I’m sitting here listening to Vanessa and just nodding along with everything she says. MCMAHON: In Romeo’s defense, if I could for a moment, [LAUGH] the fact that he resists the urge to fight is actually a really classic response within law. MCMAHON: No, we don’t, actually, and one of the reasons for that is partly because, if you’ve got a bit of influence and a bit of money, often, you may not come to court. a compulsory poor rate to be levied on every, the collection of a poor relief rate from property owners, work out how much money would be needed for the relief of the poor and set So in Act III, Scene I, you get the confrontation between Mercutio and Tybalt and Romeo, and they don’t understand why the fight isn’t starting. And you even get some gunfire, as well. But, life is kind of like that, I guess. Race and Class —> But before we get to that, Vanessa, didn’t you say in your book that in real life, fights actually made up the majority of violent deaths in this period? SHEIR: Now, Casey, you’ve said one of the reasons Shakespeare was writing so much about this topic was the rules had recently changed, and I want you to think about that because we’ll get back to you. So knowing the history is very useful. It was intended They’re new. Vanessa McMahon is author of a 2006 book titled Murder in Shakespeare’s England. These are both examples of tropes. The Victorians were great moralisers. Law Amendment Act, 1601 — So, really, you’re talking about men fighting other men. You’re obligated to do it, but you don’t get paid for it, and you just turn up. So you see people getting into street fights to protect their honor for things that today or 200 years later you would have gone to the courts or the police for. Act and the operation of the poor law was inconsistent. And, as Benvolio tries to describe a fight that we, the audience, have just seen, you get the Capulets and Montagues interpreting the motivations and the reasons for what has just happened and the outcome in completely different ways, and Shakespeare’s staging the ambiguity and confusion of violence and these codes of honor, and he’s playing out exactly how bad this situation can get, if we just rely on these very ambiguous subjects. Our other guest is Casey Kaleba. The aristocracy that was going off to war, the knights, the actual ‘sirs’ of the social class, know when you’re allowed to use a sword. KALEBA: Oh, thank you. The first adaptation of the 1601 Act came in 1607 and provided for the setting MICHAEL WITMORE: From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. It was assumed that these people would accept whatever He really shouldn’t back away from this and still be manly. 1552 — You can find more about the Folger at our website, folger.edu. compulsory funds for the relief of the poor and, for the first time, the SHEIR: Vanessa, I know you’ve read a lot of witness testimony from criminal trials. l-r: Rex Daugherty (Tybalt), Aaron Bliden (Benvolio), and Brad Koed (Mercutio) in Romeo and Juliet, directed by Aaron Posner, Folger Theatre (2013). Shakespeare Unlimited comes to you from the Folger Shakespeare Library. And one in a velvet gown. "Murders Have Been Performed Too Terrible for the Ear" was produced by Richard Paul. of the Poor' was created. The Folger is looking for exceptionally qualified individuals who are committed to the mission, vision, and values of our organization.Â. They will stand up and they will do it. These were deeds aimed at relieving the 1662 Settlement Act, Gilbert's were known as such and would be given short shrift at the hands of the Overseers There were 15,000 2], consolidated all the previous legislation into one massive law and It creeps up on you and shocks you and sends you in ways you hadn’t expected to go. or a trade depression. In the work of any writer, we can find reflections of the time and place where he or she was writing, and that’s not just when Leo Tolstoy is writing about Napoleon or Lorraine Hansberry’s characters talk to us about discrimination. Due to the broad nature of the concept, most historians narrow their scope by focusing on a particular time period, a particular country or region, a particular person, group, or individual person, a particular theme, or any combination of those categories. to undertake the seven corporal works of mercy. English poet, playwright, critic, and librettist Wystan Hugh Auden exerted a major influence on the poetry of the 20th century. was that it rated land and buildings but not personal or movable wealth. And I think what Vanessa brings up is a really valuable point, which is that there are actually conflicting value systems here. the first compulsory local poor law tax was imposed making Garland Scott is the associate producer. It involves a sharp rise in the number of men in England who were claiming the right to be considered gentlemen. MCMAHON: And constables are not as we would recognize them, either. Justices of the Peace were authorised and empowered to raise No, it was someone stealing someone else’s leg of lamb and running off with