WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT SHAKESPEARE?
What is so special about Shakespeare? Partly it’s the fact that his plays and poems cover an exceptional range of human experience. They range from the delicate comedies to austere passionate tragedies; from the farcical complications to sensuous eroticism; from the violence and horror and early history to fantasy worlds His plays also engage with the spiritual world. Each of Shakespeare’s plays are unique. This does not make them better in themselves, but does increase our sense of the achievement of the single mind from which they all proceed. And it can be fascinating to look for and to think about links among the plays, as if they all formed one great work of art.
INTERPRETING SHAKESPEARE
The richness of Shakespeare’s plays is a cause of a great diversity of interpretation. The ASL translation that you see on this website or DVD is one of many different ways to interpret and translate his lines. Shakespeare himself was clearly aware that his actors, and their followers from one generation to another, would interact with what he wrote in creative ways, so that each performance of a role has its own uniqueness. Many of these roles remain among the greatest and most rewarding challenges ever offered to actors. The texts are fluid: none of them exists in a form that was finally approved by Shakespeare; some of them, such as Hamlet and King Lear, have come down to us in more than one version, each with its own claims to authenticity; all of them are subject to change according to the circumstances in which they are performed. They release different energies each time they are acted. And they are collaborative, too, calling on the skills of actors, musicians, directors, designers, dancers, costume designers, and property makers (props). These are among the reasons why we gain pleasure and understanding by continuing to see the plays in varied interpretations, and why they reveal new facets of themselves in repeated re-readings.
There are, however, obstacles to an easy interpretation of Shakespeare which we cannot ignore. To think about this is to face the question again—why study Shakespeare? He wrote for theater companies very different from our own. The fact that he wrote largely using verse and rhyme, classical allusions to ancient mythology, and biblical stories, may act as a deterrent in an age that is not accustomed to heightened language. And since Shakespeare’s time the English language has changed. Some of the words that he uses have become archaic or obsolete; others more deceptively, have shifted in meaning. Word order has changed. Even in modern books we don’t necessarily expect to understand every single word. We get a lot from the context that surrounds it. And in the theater, where the language already has passed through the hands of trained actors who sign or speak it, much of the work of comprehension has already been done for us.
(Adapted from Stanley Wells’ Introduction, “Why Study Shakespeare?” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide.; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
ENJOYING SHAKESPEARE
Enjoyment of Shakespeare requires understanding of the dramatic and theatrical conventions with which he worked. Modern playgoers may be disturbed by the use of soliloquy and the aside. A soliloquy is when a character is alone on the stage and speaks (or signs) to his or her self. It is a very useful in drama because it allows a character to convey their innermost intimate thoughts and feelings directly to the audience while the other characters do not see or hear what is said. How can we be expected to believe that Viola in Twelfth Night should not see that the only explanation for what is happening is that her brother has survived the shipwreck? Or that Malvolio does not hear (or in the case of the ASL production, see) the three characters who stand directly behind him? These are conventions that challenge the imagination and may be obstacles that modern audiences must learn in order to fully appreciate Shakespeare.
Once you accept these conventions there should be little difficulty in gaining much enjoyment from most of Shakespeare’s plays, but they offer deeper rewards when studied more intensively. Shakespeare lived at a time when religion held far greater sway over the populace than it does now, when attitudes to superstition and witchcraft, magic and madness, differed greatly from those now prevalent in at least Western culture. His society was more hierarchical than ours, the monarchy and the aristocracy had much power and control, the gap between rich and poor was greater. Social attitudes to love and marriage, friendship, the place of women, race and nationhood, have changed—and an understanding of what Shakespeare’s contemporaries thought about them may help to broaden our own understanding.
(Adapted from Stanley Wells’ Introduction, “Why Study Shakespeare?” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide.; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
CONTEXTS
It has increasingly been realized that Shakespeare’s plays shift in meaning according to the mental attitudes that people bring to them. Terence Hawkes has said, “Shakespeare does not mean; we mean by Shakespeare.” In other words, his words interact with the preoccupations of those who experience them, and can be appropriated for many different purposes. Peter Hall directed one of the finest productions of the play Troilus and Cressida at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1962, which gained significance because it coincided with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Much modern study attempts not only to illuminate the plays by applying to them a wide range of critical practices and viewpoints, but also to use reactions to the plays as a means of exploring the society of our times and of other times.
