That Shakespeare Life - Ep 138: William Davenant with Ralph Goldswain

Ep 138: William Davenant with Ralph Goldswain

12/07/20 • 39 min

During the century following Shakespeare’s life, the government tried to end playoing, shutting down theaters and passing orders against plays entirely. During this moment in history when it would have been easy for the legacy of William Shakespeare to die completely, one man who remembered William Shakespeare from his childhood, would champion the cause of theater, plays, and his mentor, William Shakespeare, to carry the legacy forward to survive the era of Oliver Cromwell, and potentially serve as the reason we continue to enjoy Shakespeare today. That man was William D’Avenant. Through the course of his life D’Avenent, through his charm and ability to tell great stories, worked his way up the status ladder in London to become not only a poet laureate but also a respected theater owner and playwright who worked alongside greats like ben Jonson, John Milton,and John Donne. As a holder of the only theater patent in London D’Avenant would use his stage to showcase 10 of Shakespeare’s most celebrated works. While decidedly a devotee of Shakespeare, William D’Avenant is recorded as claiming to be the son of William Shakespeare, and many historians believe he was actually Shakespeare’s godson. Here to share with us more about the life of William D’Avenant, whose childhood overlapped with the life of William Shakespeare, is our honored guest, Ralph Goldswain.

Previous Episode

Ep 137: Christopher Marlowe with Ros Barber

History remembers Christopher Marlowe as a contemporary of William Shakespeare that was prone to violence. Arrested multiple times for his association with fights, duels, and even murder, scholars around the world have suggested that Christopher Marlowe had a hot temper which often ran him afoul of the local authorities in London. In addition to achieving a university education and the social rank of gentleman, Marlowe is the author of some of the most powerful plays in the English Renaissance, including Dr. Faustus, Tamburlaine, and the Jew of Malta. Undeniably a powerful force in England as well as a huge influence over the life of William Shakespeare, the life of Christopher Marlowe is as fascinating as it is essential to understanding the life of William Shakespeare. Despite his reputation for violence and certainly for including some very violent characters in his plays, our guest this week, Ros Barber, challenges the traditional assumptions about what we know of Christopher Marlowe and suggests in her publication “Was Marlowe a Violent Man?”, that understanding the cultural history of what it meant to be a gentleman, the violent nature of corporal punishment in 16th century England, as well as comparing the recorded history of Marlowe to that of men like William Shakespeare, reveals that the reputation for hot tempered violence might be a posthumous application to Marlowe instead of the truth about this significant poet.

Next Episode

Ep 139: Christmas at Gray's Inn with Joe Stephenson

In 16th century England, Christmas time was a season of disorder, with many of the holiday celebrations centering around the idea of Misrule, role reversal, and a celebration of general chaos as part of the festivities. Which makes it surprising that the one place you would expect to find extreme order, the Inns of Court, which were essentially Law School for England’s budding lawyers, was also the establishment where Shakespeare staged a performance of Comedy of Errors on Dec 28, 1594, which was so riotous, that members of the audience would refer to that night as the Night of Errors, setting up a subsequent mock trial for the law students to sort out who was the culprit behind the holiday disorder in the court.

Here to help us explore the wild and out of order nature of Shakespeare’s 1594 performance of Comedy of Errors, and why it seems Gray’s Inn in particular was such a hot spot for budding law students to quench their thirst for theater, is our guest Dr Joe Stephenson.