Episode Seven: “Sonnet 65” by William Shakespeare with Liz Larson

What Amy’s reading - Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire: https://seananmcguire.com/rosemary.php

• The correct pronunciation is "SHAWN-in," with the stress on the first syllable: https://seananmcguire.com/generalfaq.php#pronounce

What Kate is reading - ​​Instructions by Neil Gaiman: https://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/Instructions/

• Kate gave Amy a copy of the book on December 18th, 2021.

• This is a reference to episode 5, when Kate told us of how she lost Nightbitch and washed Atomic Habits fully in the washing machine.

Liz’s excellent and exciting bio: Liz Larson is an actor, writer, and occasional a-hole for hire (a/k/a trial attorney) based in Houston, Texas. In 2021 she took a career break to study acting theory and fell head-over-heels with it. Now she splits her time between performing anything from long-form improv to contemporary theater, working on her Substack 'Shakespeare Said it Better' that blends sketch comedy and Shakespearean criticism, and practicing a little law to pay those pesky bills.

Read Sonnet 65: https://static.wixstatic.com/media/33805f_7ae01a451a074f8398875e62189d0a39~mv2.png

All Shakespeare's works: https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/all-works/

“The Flea” by John Donne: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46467/the-flea  

So this is not Sonnet 20, but actually Sonnet 19: https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/shakespeares-sonnets/read/19/

• The ending couplet:

  "Yet do thy worst, old Time; despite thy wrong,

  My love shall in my verse ever live young."

Steel was the form of iron most highly prized in the Elizabethan world. By 1616 (the end of Shakespeare’s life), it was produced by refining pig iron made from raw iron ore in a finery forge into bar iron which was then turned into steel through the cementation process. It was expensive to make, and generally used for items that couldn’t be made with any other material such as edges of knives, swords, and razors, as well as plates for armor (that by this point was quite decorative and used more for tournaments than warfare). So steel gates were probably a fairly big deal! Also, fun fact - metal (like many other objects) was quite personified and given qualities and characteristics through association with planetary deities: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-guide-to-the-worlds-of-shakespeare/metallurgy/255397E9B4635AA881BB3A38B452E11C

Finding Good Bones is marked as explicit on every episode because we insist on the freedom to curse. Who wants a podcast about words and writing without cursing? Not us!

What is art? It’s a big question that we probably can’t fully answer in these show notes.

Sad trombone sound cue: https://wompwompwomp.com/ 

I haven’t found an exhaustive listing of all of the dirty Shakespeare jokes and puns. There are many, many lists of people’s top faves, including a whole book on the “most outrageous”: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/54314798-318a-45a0-8a02-be21866f2c16 

Shakespeare's sonnets were published in 1609 with a mysterious dedication: “To The Onlie Begetter Of These Insuing Sonnets. Mr. W.H.”. They are written in what is anachronistically referred to as "Shakespearean measure" which was not created by Shakespeare and quite popular in Elizabethan times, but is now certainly most associated with Shakespeare at this point. This type of sonnet is in iambic pentameter, and uses three alternately rhymed quatrains that close with a final rhyming couplet (ABAB CDCD, EFEF, GG). A rare first edition recently sold for a lot of money: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-04-17/Rare-first-edition-of-Shakespeare-s-Poems-fetches-high-price-1j4KU5uOpsA/index.html 

• Liz wants to correct herself - there are 154 sonnets, not 135

• So, the reference is hair being black wires instead of being inky black: https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/shakespeares-sonnets/read/130/

The Fair Youth is beautiful, noble, and good, where the Dark Lady is overtly sexual and torments the poet with her unfaithfulness and actually seduces the Fair Youth so like, score one for the Dark Lady.

• Gossip alert - the Poet, Fair Youth and Dark lady are all in a throuple! https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/shakespeares-sonnets/read/144/

Liz wants to correct herself, it's the Earl of Southampton, not the Duke

• Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton is also thought to be the dedicatee Mr. H.W.

• Another candidate for the dedicatee and fair youth is William Hughes, an actor in Shakespeare's troupe who played the ladies roles because of the patriarchy.

• William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke, has also been put out there.

Candidates for the dark lady include Emilia Lanier (née Aemelia Bassiano), a published poet and apparently the first woman in England to call herself a poet, as well as Elizabeth Wriothesley (née Vernon), Countess of Southampton who married our Fair Youth candidate Henry Wriothesley amid scandal (already pregnant). 

• There's also Black Luce (Latinized to Lucy Negro), a Clerkenwell brothel-owner, Mary Fitton the mistress of above mentioned William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke, and others.

There’s a wealth of writing on Shakespeare’s sexuality - maybe just start with this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuality_of_William_Shakespeare

Hamnet is a 2020 novel by Maggie O’Farrell that tells a fictionalized version of Anne Hathaway (also known as Agnes) and Shakespeare’s love, marriage, and loss of their son Hamnet. It made Kate ugly cry on a plane: https://www.maggieofarrell.com/titles/maggie-ofarrell/hamnet/9781472223791/  

But do you even MFA bro?: https://www.zazzle.com/do_you_even_mfa_bro_t_shirt-235752653415752871 

A Discovery of Witches is the first book in the All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness: https://deborahharkness.com/all-souls-world-home/the-all-souls-world-books/

Shakespeare’s son Hamnet died in 1596 at age 11, his father in 1601, and his mother in 1608.

Literacy in the Elizabethan Age varied widely between urban and rural areas, as as between classes, trades, wealth, and gender. It’s thought that perhaps 30% of men and 10% of women were able to read and write: https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1583/education-in-the-elizabethan-era/#:~:text=Perhaps%20around%2030%25%20of%20men,wealth%2C%20and%20amongst%20certain%20trades

We try to keep these episodes ~25 minutes (more or less, we got SO into our conversation with Liz, we recorded about 50 minutes. So a solid HALF of our conversation had to be cut, and some will be released as bonus footage!

Subscribe to Liz’s "Shakespeare Said It Better" Substack: https://lizlarson.substack.com/ 

So while taverns were male dominated spaces in the Elizabethan era, women were present, perhaps even up to 30% of the patrons, as well as often running and working in them. It wasn’t really until the 19th century do we see the presence of women in taverns and tap rooms as being frowned upon. https://manyheadedmonster.com/2014/12/08/alehouse-characters-4-the-good-fellowette/ 

Once again, sad trombone sound cue: https://wompwompwomp.com/ 

Kate did, in fact, build this very website: https://www.findinggoodbones.com/

Request a recommendation on a selection of writing picked by Kate and Amy just for you: https://www.findinggoodbones.com/contact