Lena Cowen Orlin on The Private Life of William Shakespeare

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2021

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

Dr. Lena Cowen Orlin’s new book, The Private Life of Shakespeare, isn’t exactly a biography. Rather, it’s an exhaustive return to the primary sources that document Shakespeare’s life, a book that scholar James Shapiro says “demolishes shoddy claims and biased inferences that have distorted our understanding of Shakespeare’s life.” Orlin focuses on five much-talked-about elements of Shakespeare’s life, and then lays out fact after fact after fact about them drawn from her assiduous research. We talk with her about a few of those elements, including Shakespeare’s relationship with Anne Shakespeare, how he escaped an apprenticeship and career in Stratford-upon-Avon, and his funerary monument in Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church. Orlin is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. Dr. Lena Cowen Orlin is an Emerita Professor of English at Georgetown University. From 1982 to 1996, Orlin coordinated postdoctoral seminars and conferences as Executive Director of the Folger Institute. In 2011 and 2012, she researched at the Folger as one of our Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellows. Her new book, The Private Life of William Shakespeare, was published by Oxford University Press in November of 2021. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published December 7, 2021. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “I See a Man’s Life,” 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 Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Lauren Schild and John Rigatuso at Clean Cuts studios in Washington, DC.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's hard to look into the distant past and know everything or even anything for sure.
0:06.7	But for some reason, that hasn't stopped people from crafting stories about the life of William Shakespeare that we end up taking as absolute truth.
0:25.1	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:27.6	I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folgers director.
0:35.0	From 1982 until 1996, Lena Cowan-Orland was executive director of the Folger Institute,
0:40.4	and from 2011 until 2012, she was here at the Folger as one of our Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellows, working on a book that she titled The Private Life of
0:46.5	William Shakespeare. This book, as you'll hear, is not a Shakespeare biography. Instead, Dr. Orlin focuses on five elements of Shakespeare's life
0:57.8	and then lays out fact after fact after fact about them. The result, as you might imagine,
1:04.8	is an exhaustive understanding of the facts of Shakespeare's life and an equally exhaustive
1:10.4	understanding of the stories people have told life, and an equally exhaustive understanding of the stories
1:12.3	people have told over the years based on their assembly of those facts. True stories, untrue
1:18.7	stories, unprovable stories, and stories that are honestly just too good to check. Dr. Orland
1:25.9	came into a studio in Washington, D.C., recently to tell us about some of
1:30.1	this material for a podcast we call, I see a man's life. Dr. Lena Cowan Orlin is interviewed by
1:37.8	Barbara Bogave. Not every book has a great origin story. I have to say that, but I think yours
1:43.5	qualifies. So, tell us, how did the
1:47.3	myth about Shakespeare hating his wife because he left her his second best bed lead you to
1:53.2	write this book? I was reading for another project without any intention of ever working on Shakespeare,
1:59.7	but I started to notice that I was seeing an awful lot of second best beds.
2:02.6	And I even came across one woman who had seven children and who left her first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh best bed.
2:13.6	They like that term best.
2:15.6	So, yeah, oh, that's funny.
	...

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