We may be made more aware of modern attitudes to religion, economics, and cultural identity if we think about reactions to The Merchant of Venice, with its portrayal of Jews and Christians in a commercial relationship. We may become more aware of class and status, and the role of women as we look closely at Twelfth Night.
During the latter part of the twentieth century, Shakespeare and his works became the object of an industry as never before. Shakespeare continues to appeal to the modern world, to the fact that his plays can go on provoking debate, arousing enjoyment, rewarding intellectual investigation.
(Adapted from Stanley Wells’ Introduction, “Why Study Shakespeare?” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide.; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
SHAKESPEARE’S LIFE
Shakespeare’s youth was ordinary. The oldest son of eight children, he was born sometime between April 21 and April 24, 1564. People like to say his birthday is on the 23rd, because that was also the feast day of St. George, the patron Saint of England. Shakespeare was born in a small town named Stratford-upon-Avon in the heart of England. Many professional theatre companies toured to Shakespeare’s town, but the nearby city, Coventry, had the most theatrical activity.
The Shakespeare family had serious financial problems during William’s early adolescence. His father, John, a once-respected town official, lost property and went into debt. This lack of funding may have prevented Shakespeare from obtaining the university degree that would have given him the status of ‘gentleman.’ These circumstances may explain his numerous investments in property, as well as his tendency to talk about love in terms of money (‘Farewell—thou art too dear for my possessing,’ Sonnet 87). His early plays deal with father-son relationships, though this is partly because they address English history and male lineage.
In 1582, at age 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. They had three children by 1585. Shakespeare’s only son, Hamnet, died in 1596. His wife, Anne, was almost forty and unlikely to have children. There would be no one after Shakespeare to enjoy the status of landed gentry. He addresses the grief of absent children and family members in a number of plays, most of which have a comic effect.
Shakespeare had artistic and financial success by 1598. His plays were being published with his name on the title page, as a selling point. He was also compared to the poet, Ovid, and the dramatists, Plautus and Seneca (those that excelled in both comedy and tragedy, as few artists have done). In 1597, Shakespeare had enough money to buy a large house in Stratford called New Place. The early modern period did not have copyright laws that allowed an author to profit from a play run, as well as revivals and adaptations, so Shakespeare supported himself as an actor and share-holder in the company.
Shakespeare died at the age of fifty-two on April 23, 1616, survived by his wife and two daughters. He was buried in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford near the altar and a monument.
(Adapted from Lois Potter’s “Shakespeare’s Life and Career,” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004)
SHAKESPEARE, THE AUTHOR
The first records of Shakespeare as a writer and actor in London are from 1592, when he was almost thirty. He probably began his theatrical career by joining a touring acting company in Stratford. If young enough, he may have played women’s parts, like most apprentices. The most reputed theatre company in the 1580s and 1590s, the Lord Admiral’s Men, may have hired Shakespeare for acting and writing. Many Elizabethan plays had up to five authors, especially when the play needed to be appear quickly to address current events.
He developed a reputation as a strong plotter and important member of any collaboration. Some of his peers may have been have looked down on him because he was not a university graduate and because he borrowed from the work of others. They may have been jealous or intimidated by the fact he was making more money from drama than they were. The first mention of Shakespeare was a criticism by Robert Greene in a pamphlet from 1592 that warned contemporaries of Shakespeare’s ambitious shift from actor to writer. His ambition was depicted as “a tiger’s heart wrapped in a player’s (actor’s) hide.”
(Adapted from Lois Potter’s “Shakespeare’s Life and Career,” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MEN AND THE GLOBE THEATRE
There were three very serious outbreaks of the plague which led to the closure of all places of Elizabethan entertainment, including the Globe Theater. These occurred in 1593, 1603, and 1608. Due to the first major outbreak, acting companies weren’t able to perform until 1594. Many of them regrouped. Shakespeare bought an expensive share in The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a group formed by the Burbage Family.
The Lord Chamberlain’s Men wanted a permanent home. In the 1590’s, James Burbage bought part of a building in Blackfriars priory (named after Dominican priests who used to run a school there) to use as an indoor theatre. This would extend the acting season much further than outdoor playhouses. The group was banned by the Queen’s Privy Council from using it this way. In 1598, the group took their building apart and carried it across the river, piece by piece. They built the Globe. Perhaps because of his physical involvement with the new building, Shakespeare’s plays from this period address the theatre as both a material object and a source of imaginative experience. He refers to the limits of ‘this wooden O’ in Henry V and proclaims ‘All the world’s a stage’ in As You Like It; there are references to drama and acting in Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and many other plays.
