so many people down at the Helen could possibly be very intelligent, you know, for so much of her life, due to her being blind and deaf, but she proved them wrong. And, you know, they thought it was, you know, possible for someone like her to write the way that she wrote. Why would she put
Starting point is 02:05:19 limitations on someone else? Why I think that whoever wrote what he did has to have been this or that. Why could have they just been someone who, I don't know, had an amazing memory or a very curious mind, talked to people who were well-traveled maybe, talked to people who were, you know, more educated. We also don't know for a fact that he, you know, wasn't well-read. We don't know where he was for seven years. And we don't know what he did for most of the rest of his years since we don't have a diary or you know comprehensive biography written by some contemporary The first anti-strat 40 in theory appears in print in 1785 James Wilmot a Reverend and scholar first formally presented the idea that Shakespeare did not actually write his plays in poems
Starting point is 02:05:58 Wilmot was also Completely unknown outside of his immediate circle of friends in his lifetime and his niece completely unknown outside of his immediate circle of friends in his lifetime. And his niece, Olivia Sayers, was the one to bring his theories to public attention. And she was a known imposter who got caught pretending to be English nobility, some princess of Cumberland. She was a fraud who spent most of her life bouncing in and out of debtors' prisons. So the whole Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare angle was launched by a known con artist. An early 19th century, you know, Anna Delvey, a Clark, it'll be grand, darling, real peach melba kind of night,
Starting point is 02:06:31 Rockefeller. Constance Grady writing for Vox has this to say about it all. The anti-strat 40 in argument is romantic and compelling. It's also based on shoddy scholarship. Most damningly, it's a fundamentally classist argument. In 1781, Wilmot attempted to write a biography about Shakespeare, maybe. He visited Stratford upon Aben. Maybe, you'll see why I'm saying that a little bit here. In other places, Shakespeare might have visited,
Starting point is 02:06:56 searched all the libraries around the area, searched for Shakespeare's correspondence, and what he found astonished him. There was no record anywhere to indicate that William Shakespeare of Stratford ever read a book or wrote a letter. He couldn't find handwritten notes, signatures, letters, nothing based on that lack of evidence.
Starting point is 02:07:13 He concluded that Shakespeare couldn't have written this place. And he suspected the plays were written by Sir Francis Bacon. But again, this is just some random dude, not a note of historian or scholar or investigator, just some guy who was like, can't find a letter from anybody saying that, you know, hot damn zippy willy sure is good reader. So therefore, couldn't have wrote those plays. Boom, Mike dropped. To me, this all means nothing. Wilmot never shared his ideas to a wide audience. Again, his
Starting point is 02:07:41 con artist niece shared his supposed ideas. And also allegedly Wilmot's friend James Corton Cowell, first presented this theory to others in his lectures in 1805 or maybe not. This whole thing might not be true. These supposed lectures were not discovered until over a century later in 1931. And according to Shakespeare's scholar,
Starting point is 02:08:01 James Shapiro, these lectures most likely were made up in an attempt to support the Francis Bacon theory, which was gaining popularity at that time. These lecture notes use language that was out of fashion in the early 19th century and use information that was not known until after 1805. So the bullshit theory, supposed to be in front of my will mod
Starting point is 02:08:20 and spread by his niece and friend, all of that might be nonsense. All of it might have been made up over a century later by some other fucking con artists. And conspiracy theorists, right? God, they have been a problem since long before the internet, manufacturing source documents for centuries. The anti-strat 40 and theory became popular in 1857 when Delia Bacon and William H. Smith published books arguing that Shakespeare was actually Francis Bacon and the books were a hit. Right? Scandals they so often sell. Delia, I think it's Delia not really not related to
Starting point is 02:08:52 Francis by the way noted author Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the introduction to the bacon book and then Mark Twain wrote that Bacon's book had him convinced that Shakespeare was not the author of his works. Man a lot of smart people buy in this. Why? Well, for some context, amongst the academic crowd in the mid-19th century, this was the heyday of higher criticism, where everyone was questioning the true authorship of all kinds of shit, who really wrote the Bible, who really wrote the classic works of antiquity, who really wrote Shakespeare.
