Myths About Shakespeare (rebroadcast)

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.8 • 878 Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2017

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Even if you’re not a Shakespeare scholar, there are things you have learned about Shakespeare and his plays throughout your life – that it’s bad luck to say the name of “the Scottish play” or that Shakespeare hated his wife. Are any of these stories true? And whether they are or not, what do they tell us about previous eras, and our own? (This episode was first released on April 22, 2015.) From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. Emma Smith, a professor of English at Oxford University, is co-author, along with Laurie Maguire, of "30 Great Myths About Shakespeare." She was interviewed by Rebecca Sheir. This episode, “Thou Dost But Say 'Tis So”, was produced by Richard Pau.; Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. Esther French is the web producer. We had help from Nick Moorbath at Evolution Studios in Oxford, and Jonathan Charry at public radio station WAMU.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	There's one sure way to start a fight in Shakespeare land.
0:04.0	If you'd like to see two Shakespeareans up in each other's grills, there's one thing to do.
0:10.1	Just start a sentence by saying, okay, this is something that we can absolutely say for sure about Shakespeare.
0:19.7	Let's get ready to rumble.
0:27.3	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I'm Michael Whitmore,
0:32.9	the Folgers director. Considering how central William Shakespeare has been to the life and literature of the world,
0:39.6	and considering that he spent most of his career telling stories, it's really no surprise that
0:45.2	there are a vast number of myths about Shakespeare and his work. And 400 years after his death,
0:51.4	those myths just continue to proliferate. And no matter how firm
0:56.0	someone's belief in some fact or another about Shakespeare, it seems that every few years
1:01.2	a new piece of evidence pops up to prove or disprove it. In this podcast, as we originally
1:07.8	did when it first aired in 2015, we're going to try to sort through some of these myths and stories
1:13.8	to see which are worth believing, which ought to be doubted,
1:18.2	and which ones have, as Shakespeare might say,
1:20.9	just a scruple of a scruple of truth.
1:24.0	Our guide is co-author of a book titled Thirty Great Myths About Shakespeare, Emma Smith,
1:29.8	a professor of English at Oxford University.
1:32.8	We're not going to tackle all 30 of these myths here.
1:35.9	We'll just be hitting the highlights.
1:38.3	We call this podcast, Thou dost but say tis so.
1:42.7	Emma Smith is interviewed by Rebecca Shear. My first question for you,
1:47.0	why is it we have so many myths about William Shakespeare? Well, that's a great question. And I think
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Folger Shakespeare Library, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Folger Shakespeare Library and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.