The Globe was destroyed in 1613 when a canon was fired as a special effect and started a fire. This was a financial disaster, but the company quickly built a new and larger outdoor playhouse, funded by its share-holders.
(Adapted from Lois Potter’s “Shakespeare’s Life and Career,” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
JAMES I
After the Queen’s death in March 1603, the plague caused another closing of the theatres. When the theatres re-opened, the new king, James I, who found it important to associate himself with the performing arts, honored the Chamberlain’s Men as the King’s Men. Shakespeare’s plays often appeared in the royal court.
Shakespeare was now considered the leading playwright in England’s most famous drama company. He was often imitated and referenced by other playwrights.
James’ reign influenced Shakespeare’s subject matter. James was more tolerant than Elizabeth of making references to contemporary politics. Shakespeare’s choice of Scottish history (Macbeth) echoed the murder of James’ father, as well as threats to James’ life. The play references the Catholic Gunpowder plot of 1605, an attempt to blow up the king and Parliament.
(Adapted from Lois Potter’s “Shakespeare’s Life and Career,” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
QUEEN ELIZABETH I
The reign of Queen Elizabeth I is often referred to as The Golden Age of English history. Elizabeth was an immensely popular Queen, yet we know little about Elizabeth the woman.
Elizabeth was the daughter of King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. She was born on 7 September 1533 at Greenwich Palace. Elizabeth’s early life was difficult. Her father wanted a son and heir to succeed him. Anne Boleyn could not provide him with a son, and Henry VIII had her executed on false charges of adultery on May 19, 1536.
As a child, Elizabeth was given a very impressive education. She had a special flare for languages, and by adulthood, she could reputedly speak five fluently.
Elizabeth was crowned Queen on Sunday 15th January 1559. In the months that followed, the new Queen re-established the Protestant Church in England with herself as the head. Now that Elizabeth was Queen, proposals of marriage flooded in, but Elizabeth committed herself to none of them, becoming the “Virgin Queen.”
When she ascended the throne in 1558, England was an impoverished country torn apart by religious squabbles. When she died at Richmond Palace on the 24th March 1603, England was one of the most powerful and prosperous countries in the world.
(Adapted from Lois Potter’s “Shakespeare’s Life and Career,” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
THE FIRST FOLIO
It took Shakespeare’s colleagues, possibly with Ben Jonson’s help, seven years to publish his plays. It is now known as the First Folio. Originally it was called Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. It included no poems and two plays were missing (Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen). It features an engraving based on an earlier drawing or painting of Shakespeare, by an artist who probably never saw him in real life. Jonson wrote verses about this picture and said, “look/Not on his picture, but his book.”
(Adapted from Lois Potter’s “Shakespeare’s Life and Career,” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
PATRONS
No theatres were built in Britain for a thousand years after the Romans departure in the fifth-century. There were traveling groups of actors in the late medieval period, but they weren’t considered professional because they weren’t gaining capital. Shakespeare’s works were important for the return of professional theatre in the late sixteenth century.
Professional troupes in Shakespeare’s time were patronized by senior aristocrats or monarchs. They existed to fulfill the entertainment needs of the monarch during the holidays. (The public performances were supposed to be mere practice.) The patrons were held accountable for controversial subject matter. Queen Elizabeth herself issued a proclamation in 1559 that reminded patrons to make sure that their players did not perform anything that depicted either religion or her government on the stage. Aristocratic patronage and capitalist economics (the desire to make huge sums of money) lead to a major growth in theatrical activity during this time period.
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was an early theatrical patron. Between 1582 and 1585 his Leicester’s Men theatre group disappeared and a new company, Queen’s Men, was formed out of the star performers (such as the famous clown, Richard Tarlton). The troupe was under Queen Elizabeth’s direct patronage, a part of her plan to take playing companies and make them professional and profitable. The Queen’s Men toured the entire country in the summer and stayed in London in the winter. Other traveling troupes stayed much closer to home.
In London, permanent, open-air, circular amphitheatre playhouses were built in the suburbs. Visiting companies toured between these venues, but they preferred to perform indoors in city inns near the greater population.
In 1594, the Queen’s Privy council and the Lord Mayor of London decided that the inns could no longer be used. They allowed two companies, the Chamberlain’s Men and the Admiral’s Men, to use two designed playhouses, the Theatre in Shoreditch and the Rose on Bankside, respectively.