Starting point is 02:09:23 You know, questioning all of this was very fashionable, very trendy. So quite possible that a lot of smart people got swept up in that. The main basis of Delia's argument, and it is Delia, I don't know why I was saying Delia, was that how do we not know more about the personal life of man whose works we know so much about? The disparity between knowing little about the man, so much about his work, that essentially was her main argument for Shakespeare not being Shakespeare and that doesn't bother me. That we don't know a lot about him. You know, maybe maybe he was just a private guy. Maybe he didn't care what people knew about his personal life. We wanted to let his work speak for him.
Starting point is 02:09:57 Maybe he was happy letting uh, you know, uh, this fucking plays do the talking. Also, we lived well before the age of tabloids when journalists We're not constantly speculating in the lives of the rich and famous that just wasn't a thing yet Francis Bacon and contemporary playwright Christopher Marlow are still the main candidates for true authorship But many other scholars suspect that Shakespeare was Edward Devere the 17th Earl of Oxford This theory was first proposed in 1920 by author JT Looney in the book Shakespeare identified an Edward Devere the 17th Earl of Oxford. This theory was first proposed in 1920 by author J.T. Looney in the book Shakespeare identified an Edward DeVier, the 17th Earl of Oxford. DeVier lived from April 12, 1550 to June 14, 1604. He was a poet, patron of the
Starting point is 02:10:36 Theor, you know, in addition to being suspected of being Shakespeare. There was evidence that the Earl was known to have written plays, but no surviving examples of these plays. Looney argued that there was biographical similarity between the Earl and Hamlet, and that Oxford's poems were similar to Shakespeare's earlier works. The Earl's acknowledged poems were written during his youth, and Looney argued that these were the prelude to his work as an adult, and that his adult period started in 1593 with the publication of Venus and Adonis. Additionally, there is an interesting timing with his known work, Oxford Poems, stopped being produced when Shakespeare mysteriously reappeared from his seven
Starting point is 02:11:13 lost years. Members of the Shakespeare Oxford Society, which was founded in 1957, argued that Earl DeVier had extensive knowledge of aristocratic society, in education, and wrote in a style similar to Shakespeare. Again, they argue that Shakespeare didn't have enough education to write the way he did. The people who believed the Earl was Shakespeare are called oxfortions. They argue that the Earl used a pen name because of the politically provocative nature of the plays and he didn't want to be looked down upon by an ability for writing plays. And the theater was strange in that way. Yeah, you can be a rock star if you were, you know,
Starting point is 02:11:47 a hot actor or playwright, but also the work itself was seen as being beneath the nobility. Upon us to this theory, and there are many, note that the Earl died in 1604, and some of Shakespeare's greatest plays, like King Lear, The Tempest, and Macbeth, were published after his death. At the end of the day, there is no real evidence to debunk Shakespeare. It's all conjecture.
Starting point is 02:12:09 And Strat Fortyons, the supporters of Shakespeare, note that there is evidence that points to his authorship, such as printed copies of plays and sonnets with his name on him, theater company records with his name, and comments from contemporaries. Why would the giant Holy Trinity Church honor Shakespeare as well if he wasn't Shakespeare? Most Shakespeare scholars do not bind the anti-strat 40th and theory, former Shakespeare professor Stephen Marsh wrote for the New York Times, the idea has roughly the same currency as the fake moon landing does amongst astronauts. And finally Shakespeare scholar Irving Irvin Mattis wrote for the Atlantic.
Starting point is 02:12:45 There is more about Shakespeare and contemporary materials than about most others in English Renaissance theater. There are written references to Shakespeare. His name is written on plays again and dates just don't line up with the other author candidates. So yeah, so much choose to believe that Shakespeare is in fact Shakespeare. A man born April 23rd 1564 in Stratford upon Avaan son of a glovemaker Guy who grew up in a normal family guy who received good, but not not worthy education Guy who married young had three children with his wife
Starting point is 02:13:17 Guy who may have shared all kinds of personal details that you know ended up just getting lost a history for whatever reason Maybe they burned up in a fire. Maybe they got lost in some attic where they just rotted away. Good. Sometimes mystery is better than knowing. Just like we can endlessly reinterpret his universal timeless characters and make them relevant today, make them look how we want them to look, sound how we want them to sound, really make them our own.
Starting point is 02:13:40 Well, we can do the same for Zippy Willie. Maybe Shakespeare was a fucking goofball. Maybe he was a romantic. Maybe he had a fiery temper. Maybe he skinned women's hands after fucking murdering them along the River Thames. Hmm, I hope not. Maybe he was a life of the party.
