Shakespeare and Folktales

Shakespeare and Folktales

You probably know where Shakespeare got the ideas for his plays. The Histories come from Holinshed’s Chronicles. Caesar and other Roman plays depend on Plutarch’s Lives. The Comedy of Errors comes from Plautus’s Menaechmi. Troilus and Cressida borrows from the Illiad. The Winter’s Tale repackages Robert Greene’s Pandosto. But what if we told you that a number of his plays draw inspiration from folktales, versions of which exist not only in England, but all over the world? Charlotte Artese’s new book, Shakespeare and the Folktale, anthologizes some of the folktales that made their way into Shakespeare’s plays. For example, Lear includes elements of a story sometimes called “Love Like Salt,” part of a larger tradition of Cinderella stories. The Merchant of Venice plays out much like a Chilean folktale called “White Onion.” Wacky tales of twins predate not only Shakespeare, but also Plautus. We talk to Artese about some of these stories and about how she became interested in folklore’s influence on Shakespeare (it involves Led Zeppelin). She is Chair of the English Department at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta. Shakespeare and the Folktale was published by Princeton University Press in 2019. Artese is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published February 18, 2020. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “The Strangest Tale That Ever I Heard,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical helped from Andrew Feliciano at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Kevin Rinker at public radio station WABE in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Anecdotal Shakespeare

Anecdotal Shakespeare

The curses associated with the Scottish play. Using a real skull for the Yorick scene in "Hamlet." Over the centuries, these and other fascinating theatrical anecdotes have attached themselves to the ...

20 Syys 201630min

How Shakespeare's First Folio Became a Star

How Shakespeare's First Folio Became a Star

Today, the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s works, printed in 1623, can sell for millions of dollars. But the First Folio wasn’t always valued so highly. In this podcast episode, two experts i...

6 Syys 201632min

Elizabethan Medicine

Elizabethan Medicine

Being a patient in Shakespeare’s time was an adventure. You might be told to drink liquid gold or syrup of violets. You might undergo a violent purgation to take the bad humors out of your body. They...

23 Elo 201628min

American Moor

American Moor

"Othello" is the story of a tragic murder and suicide involving a dark-skinned general and his aristocratic, white-skinned bride. Who should direct it? Who’s “allowed” to? What if a white director a...

9 Elo 201625min

The Food of Shakespeare's World

The Food of Shakespeare's World

This episode shifts slightly from our usual intense focus on Shakespeare. Instead, we are talking about the world that he inhabited, or at least a small part of that world: the kitchen. Kitchens, and ...

26 Heinä 201628min

Recreating the Boydell Gallery

Recreating the Boydell Gallery

In the decades after Shakespeare's death, his works temporarily fell out of favor. His renaissance is usually credited to actor-manager David Garrick, who staged a Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769. Riding ...

12 Heinä 201629min

Worlds Elsewhere

Worlds Elsewhere

In 2012, Andrew Dickson watched a Shakespeare play in London that set him off on a quest. When it ended, he had traveled to Poland, Germany, India, China and all across the United States. He chronic...

29 Kesä 201626min

Othello and Blackface

Othello and Blackface

This podcast episode, which deals with race, Othello, and how the Elizabethans portrayed blackness onstage, offers a startling, new interpretation of Desdemona’s handkerchief that is changing the way ...

14 Kesä 201634min

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