(Adapted from Gabriel Egan’s “Theatre in London” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004)
SUMPTUARY LAWS
On February 12th, 1580 Queen Elizabeth issued a proclamation that governed the apparel of the people of England. This class of proclamations, known as “sumptuary laws,” makes reference to earlier decrees from King Henry VIII (Elizabeth’s father) that attempted to prevent people from changing their social status by means of clothing. This particular proclamation outlines who was responsible for enforcing the laws and punishments for violating the standards, and provided examples of what each class of people was allowed to wear.
Sumptuary laws were enacted in many countries throughout Europe. In England, these laws were created to curb extravagance and make clear the necessary and important distinctions between levels of society. The main concern was that money spent on frivolous display of clothing would be better spent on the military, important for an island nation always in danger of being attacked by neighbors like France or Spain.
The other concern was that letting anyone wear just anything might lead to social disorder. If you couldn’t distinguish a servant from a duke at first glance, the hierarchy of class structure and the social order could be thrown into chaos. The laws were intended to keep people in their respective classes. However, by Shakespeare’s time the laws were broken often with no punishment given. On the stage, it became a common playwriting technique to have servants exchange clothing with their masters, creating many comic scenes of mistaken identity, transgressing the social order. In real life, it was practically impossible to govern such laws for there was no such thing as fashion police to investigate infractions of the law.
Shakespeare himself was able to move beyond social rank using playwriting as his means to success. Preachers and moralists warned against women dressing in the clothes of men, or men in the clothes of women. This is why they also detested the theater, because actors wore clothing not only of higher classes of people, but men playing women’s roles also wore women’s clothing, which was of grave moral concern.
(Adapted from Gabriel Egan’s “Theatre in London” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
THE GLOBE
The Globe was ninety-feet in diameter; the Rose was seventy-four feet. The standard amphitheatre configuration held about 3,000 when very crowded.
Most of the world’s theatres are designed with the proscenium arch style which became popular after the Restoration in 1660. The main aspect is the placing of the actors in one room and the audience in another, divided by the curtain. This is different than the open-air playhouses of Shakespeare’s time, where the audience surrounded at least three sides of the stage. Since they were often performing in daylight, the playwrights wrote speeches that were consciously directed toward the highly visible audience.
In playhouses, the main stage represented earthly reality; the ‘hell’ area under the stage was the domain of devils and ghosts; the underside of the stage-cover was for the ‘heavens.’ In the ASL translation of Twelfth Night, Malvolio is placed in a trap door under the stage, the traditional place for “evil,” and he notes himself that it is as dark “as hell” in the play.
(Adapted from Gabriel Egan’s “Theatre in London” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
COSTUMES AND DISGUISE
Apart from scripts, the greatest capital a theater company maintained was its stock of costumes. An extensive stock of costumes could easily be worth more than the theater in which they were performing. Traveling players often rented costumes from theaters that had abundant costume storage to pull from. A typical theatrical doublet (the upper-body garment for a man) cost about £3, most women’s gowns were between £4 and £7, and skirts were about £2. To put these numbers into perspective, the master of the Stratford Grammar echool was at the time paid £20 for his entire year’s salary. The high cost of costumes presumably reflects how important costumes were in the theatrical event. While playing elite characters, companies used luxurious clothing if they could afford it. When attempting to represent other times and cultures, they used Elizabethan clothing with symbolic gestures toward the past or foreign cultures (a turban might indicate the countries of the east, for instance and a sash might represent a Roman toga).
Costumes were very important in establishing the identity of the character. There were no programs or cast lists in Elizabethan theater to indicate the class or status of a character, so costume was an important visual extension of the character’s power in a play. In order to follow the plots and sub-plots, it becomes very important to know which character has the authority, and this was most clearly evidenced in the costume.
Consider that women were not allowed to perform on stage in Shakespeare’s time, so young boys whose voiced had not yet changed played the women’s roles. In many of Shakespeare’s plays, disguise is a central feature of the play and became a convention in Elizabethan drama all its own. There is no mystery about the fact that, while all members of the audience can recognize the “true” character of the disguise, none of the other characters on stage can. It is as if the costume is all that is visible to define a person.