Starting point is 02:13:58 Maybe he was a gentle soul. Maybe he loved the spotlight. Maybe he was reclusive. Maybe he really wanted to be an epic leading man like his buddy Richard Burbage only wrote because he didn't have the looks or voice or talent for that. Maybe he only ended up as a playwright because he was a super shitty glove maker. Who knows?
Starting point is 02:14:15 Uh, what we do know is that his stories are amazing. If they weren't, they would have never stood the test of time. If they weren't his body of work, wouldn't have turned his hometown into the second biggest tourist attraction to all of England. I find Shakespeare's story so inspirational. A man who didn't come from extreme wealth, right? A guy who never went to university, a guy who just had an extraordinarily creative mind, who worked hard, wrote story after story, year after year, produced works that have inspired
Starting point is 02:14:40 people for centuries. Maybe some creative type, listing will be the next Shakespeare someone anyone who will make a massive mark in history in some way. Someone who will influence others for centuries to come right at that. You go get it, meat sack. Go fucking create, build that legacy, pale Nimrod. You know, you don't need some degree. I mean, it's great. If you have that, if you've earned that degree, good for you. It is important. Education is important.
Starting point is 02:15:07 But it also, you know, doesn't mean if you don't have it, you can't do amazing things. Like, rights, timeless place. I love that. And now, much ado about today's top five takeaways. Time, suck, top five takeaways. Number one, we don't actually know to us. Number one, we don't actually know with 100% certainty when Shakespeare was born or how he died. Historians' guesstimate, that he was born on April 23rd, 1564 in Stratford
Starting point is 02:15:37 upon Aeban. His baptism recorded April 26th that year. Traditionally, baptisms occurred within three days of birth. And historians believe he died on his birthday in 1616, probably of an illness. Number two, Shakespeare was the primary dramatist for the Lord Chamberlain's men, later the King's men, for about 20 years. He produced about two plays a year among the list where classics like Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, Julius Caesar, and over 30 others. He also wrote 154 sonnets, which many believe were illegally published without his consent. Shakespeare's plays were compiled into the first folio produced by his friends in 1623.
Starting point is 02:16:15 This is perhaps one of the most important documents in literary history. Without it, Shakespeare's memory may have been lost at the time, just like the exact nature of the man behind the place has been lost. Number three, Shakespeare had an interesting and maybe somewhat scandalous person life. At age 18, he married a woman eight years as senior, who was also pregnant before the wedding. There was no evidence to show that the two were deeply in love, but also no evidence they weren't. Shakespeare most likely did care for his wife and their two surviving children and provided for them with his high-paying writing career.
Starting point is 02:16:47 Shakespeare left Anne his second best bed and his will many consider that a slight considering she was entitled to a third of his estate but in many many cases the second best bed was actually the marital bed. However, Shakespeare didn't write about Anne with terms of endearment as was common in wills of that time and he didn't explicitly state that she would receive the money she wasn't titled to. So, a little weird. Instead, his daughter Susanna seems to have inherited most of her father's estate. Number four, Shakespeare's contemporary and friend Ben Johnson wrote that Shakespeare was not of an age, but for all time. How true his words have been. After 400 years, Shakespeare is still
Starting point is 02:17:23 widely known and studied around the world. And number 5, New Info, let's talk about some words and phrases invented by Shakespeare to further illustrate how powerfully he's influenced the English language. Shakespeare is credited with either inventing or introducing over 1700 English words. Historians believe he invented these words by combining other words, making nouns, verbs, or adding prefixes and suffixes. Shakespeare birthplace trust provides an A to Z list of words attributed to Shakespeare, and here's a few examples.
Starting point is 02:17:54 Alligator, bedroom, buccacchi, critic, downstairs, eyeball, fashionable, finger- blasted, gossip, hurry, inaudible, jaded, kissing, lonely, manager, nervy, obscene, pegging, puppy dog, questioning, rant, skim milk, teabagging, traditional, undress, varied, worthless, yelping, zany, and bikini burger. And maybe he didn't invent Bukkaki finger-blasting, paging, T-bagging, and bikini burger, but he did introduce the rest of those terms. Shakes for also inventing many popular phrases still used today.
Starting point is 02:18:41 Too much of a good thing, from as you like it, I have not slept one wink from Simbling. Own flesh and blood from Hamlet. It's greek to me from Julius Caesar. That's how they do it in Hollywood, from the peanut butter diaries. monster from Othello. Time suck, tough, five takeaways. Shakespeare has been sucked. Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all the help in making Time suck.
