Shakespeare Anyone?

Much Ado About Nothing: Shakespeare's Bastards and Illegitimacy in Shakespeare's Time

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Episode notes

In today's episode, we are exploring the historical and theatrical context for bastard characters in Shakespeare's plays and other plays of the early modern period. We'll explore the cultural norms that existed for illegitimate children during the Elizabethan and Jacobean and the legal, financial, and social prejudices they and their parents experienced. We will also discuss how the experience of illegitimacy intersects with class in early modern England.

Then, we will explore how the early modern theatre mirrored the experience of illegitimate children and how bastard characters were used as a tool by dramatists for the early modern theatre.

Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.

Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.

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Works referenced:

Findlay, Alison. Illegitimate Power: Bastards in Renaissance Drama. United Kingdom, Manchester University Press, 2009.