This convention of disguise has extra dimensions when the disguised actor is a boy playing a woman pretending to be a man. There are three layers of meaning all combined in the physical body on stage. Shakespeare often used disguise to great lengths in drawing attention to the ambiguity of gender on the stage. In Twelfth Night, for example, there are many jokes about the gender of Viola, who disguises herself as Cesario. Shakespeare complicated the sexual innuendoes in the play by having twin brother and sister complicate the idea of disguise and identity.
(Adapted from Gabriel Egan’s “Theatre in London” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
ACTORS AND PLAYWRIGHTS
Entry to a theater company was most common by apprenticeship, usually for seven years. Theatre groups were joint-stock companies which allowed anyone with capital to invest/share. Sharers were almost always actors and they took the major roles. The lesser roles were given to hired men. After the expenses, the surplus was divided among the sharers.
The sharers in the leading companies became rich men. Thirty years earlier, these same men were considered vagabonds.
Dramatists were divided into two types. ‘Attached’ men worked for one company and received a salary. Freelances sold each play to different companies for a fixed fee of 6 to 10 pounds. An attached dramatist, such as Shakespeare, knew the resources of the company (and the kind of roles the men could play) and wrote the material accordingly. As intellectual property, the play was no longer the dramatist’s once he had transferred it to the company. Our modern notions of authorial copyright were invented much later. William Shakespeare wrote an average of two plays a year for the Chamberlain’s Men.
No company had enough actors for all the roles. The major actors took one large role each, while the hired men played multiple, smaller roles. A simple change of costume was enough for audiences to know that the same actor was now playing a different role. The copying of manuscripts was expensive and difficult, so the play was divided into ‘parts.’ Each ‘part’ was a scroll that contained the speeches of one character, with each speech preceded by a cue – the few words that ended the previous speaker’s speech. The mechanicals in A Midsummer Night’s Dream are given their parts by Peter Quince and implored to ‘con [learn] them by tomorrow night’ (1.2.82). Most preparation was solitary, with little time for group rehearsals prior to the first performance.
(Adapted from Gabriel Egan’s “Theatre in London” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
POLITICS AND THEATRE
Before a play could be performed, its script had to be inspected by the state censor, the Master of the Revels, who worked for the Lord Chamberlain and received fees from the actors for his work. The censors’ guidelines were never defined, but they addressed material that could be offensive to the church and state, from personal satire to foul language and excessive sexuality.
The censors and the dramatists often cooperated; the censors made money and the players received the state seal of approval that their works were harmless entertainment. The dramatists artfully encoded political and social themes about government and the status of women. Their works were subtle and have fascinated scholars.
Theatre historians used to model London’s theatre industry as an east-west divide, but this is too simple. Political power was polarized, but the players were alternately defended and attacked by each side during the political turmoil that lead to the English Civil War of the 1640s. The city authorities often said that large gatherings at playhouses were a threat to public order, but they usually didn’t complain that the plays had dangerous ideas. The court and church authorities who licensed performances and publishing, on the other hand, were concerned with subversive ideas. The theatres closed in 1642 as the result of the English Civil War, and did not re-open again until 1660, but completely changed from anything seen before it. For the first time, women would be allowed on the English-speaking stage!
(Adapted from Gabriel Egan’s “Theatre in London” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
LIFE IN SHAKESPEARE’S TIME
The scenes in Shakespeare’s plays move between town and countryside, demonstrating how much he knew about both worlds. Any one of us going back in time would be at first struck by the familiarity of life in Shakespeare’s time—people doing the same things as us, getting up, snatching food before going about their daily tasks, talking with others along the road, arguing, laughing and pondering thoughtfully on life. But we would also soon notice a host of different assumptions.
People accepted daily routines that are no longer imposed on us and a world of behavior that is quite alien to our lives. At grand feasts men belched openly and drunken men urinated on the floor freely without getting up from the table. The church bell not only marked the hours of the days and times to attend church services, but spread news when someone died. Children skipped out of echool at will to do errands, or did not turn up at all if they had to help with the harvest. Women working in the fields took their babies with them and laid them to sleep beside the hedges. Pledges were deemed solemn and enduring if they were concluded on a church porch or inside the church. Informally and carelessly, work mingled with leisure.
Privacy was not valued as it is today. Rather, people relished a world in which everyone was in sight of others, felt free to watch everyone else’s doings, and talked readily to every stranger.
