Blog 1: Shakespeare and His Times

Find three facts in "Shakespeare's World" that somehow stood out for you and explain why they attracted your attention. Were these facts funny, disgusting, weird, shocking, sad, or what? How do you think these facts would have affected Shakespeare's writing?

People led short, brutal lives: Average live expectancy of less than thirty years, where we can hope to live past seventy. Little defense against sickness; no antibiotics (which weren't discovered/invented until the 20th century) or real understanding of disease or treatments of same. Shakespeare didn't have our frame of reference; to him, such things were normal and part of daily life. Life was cheap, and it often became so in his plays.

People also tended to live fairly sheltered lives, never going far from where they were born. They didn't experience a whole lot other than their own area. Gentry and noble folk might travel to the nearest city to conduct business, or even to the capital if it were really necessary; merchants had ships that went far places to trade for wares they couldn't get at home. But your average Joe, as it were, would rarely get to travel further than his own town.

The average Jane got to travel even less, since women were considered little more than chattel and meant "to nourish their family and children, and not to meddle with matters abroad." That quote was from Sir Thomas Smith, cited in the article. Being so sheltered, people were hungry for something new, something exotic. Shakespeare knew this, too, and brought the outlandish and alien to the masses. Tales of witches and fairies, of magicians, of people of far countries, history, and of average people in extraordinary circumstances: That's how Shakespeare gained the imagination and love of his groundlings and those seated above as well. They loved to see something mysterious and bizarre.