Episode 62: Amy Lidster and Old St. Paul's Cathedral

06/24/19 • 35 min

During William Shakespeare’s lifetime, the central spot for gathering news of the day, purchasing the latest books, or catching up on what’s new from your favorite author, poet, or playwright, was the churchyard outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Frequenter’s to this spot were known as “paul’s walkers” and it was a huge number of walkers indeed that crossed the yard to search the various stalls for literature. There are at least 8 references to St. Paul’s cathedral and it’s reputation for promoting the works of authors like William Shakespeare, to be found inside the plays of the bard and today we have our special guest Amy Lidster, a research fellow at King’s College London here with us to share some of what she has discovered during her work into the Shakespearean history of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and to walk us through how Shakespeare would have been impacted by this remarkable place.

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Episode 61: Gerit Quealy and Botanical Shakespeare

There are close to 200 plant references in Shakespeare’s plays, with the bard mentioning herbs, spcices, as well as the iconic roses that was such a plague to Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. With the massive amount of exploration and import of foreign goods that was exploding in Egland dudirng Shakespeare’s lifetime, many of the plants mentioned by the bard were being seen in england for the very first time.

Motivated to explore exactly how many Shakespeare did mention across 37 plays and hundreds of sonnets, our guest this week, Gerit Quealy is the author of Botanical Shakespeare, a very detailed compilation text featuring illustrated versions of the plants from Shakespeare’s plays and she joins us this week to explain some of the history of plants in England, which ones were native to England, and how the bard knew about some of the more exotic herbs and plants mentioned in his plays.

Next Episode

Episode 63: Shakespeare's Portraits with Rachel Dankert

The bard has his own bobble head figurines and his likeness has even been made into emojis and memes here in the 21st century, but how much of this likeness is real and what has posterity simple made up? From the famous Chandos Portrait that was the founding acquisition of England’s National Portrait Gallery, to the Droeshout portrait that graced the front cover of the First Folio in 1623, how many portraits do we have of William Shakespeare and can we really tell what he looked like? Here to help us get a fresh glimpse into what William Shakespeare looked like is our guest Rachel Dankert.