(Adapted from Joan Thirsk’s “Daily Life in Town and Country” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
COUNTRY AND TOWN LIFE
Most people in Shakespeare’s day lived in the countryside, with routines, foods, outdoor activities, and traveling habits that changed with the seasons. Short hours of daylight in winter meant long hours by candlelight, at home, or in the alehouse. In summer, everyone was outside, laboring hard in the fields or roaming in the woods, picking up green plants and fruits for food, or joining with neighbors and friends in games outside.
People in the country trapped animals, caught fish, collected birds’ eggs in the spring, helped the women milk cows in the open, and gathered herbs. Often they would pick crab apples to make verjuice, the tasty vinegar of the past.
Town life was different from country life, but even those who lived in the country knew of town life. They might go to town to sell produce, testify in court, buy something in the market, or just enjoy themselves at the fair. The amount of movement between town and country varied greatly between classes of people and at different stages in their lives. Most people, including Shakespeare, had enough contact with the countryside to be familiar with the plants, birds, animals, weather, and countryman’s skills to know how to get food for free.
(Adapted from Joan Thirsk’s “Daily Life in Town and Country” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
CLOTHES AND ODORS
To make the most of daylight, people got up earlier in the summer than in winter, but they dressed amid a familiar scurrying search for the right clothes to suit the work and the day. Fancy choices were available to the rich and servants were expected to have the correct clothes laid out for them. But the laborer wore the same clothes day after day, long lasting garments of leather, sheepskin, or canvas. The standard laborer usually did not own more than one change of clothing.
During the winter it was very difficult to wash clothes. Outer garments were never washed and were handed on as heirlooms. But from springtime on, shirts and stockings, whether made of cloth or hand knitted, went into the wash from time to time and were hung on hedges to dry. The burning or buying of wood-ashes to make lye for soap was common. In Shakespeare’s Henry IV, ragged soldiers were expected to ‘find linen enough on every hedge’. Thefts of such clothing were brought to court.
But even with the washing of clothes, smells in town streets from decaying food, industrial process, animals, and unwashed people were pungently disagreeable. People sprinkled sweet-smelling substances wherever they could. They might wear a nosegay in the street, and indoors they often trod sweet-smelling herbs like thyme and rosemary underfoot, or had them on the windowsills.
(Adapted from Joan Thirsk’s “Daily Life in Town and Country” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
HOUSES AND HOME LIFE
Sleeping quarters varied greatly in comfort between classes. The rich owned carved wooden beds, lay on goose-feather mattresses, were covered with sheets of linen, laid their heads on goose-feather bolsters and pillows, and kept warm under woolen blankets.
Working people lay on straw mattresses, or at worst, just mats, covering themselves with hardwearing hemp sheets and adding a thicker piece of woolen cloth for more warmth. Each home had a store of sheets and pillow cases which you handed on to your children as heirlooms, for they lasted many years. Over generations, families built up a considerable quantity of possessions by inheritance.
Furniture in the ordinary home was simple and spare, but it was being improved in quantity, with more benches, stools, and some chairs. Many people might prefer to sit on the floor on a cushion. Tables were replacing boards on trestles. A dishboard or cupboard shelved plates that were made of wood or pewter. Now it was becoming more usual to eat food off plates rather than serve it on one or two thick slices of bread laid directly on the table, as it had been a few years before.
Houses did not have many rooms, and so the household crowded into the main one, ‘the hall’, where food was cooked and the fire warmed everybody. Even then, with draughts and doors opening and closing, the temperature in winter probably never reached above 60 degrees Fahrenheit and was often nearer to 50 degrees.
One improvement to homes was the new-fangled chimney. It was added along one wall of the hall, and greatly reduced the smoke, which normally swirled around the room from the open cooking hearth, escaping only through a hole in the roof. This change encouraged some to put a ceiling over the hall, creating a storage loft above. The loft stored cheese, apples, hemp, and wood.
Standards of domestic cleanliness varied with people, and the construction of the house. Floors often consisted of beaten earth, so fresh straw was strewn, on which rubbish fell and lay in the gaps until a fresh layer was added or the whole lot was swept out to the manure heap for fertilizing the fields. Herbs strewn on top gave off a sweet fragrance when walked on.
(Adapted from Joan Thirsk’s “Daily Life in Town and Country” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
FOOD
In Shakepeare’s time, food and medicines were synonyms. Every part of almost every animal, apart from rats, and practically every plant, other than those known to be poisonous, was edible. Among ordinary folk, the main food, other than bread, was a nourishing stew, also called pottage. In contained everything available—beans, peas, green stuff, roots, and flavorings like mustard seed and salt. If the family had additional money, they could purchase whatever foreign spices they could afford, plus a slice of bacon, a sheep’s head, or a bone with a fragment of meat clinging to it. Only modest firing was needed for the pot to cook gently for hours on end.