Starting point is 02:19:14 Logan Keith producing today, the art warlock, Olivia Lee did a great job, preliminary research. Had a lot of fun. You know, going down tons of sideroads and looking further into and verifying the facts that she laid out, took a Shakespeare class in college, kind of appreciated it. Wish I would have understood then how truly historical his life was. Oh well, now I get it, better late than never.
Starting point is 02:19:37 And how about that's enough credits today? I don't know that I need to lay them out every week, probably not. Let's tease out next week's show. Next week, the spaces were to have voted in the lynching of Emmett Till. I'm gonna be a very intense episode. Emmett Till was a young black teenager from Chicago who came to visit family near the little
Starting point is 02:19:54 unincorporated community of money Mississippi in the summer of 1955. On August 24th of that year, Emmett was standing with his friends outside a grocery store. He reportedly bragged that he had a white girlfriend back in Chicago, maybe. It's up for debate.
Starting point is 02:20:10 And his friends dared him to ask the white woman behind the counter to go on a date with him. Emmett then went into the store, bought some bubble gum, and was heard saying goodbye to the woman on his way out. Perhaps witnesses are kind of all over the place. Witnesses definitely don't know what happened between the two in the store. Carolyn Bryant, the cashier and co-owner of the grocery store who interact with Emmett, would testify later that he grabbed her hand and waste, asked her on a date, told her
Starting point is 02:20:36 he'd been with other white women. Some, she kind of changed her version of events several times over the years. And sometimes she inferred that he did much more than that, uh, with his words, also allegedly wolf whistled at her as she left the store. And that was it. Roy Bryant, Carolyn's husband, return home from a trucking job a few days later, heard about the alleged incident and lost his fucking mind. Thought he would seem cowardly if he didn't retaliate.
Starting point is 02:21:02 So on August 28th, Roy and his half brother, J.W. Millum, with some accomplices kidnapped young Emmett Till from his uncle's home. Pretty interesting that for a guy who didn't want to appear cowardly, has to take a few guys with him to kidnap a 14-year-old. How is that not the height of cowardice? They drove Emmett to a farm owned by one of their family members, beat him, then took into the banks of the tally hatchy river Where he was shot in the head Then the men still not done tied a cotton gin fan to his neck with bar wire and threw his body in the river And it's body was found three days later his mother mommy till mowbly chose to have an opened casket funeral and with that
Starting point is 02:21:40 essentially kicked off the civil rights movement So all that it's a big story. We're going to be talking about next week on Time Suck. And right now, I have a very special Time Sucker updates to get into. And for those of you who do not like today's change in format, well, the regular edition of the updates will be back next week. So I'm worried about it. Big thanks to BetterHelp for partnering with us on this special segment.
Starting point is 02:22:14 Now welcome to this special edition of Time Sucker Updates. I'm going to share some advice given to me by Courtney Cope, licensed marriage family therapist and principal clinical operations manager, and David Yadish, licensed marriage, family, therapist, and principal clinical operations manager, and David Yadish, licensed therapist, and senior clinical operations manager, both at better help. I chatted with them both, you know, Courtney and David, a great length to ensure that this advice is in line with healthy practices for better mental health. This is not me playing therapist.
Starting point is 02:22:41 No one needs that. Today, we're going to answer one of the questions we got about relationship from one of our listeners. Here we go. How do you begin your entire life over? So how do you begin your entire life over after divorce and losing your business? As a childhood divorce and someone who has gotten divorced, I know all too well how divorce can suddenly
Starting point is 02:23:02 and dramatically alter your life's trajectory. There are so many emotions wrapped up in a divorce or significant breakup. The circumstances are going to be different for everyone because there are so many different reasons you and your significant other may have decided to go your separate ways. To start, allow yourself the time to feel all the feels. Have those days when you just cry, have those days when you are super angry, grieve the loss of the relationship and all that it represented your partner, your friend, your family, your life plans. It's okay to feel every last feeling. You can't really
Starting point is 02:23:34 move forward. If you're shoving your feelings down, it can be wildly overwhelming to think about every single thing you have to start over on. Finding a new source of income, thinking about falling in love again. You can make yourself crazy. Think it about all of the things you have to do all over again. And it could be overwhelming to think about all of that at once.