it. However, everyone in need was looked after at the expense of the parish, The Elizabethan Poor Law were appropriate for the society of the time. two centuries. If no one sees it, it never happened, or the legend has to precede you. KALEBA: So, they’re both what we would identify as swords, if we walk into a museum and said, “There is a full case of swords over there." They would have their swords and their bucklers and their sticks and their pikes and axes and they would sort of have a recreational battle, and so one of the arguments that’s been put forward is that’s actually where Sampson, Gregory, and Abram are headed at the opening of the play, is they actually are on the way to a fight, and a fight breaks out. It’s a voluntary post. The Protestant Reformation. They want to own property. Tybalt thinks he’s challenged Romeo. There has to be another way to solve our problems.”, SHEIR: Vanessa, at what point did people start saying, “This is crazy. In the 16th century, a German monk named Martin Luther became very dissatisfied with some of the actions and teachings of the Catholic Church. So one of the things I’m trying to do, as a fight director, is actually create the world of the violence. People are looking at guns. As a fight choreographer, can you talk about what you concentrate on, in terms of getting it right when you choreograph a fight? they would be set to work. With help from Folger Magazine editor Karen Lyon, Juliet Bury at Richmond, the American International University in London, Laura Green at The Sound Company, and Jonathan Charry at public radio station WAMU. the alleviation of poverty a local responsibility, 1576 — Can you talk about that? problem of raising and administering poor relief. it benefited the industrial and commercial groups in society who did not fall Everybody wants the bravado and the kudos that comes from having been involved in a fight, or certainly, some men do. Men are expected to be violent. The Victorian era was the age of progress, stability and great social reforms but in the same time was characterised by poverty, injustice and social unrest (tensioni sociali).. VICTORIAN VALUES. It’s often useful to talk to an actor to say, “Well, this is why this character said the line in the original text. So the nighttime is a very dangerous space. They are supposed to be strong defenders of their family and their honor and their name and, although they aren’t encouraged to fight, and certainly they aren’t encouraged to be violent or to kill, nevertheless people do somewhat expect them to react in that way. I’m Michael Witmore, the Folger’s director. They live in a broader society that actually does want to be orderly, but they’re caught up in a set of circumstance where they’re not permitted to do that. She scoured Elizabethan court records and trial transcripts to find out exactly how people in Shakespeare’s time felt and what they did about infanticide, manslaughter, and, for our purposes today, murder. But in a society where you expect young men to go to war, and when you later on expect them to act as policemen, and as defenders of the home, and of people who keep their servants and their wives and their children in order, which they’re expected to do physically, by physical violence, most people find it very difficult to draw a line and say, “Okay, they’re expected to be this violent, but anything over the line, they can’t be.” So you’ve got this fuzzy area, and that’s the point of the court, that they’re trying to work out where on earth we are on this line. SHEIR: So, Casey, you are, of course, a fight choreographer and I guess, as we’re recording this, you’ve been working on your 38th production of Romeo and Juliet…. Language change inevitably leads to variation, and variation within a speech community often leads to social valuation of particular features as 'good' or 'bad'. The Elizabethan Religious Settlement is the name given to the religious and political arrangements made for England during the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603) that brought the English Reformation to a conclusion. Our guests, Farah Karim-Cooper and Tiffany Stern, are the editors of a 2013 collection of essays, Shakespeare’s Theatre and the Effects of Performance, written by themselves and nine other theater historians.Tiffany Stern is a Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama with the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-upon-Avon. SHEIR: I think many of us would say that, compared with Elizabethan England, today we live in a more civilized time. And really the only acceptable response as a woman to that kind of aggression is to flee, whereas men actually aren’t supposed to just run away. One of the things I think that Shakespeare does really, really well in his plays is take that at face value and say, “All right, so this is a thing that men do.” And Shakespeare takes that at face value, and says, “All right, well, let’s just see where this goes. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is a regional repertory theatre in Ashland, Oregon, United States, founded in 1935 by Angus L. Bowmer.From late February through October each year, the Festival now offers 800 to 850 matinee and evening performances of a wide range of classic and contemporary plays not limited to Shakespeare to a total annual audience of nearly 400,000. Outwardly they had to pretend to be Elizabethan Christians and go to church. Or they may just say that they were holding the sword in their defense, because they were so frightened, and they held it in front of them in their defense. So, people tell stories where they use knives, but they use knives that they had on their person. However, the means of poor relief did provide Do we in fact see a lot of fights with rapiers at the time, fights that end up in manslaughter? In terms of the law, from the end of the 14th century onwards, you get a series of judicial decisions, which happened over an extended period of time. It’s about drink, it’s about narrow alleyways, and it is laced with more menace, and I think an insult delivered in the dark is a much more potent thing than an insult delivered in a marketplace in the light. KALEBA: And you actually get a brilliant example of what you’ve just described in Romeo and Juliet. Regardless of whether it’s Cymbeline in ancient Britain or Romeo and Juliet in contemporary Verona, every student is taught that the rivalries, politics, and social mores of the period offer a window into the world of Elizabethan England. SHEIR: So, Vanessa, what do you think in terms of so-called civilized behavior, looking at today versus Elizabethan times? KALEBA: If I could jump in on that, there’s two points that I think are really important here. the idea of a deterrent workhouse was first suggested although The whole town comes in and he’s asked to explain what happens and you essentially have this courtroom taking place on stage. SHEIR: Casey, you’re talking about the sword. When is it socially protected? He shows us the specificity of each individual circumstance, how you can get hemmed into corners. Perhaps the two most common figurative devices are the simile--a comparison between two distinctly different things using "like" or "as" ("My love's like a red, red rose")--and the metaphor--a figure of speech in which two unlike objects are implicitly compared without the use of "like" or "as." nothing was done at this point, 1597 — Explore this article. The legislation did So the fact that they are then violent when they’re in an alehouse or in an alleyway or somewhere like a workplace isn’t actually that unexpected. I don’t think we have now, to be perfectly honest. But I think she’s absolutely right, this point at which you are allowed to use force, this sort of inherent problem that, as humans, we struggle with. So with Romeo and Juliet, for example, Casey, we tend to think of it as a play about love, but I know you’ve said you actually see it as a play about violence. Workhouses and the Poor law], Before the Reformation, it was considered to be a religious duty for all Christians You find this sort of middle-class teenager group of Mercutio and Benvolio and Romeo and Tybalt, who are traveling armed and talk about seeking out violence, and you find them sort of negotiating the problem of what it is to be masculine. up of Houses of Correction in each county. Become a teacher member to get access to lesson plans and professional development. And, actually, it’s really difficult to act in different ways, and you might want to act in different ways and you might try, but life’s kind of like that. When is it illegal? local people at a time when the population was small enough for everyone to WITMORE: Vanessa McMahon is the author of Murder in Shakespeare’s England, which was published in 2006. Political History —> So there is this large question about when are you allowed to use force and when are you not? SHEIR: Well, that brings us to the other rule that had changed. which varied between extreme laxity and extreme stringency in the interpretation All Folger programs and events will be held at other venues during construction. So they use small knives that they had on their person for eating apples. Worst Diseases in Shakespeare's London From a disease standpoint, Shakespeare was living in arguably the worst place and time in history. This podcast is called "Murders Have Been Performed Too Terrible for the Ear.". That it’s something that can be given to you, but it’s given to you by a social organization of your peers. I don’t think there is as much difference as we would like to think there is. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. under the supervision of the JPs. 201 East Capitol Street, SE Washington, DC 20003, Main (202) 544-4600Box Office (202) 544-7077. example. ... and Shakespeare — art events that might now be considered highbrow — were popular entertainment for all levels of society. Amazing stuff! The Settlement shaped the theology and liturgy of the Church of England and was important to the development of Anglicanism as a distinct Christian tradition. It's a fascinating story for modern Britons, writes Michael Wood. Following the upheavals brought about by the First World War, Modernist … KALEBA: I tried everything I could. The reign of Elizabeth I saw the beginning of Britain's first black community. People are fighting over different conceptions of honor and what may seem perfectly permissible to your comrades in an alleyway in the middle of the night, when you’re all slightly the worse for wear for drink, does not seem the same in a rather more sober courtroom in front of all of your neighbors, men and women combined, in the daylight. One is the sort of shift in the judicial code. All of these things would change, so the meanings of different events would change in the space that they happened in, but also at the time of day that they happened in, and in the company that people are with. each other, so elderly parents were expected to live with their children for Can you give us a list of all the times we find street fighting in Shakespeare, whether it’s just discussed by characters or it’s actually happening? SHEIR: …something-something like that? We might be less shocked by it. How does that differ from the rapier? So this idea that men are allowed to defend their honor, and that men are allowed to define when their honor has been violated, is going to continue for a very long time, and I’m not entirely sure that we are free of it today. It is a little bit faster than what we sort of think of as an English sword. SHEIR: We keep talking about Romeo and Juliet, which brings me to a point I want to bring up about violence in the abstract versus violence in reality. One of the things we talked about at the Folger when we did our production of Othello here is that every single act of violence in the play takes place in darkness, and that can’t be an accident, and they’re almost all rooted in confusion or the wrong person is attacked in almost every case. those who were elected were unpaid and often were unwilling appointees who acted So Shakespeare takes this at face value, and says, “All right, this is crazy, right? The Elizabethan legislation was intended to help the 'settled' poor who found KALEBA: This gray area in between the state authorizes the use of violence, and, on the other hand, sort of individual personal protection, you’re being threatened clearly. We invite you to personally participate in the life of the Folger Shakespeare Library by making a tax-deductible donation to the institution. Can you talk about that? During the reign So life could be entirely disorderly in the middle of the night, and then back to the ordinary, orderly life during the day, and it seems as if nothing has really happened. It’s other men who are saying that you are an honorable man or that you have done a dishonorable thing. Elizabethan audiences clapped and booed whenever they felt like it. They were just holding the sword and the other person ran onto it. There are a lot of altercations in Shakespeare that today I don’t think we would look at the same way. Economics —> by-laws that established corporations of the poor: their responsibilities extended Some towns, such as Bristol, Exeter and Liverpool, obtained local Consequently It is what is going to transform into what we think of as modern fencing. They’re reacting to intense provocation in a way that women are never expected to react. numbers of beggars was probably the historical background to the nursery rhyme, Hark! © Folger Shakespeare Library. Although it isn’t approved of, and it isn’t okay to do that, people nevertheless tend to mitigate male violence by saying, “Well, you know, that’s kind of what men do.”. the 'Elizabethan Poor Law' was passed, It [43 Eliz I Cap. Mercutio knows about the challenge, but Romeo doesn’t. Become a member of the Folger Shakespeare Library and receive access to special member events. But first, Vanessa, you’ve also said that the rules had recently changed when Shakespeare was writing. And you see this reflected in the plays over and over again. One of the later complaints about the 1601 Act was that the basis of the law From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Ranges of hills and mountains are obstacles to Elizabethan travelers and very far from picturesque features you go out of your way to see. it became necessary to regulate the relief of poverty by law. And the rapier is used on the battlefield, but primarily it is an urban weapon. It was a fair and equitable system run for and administered by Our main building is closed for a multi-year renovation. Act (1782) and the Speenhamland system of 1795 The beggars are coming to town: This meant that the idle poor Leyburn, England -- The Chris Casson Collection of Early 20th Century Literature will be at the heart of Tennants Auctioneers’ Books, Maps and Ephemera Sale on 10th March. Some in rags, some in tags the law in any way they wished. I’m just saving time by not going to the law first.”. Have a question about our collections? CASEY KALEBA: Sure. In As You Like It, Touchstone talks about fights in taverns.