Most country folk drank ale. Milk was appreciated. It would have been rich, full cream milk, straight from the cow. Whey, the liquid left after cheese making, was also a good food and thirst-quencher. It was so little valued by the dairymen that they gave it away free to the poor.
(Adapted from Joan Thirsk’s “Daily Life in Town and Country” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
SCHOOLING AND CAREERS
Young people went to school if their town or village offered the chance, but standards varied greatly. New schools were being founded by wealthy men who valued education. But only boys received this much attention. A village or single parish in a town might find a woman teacher, or sometimes a parson used space in the church to teach elementary reading, learning by heart, and writing. Then girls might be included. Otherwise, children stayed at home, learning practical skills by watching their elders in the kitchen, in craft workshops that were part of the home, or out in the fields. Around the age of twelve or thirteen, they were apprenticed to a trade or went into farming. The apprentice promised to remain for between five and seven years. Young people generally followed the trades of their fathers.
When apprenticeships were completed, young people made their own way in the world, becoming perhaps successful masters themselves. For young men serving apprenticeships, their careers were always helped if they managed to marry the master’s daughter.
After training in farming, sons worked on their family’s land, expecting to take it over themselves in the future. Sons of country craftsmen similarly learned their trade by following their fathers without the formalities of guild training.
(Adapted from Joan Thirsk’s “Daily Life in Town and Country” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
MARRIAGE
Courtship, sex, and marriage were very important to Shakespeare’s audience, including the court itself. In a time of rapid legal and social change, these matters were subjects of intense debate in daily life. Shakespeare explored the dramatic confrontations and psychological tensions inherent in these subjects with his mordant and bawdy wit. While these issues are still relevant today, they can be fully understood only in the cultural context of Shakespeare’s lifetime.
Church laws allowed a man and woman to ‘marry’ through a simple pledge made to each other. (In The Taming of the Shrew, Lucentio’s servant tells him, ‘I knew a wench married in an afternoon as she went to the garden for parsley to stuff a rabbit,’ 4.5.23-4). This marriage did not depend on approval from parents, the presence of witnesses, or the church’s involvement. Still, for centuries, couples were encouraged to publicize their marriage plans and to have the ceremonies in church. The laws of marriage were inconsistent and confusing, resulting in some couples being punished for their behavior.
These laws were clarified in most parts of Europe during the sixteenth century. There were similar calls for reform in England, to no avail. During Elizabeth’s reign, the Church imposed stricter standards that addressed parental consent and the presence of a priest during the marriage ceremony. Marriages without church ceremonies were typically frowned upon. When Shakespeare’s characters spoke of ‘marriage,’ they always implied some type of religious ceremony.
Getting married was not as difficult as it may have seemed. Females could marry at the age of twelve and males at fourteen, despite efforts to change the law. The average marriage age began to rise to the mid/late twenties, but ‘Child marriages’ still existed. Thirteen-year-old Juliet’s marriage intentions in Romeo and Juliet were believable in real life.
The modern version of divorce, with the right to remarry, did not exist in Shakespearean England. It was believed that unions could only be broken by death, which emphasized the importance of marital relations.
(Adapted from Martin Ingram’s “Love, Sex, and Marriage” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
ALTERNATIVE MARRIAGES
In London and other places, there was a growing trend called ‘clandestine’ marriages. These ceremonies took place on short notice and defied the church’s request that couple’s publicize their union. Clandestine marriages often appeared in Shakespeare’s plays (in the Taming of the Shrew, Lucentio hears that ‘The old priest at Saint Luke’s church is at your command at all hours,’ 4.5.13-14).
Other practices included ‘handfasting,’ or ‘spousals,’ which consisted of numerous negotiations between the partners and their families, where there were often “go-betweens” (like Viola/Cesario who goes between Orsino and Olivia in Twelfth Night, 1.4.12-41). Symbolic gifts were exchanged, while more serious financial and property matters were negotiated. The diversity and ambiguity in marriage practices often lead to disputes. This is most notable in Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure (1.2.122-6; 3.1.210-212).
