SoS #28 | Lena Cowen Orlin | The Private Life of William Shakespeare

Speaking of Shakespeare

Thomas Dabbs speaks with Lena Cowen Orlin about her new book, ‘The Private Life of William Shakespeare’ and about about other areas of her research, including her findings on Tudor homes and her detailed recovery of quotidian life during Shakespeare’s time.
00:00:00 - Intro
00:03:24 - ‘The Private Life of William Shakespeare’: Overview
00:09:20 - Shakespeare’s education in Stratford: Ovid and Cicero
00:12:40 - Shakespeare’s returns to Stratford from London: Oxford, monuments
00:15:02 - Shakespeare’s monument
00:17:58 - Problems in the history of Shakespearean biography
00:20:00 - Biographical research, evidence clusters: misrepresentations and obsessions
00:27:48 - Misrepresentations of Shakespeare’s marriage: 2nd best bed
00:33:08 - Shakespeare’s will, early modern wills
00:35:04 - Lena’s research on private life and Tudor houses
00:38:49 - Hagler Institute: the Shakespeare Variorum
00:45:45 - The Folger and Lena’s work at the Folger, training at Chapel Hill, Hinman collator
00:50:21 - Benefits of digital resources
00:52:47 - Shakespeare Birthplace Trust: Stratford and fires
00:58:55 - Lena and the Shakespeare Assoc. of America, and the International Shakespeare Assoc.
01:03:01 - Lena’s background: Washington, D.C., and London, research on houses
01:06:55 - More on Lena’s future work, private papers in Shakespeare
01:08:55 - Research travel during a pandemic: in-person conferencing and field research
01:15:08 - Closing remarks
The Speaking of Shakespeare series is funded with institutional support from Aoyama Gakuin University (AGU) and with a generous grant from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).