Starting point is 02:23:54 Even if you are someone who thrives in chaos, when you're back against the wall, there's just no way you're going to be able to do everything all at once. So it would be wise to create a plan full of small manageable steps. So that would be wise to create a plan full of small, manageable steps. So that you have some short-term goals that will get you to the long-term goals. Divorce can be so devastating that even the smallest of accomplishments can feel like a massive
Starting point is 02:24:15 victory. Another suggestion would be to take a vacation. And what do I mean by that? Well, if your life affords you the opportunity to break your daily routine and get out of Dodge Then step away for a few days to gather your thoughts and process those initial emotions if that's not an option Which in this case of losing your business as well as your marriage means it probably isn't Try to break your daily routine and move things around Can you add in a walk with the friend? Can you have lunch outside in a park for a change? Can you meditate for five minutes every day? A vacation doesn't have to involve travel or
Starting point is 02:24:48 even a full day off. What are some small things? You can give yourself the cost nothing, but we'll help you march forward. Can you find a song that fires you up? Listen to it every day to set the tone of your day, create a motivational soundtrack and keep in mind, no matter how hard this is, you will get through it. Trust yourself, believe in your willpower to come out stronger. Find family and friends who are good sources of support, keep the people in your circle tight, make sure you surround yourself with positive influences. It doesn't cost anything to enjoy the beauty of what's around. Download free app free show something that distracts you
Starting point is 02:25:26 Makes you laugh focus on small moments of pleasure Okay, I think that's great advice and That also wraps up the special edition of Time Sucker updates big. Thank you to our sponsor better help and a Courtney Cope Principal clinical operations manager and David Yadish, senior clinical operations manager better help. Courtney Cope and David Yadish's input is general psychological information. Based on research and clinical experience, it's intended to be general and informational in nature. It does not represent or indicate an established clinical or professional relationship with those inquiring for guidance. Their feedback is in response to a written question.
Starting point is 02:26:04 And therefore, there are likely unknown considerations given the limited context. Also, just because you might hear something on the show, it sounds similar to what you're experiencing beware of self-diagnosis. Diagnosis is not required to find relief, and you want to find a qualified professional to assess and explore diagnoses.
Starting point is 02:26:20 If that's important to you, if you or your partner are in crisis and uncertain of whether you can maintain safety, reach out for support, crisis hotlines, local authorities, have a safety plan, that can be done with the therapist too. Thanks, time suckers. I need a net.
Starting point is 02:26:39 We all did. Well, thanks for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast. Glad we got to do a little special ending there. Yeah, somebody who has gone through a divorce and you know, raised in a divorce household, married to someone else, raised in a divorce household, such a common experience. And yeah, it's fucking pretty traumatic. So hopefully that, you know, gave somebody something to focus on, little little baby steps Focus on the little victories.
Starting point is 02:27:07 Don't overwhelm yourself with trying to tackle everything. But yeah, but thanks for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast, scared of deaths and timesuck each week, and the secret suck each week for space lizards. Please don't start killing young women and skinning their hands to make gloves like William Shakespeare, aka Zippy Willie, aka Billy Shakes almost fucking certainly did. Just focus on poetry and place. And I am big stuff. You know, what is just gonna help you to keep on sucking? For my summer shakes be a theatre audition, I will be reciting Hamlet, to be or not to be.
Starting point is 02:28:04 That is the question, whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows about the rages fortune, or to take arms against the sea of troubles and by opposing end them, to die, to sleep, no more, and by asleep to say we end the heartic and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, to the consummation devoutly to be wished, to die, to sleep. To sleep a chance to dream, I, there's the rubble. For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.
Starting point is 02:28:41 That's the respect that makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressors wrong, the proud man's. Contumely, the pangs of the price love, the laws delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietest make with a bear bodkin. Who would fardals bear to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death? The undiscovered country from who's born, no traveler returns, puzzles the wheel and makes us rather bear those eels we have, then to fly to others that we know not of. Thus conscience does make cowards of a song.
Starting point is 02:29:17 And thus the native hue of resolution is sickly'd or with the pale cast of thought and enterprises of great peace and moment with disregard their currents turn around and lose the name of action. Soft you now, the fair of Helia, nymphed in my oceans, be all my sins remembered. How much fucking longer would you think times like we last? If I talk like that all the time. Two weeks? Three? Have a great week everybody. Except you.
Starting point is 02:29:43 You know what I'm talking about? You fucking piece of shit. Have a great week everybody. Except you. You know what I'm talking about, you fucking piece of shit.

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