(Adapted from Martin Ingram’s “Love, Sex, and Marriage” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
CLASS AND MARRIAGE
‘Arranged’ marriages were rare. Few men or women were married with no say in the matter. However, couples were expected to have enough money to maintain a household. This is why marriage was forbidden to those in apprenticeships and why marriage of the young was usually discouraged. Wealthy families had to pay high dowries for their daughter.
At the highest social level, marriage was affected by the family’s political motives. Sons had more freedom than daughters, but women still had veto power. It was widely accepted that a happy marriage depended on consent from both partners (Shakespeare addresses the moral wickedness of forced marriages in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1.1.22-45, when Egeus attempts to control his daughter.)
Among the lower class, children were expected to talk to their family about their marriage plans (in The Winter’s Tale, Polixeness says that a father ‘…should hold some counsel/In such a business,’ 4.4.397-8). Besides morality and courtesy, ‘good will’ or ‘blessing’ from father or mother was crucial if a couple hoped to receive assistance setting up their household. However, in the poorest families, one or both parents may be dead by the time a couple had saved up enough money to marry.
In the lower-classes, many people spent their teen and early adult years as apprentices and servants away from their immediate families. While their masters and mistresses typically took part in marriage negotiations, these couples usually made their own choices with little parental influence.
Disapproving parents sometimes used moral pressure, financial perks, and threats of disinheritance to dissuade their children. The parents were usually successful (in The Winter’s Tale, Polixenes gets enraged when he discovers the marriage of his son, Florizel, to Perdita).
Sometimes parents did not agree on the same partner (such as Anne Page’s parents in The Merry Wives of Windsor). The most common complaint was that the individual was too poor. Youngsters were the most defiant against family expectations and material interests when it came to matters of love.
(Adapted from Martin Ingram’s “Love, Sex, and Marriage” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
SEXUAL MORALITY
In Shakespearian England, people of all social ranks found their sexual honor called into question (in Much Ado About Nothing, Hero denounces his fiancé, Claudio, ‘with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour’ as an ‘approved wanton’ and ‘rotten orange,’ 4.1.30, 42, 302-303). Women were especially vulnerable to sexual slander.
In the society that emphasized the family and household, sexual morality was a major concern. Fear of syphilis factored into this. Condemned sexual behavior was disciplined by the church courts through public penance. The punished were often dressed in a white sheet and carried a white rod when they confessed before the local church. Sometimes they were carted through the streets of London. They were not to be punished with torture, death, or loss of property, but there were some exceptions.
The restrictions against sexual expression created tensions that played out bawdy humor and sexual horseplay (Hamlet makes a sexual pun while his head is resting in Ophelia’s lap about ‘country matters,’ 3.2.101-9).
There were discrepancies over when a couple could engage in sexual relations. Some believed that a binding marriage contract was enough (in Measure for Measure, the Duke tells Mariana that Angelo ‘…is your husband on a pre-contract./To bring you thus together ‘tis no sin,’ 4.1.68-9.) At least a fifth of all brides were pregnant when they came into the marriage ceremony.
The chastity of brides in the upper ranks of society was more closely guarded. Bridal pregnancy became less and less acceptable over time. By 1600, the church courts began to prosecute couples for this behavior.
Illegitimate births were also a moral and economic concern. Bastard births raised the fears of local communities who believed that these children created another charge on the rates that parishes had to levy to relieve the poor. The parents of ‘bastard’ children were more strictly punished as time went on.
Adultery was the most harshly punished. It was possible to receive the death penalty. If nothing else, adultery was seen as disrupting the household and property (Measure for Measure addresses these issues).
(Adapted from Martin Ingram’s “Love, Sex, and Marriage” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)
GENDER ROLES
Women expected to be treated well by their husbands. Wife-beating was denounced by the Church, but the actual law allowed a man to ‘correct’ his wife. Some women were treated cruelly.
Shakespeare addresses the scolding of women in The Taming of the Shrew. Men who had the reputation of not being able to control their wife were often ridiculed in public. The mockery focused on the man’s lack of control in the relationship, as if he were just a carting horse for his wife.
Men were most strongly ridiculed when their wives were unfaithful. This implied his sexual inadequacy and his inability to govern the household. He would be taunted by neighbors. Shakespeare explored this theme in a number of ways: tragedy and comedy, psychology and situational (Lavatch apologizes for his wife’s adultery in All’s Well that Ends Well, 1.3.37-48).
(Adapted from Martin Ingram’s “Love, Sex, and Marriage” in Shakespeare, an Oxford Guide; Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.)