Shakespeare and the British Royal Family, with Gordon McMullan

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 28 September 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Shakespeare wrote a lot about English kings and queens. Over the last three hundred years, a lot of English kings and queens have gotten really into Shakespeare. Our guest Gordon McMullan is the Principal Investigator of Making History: Shakespeare and the Royal Family, a new online exhibition that examines the long relationship between Shakespeare and the British royal family. That includes queens pretending to love Shakespeare as much as they thought Elizabeth I did, princes patterning themselves after Hal, and kings writing melancholy marginalia in copies of The Complete Works. McMullan is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. Gordon McMullan is a Professor of English and Director of the London Shakespeare Centre at King's College London. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published September 28, 2021. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Say, What Art Thou That Talk'st of Kings and Queens?” was 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, all available at folger.edu. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Shakespeare wrote a lot about English kings and queens.
0:04.0	And you know who liked his plays?
0:07.0	A lot of English kings and queens.
0:14.0	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:20.0	I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folger's director.
0:23.6	There's a new online exhibition that we really think you should check out.
0:27.6	It was supposed to be an in-person exhibition on display at Shakespeare's Globe in London,
0:32.6	but the pandemic had other plans.
0:35.6	The topic is the way, over the centuries,
0:39.3	that the British royal family has used Shakespeare
0:41.3	to shore up its legitimacy.
0:44.3	Whether it's queens pretending to love Shakespeare
0:47.3	as much as they thought Elizabeth I did,
0:50.3	whether it's princes of Wales hanging out with Falstaffian wastrels,
0:55.0	whether it's kings writing plaintive marginalia in copies of the complete works,
1:00.0	the British Royals have leaned on Shakespeare in fascinating and unusual ways,
1:06.0	as this exhibition makes abundantly clear.
1:09.0	The team that put the exhibition together was led by Gordon McMullen,
1:13.7	director of the London Shakespeare Center at King's College.
1:17.4	They called it Making History, Shakespeare and the Royal Family.
1:21.9	And Gordon joined us recently to talk about this remarkable synergy.
1:26.5	We call this podcast, What artou that talks of kings and queens?
	...

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