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Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Geoffrey Marsh on Shakespeare's Neighbors

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7837 Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What would we find out about you if we got to know your neighbors? What if we took a walk around the neighborhood where you live? That's the way that Geoffrey Marsh hopes to learn more about Shakespeare in his new book, Living with Shakespeare. Starting with a 1598 tax roll that lists Shakespeare's names among the residents of St. Helen's parish, the historian and director of the theater and performances collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum meets the people and explores the places that surrounded Shakespeare in the late 1590s. The people include lord mayors, an unusual concentration of doctors, and Shakespeare's saavy but combative colleague James Burbage. The places include St. Helen's Church, the Theatre, and a notable well about a hundred yard's from Shakespeare's house. Geoffrey Marsh is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. Listen to Shakespeare Unlimited on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Soundcloud, NPR One, or wherever you get your podcasts. Geoffrey Marsh is the director of the Theatre & Performing Arts department of the Victoria and Albert Museum. His new book, "Living with Shakespeare: Saint Helen’s Parish, 1593–1598," was published by Edinburgh University Press. It became available in the US on May 30. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published May 8, 2021. ©Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “We’ll Wander Through the Streets and Note the Qualities of People,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits a transcript of every episode, available at folger.edu. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California.

Transcript

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0:00.0

So many of us who love Shakespeare's work want to get inside his head.

0:04.9

Most biographers try the direct route.

0:07.6

But what if there was another way?

0:10.1

What if you tried to understand Shakespeare by looking at the people all around him?

0:20.6

From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.

0:24.6

I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folgers director.

0:27.6

Jeffrey Marsh is an historian of the City of London.

0:31.6

He also runs the Theatre and Performing Arts Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

0:38.8

These two areas of specialty serve him well in a new exercise designed to get to know not Shakespeare

0:45.8

himself, but the people around him. By that I don't mean Shakespeare's family or Shakespeare's

0:52.1

acting troupe. Jeff has a new book called Living with Shakespeare.

0:57.0

In it, he's focused in on one of the places Shakespeare is thought to have lived, a little

1:03.0

neighborhood in London called St. Helens. There is documentary evidence that suggests strongly

1:09.2

that Shakespeare lived in a house in St. Helens during

1:11.8

an early part of his career. While this approach may or may not bring us closer to the life

1:17.5

of William Shakespeare, it does bring us some remarkable characters, and the world they,

1:23.9

and likely Shakespeare, once inhabited. Jeff joined us from his home in London to talk about all of this for a podcast we call.

1:32.2

We'll wander through the streets and note the qualities of people.

1:36.5

Jeffrey Marsh is interviewed by Barbara Bogave.

1:39.5

We did a podcast a few weeks ago with the founder of the Lost Plays database. And he is big on this idea

1:47.0

of negative space, which is, he means that what the plays we don't know about can tell us

1:55.1

about what we think we know. And in your story, as I read your book, it seems like the negative space is

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