Eye glasses, spectacles, and eyeware for Shakespeare's lifetime

03/11/24 • 38 min

Shakespeare uses the word “spectacles” 8 times across his works, and talks about glass eyes in King Lear. In A Winter’s Tale Leontes is talking with Camillo when he indicates Camillo should have seen something clearly because of the thickness of his eye glass. It makes sense to think that people in the 16-17th century would have suffered from near sighted ness or farsighted ness and other opthamlogic disorders, but what does the historical record show about how these sight related issues were dealt with in Shakespeare’s lifetime? Were there glasses that people wore on their face, and if so, who was making them, and out of what? To help us explore the history of eye glasses, spectacles, and the science of improving your vision forShakespeare’s lifetime, we are talking today with Dr. Neil Handley who is not only a historian of eye ware specifically, but serves as Curator of the British Optical Association Museum at theCollege of Optometrists in London.

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