← The History of Literature
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Jack Wilson
The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglomerate Network and Lit Hub Radio.
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Jack Wilson
hello, this is Jack in 2026. We're resurfacing an old episode about Emilia Langier after an upcoming guest mentioned that this was one of his all time Top 10 favorite episodes of the history of literature. So why not? This episode was originally recorded back in 2020. I hope you enjoy it. Hello. Her life was like a fairy tale, or maybe one should say a 19th century rags to riches novel. She was born In London in 1569, the child of an unmarried couple. Her father was Baptiste Bassano, a musician who had come a long way, starting in the Jewish ghetto of Venice, converting to Christianity and winding up in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. When she was seven years old her father died and she was brought up in the household of the Countess of Kent, a forward thinking woman who believed strongly in the education of girls. When she was 18 her looks with her raven hair and Mediterranean complexion combined with her courtly manners and her first rate mind and education made her a strikingly attractive lady. And in fact she became the mistress of one of the most powerful men in England who was 43 years her senior. After a scandal at age 23 she was forced to marry another man, her cousin, and then at 42 she became the published author of the first significant volume of English poetry written by a woman under her own name. And the topic of the poem is absolutely extraordinary. Proto feminist, she lived to be 76 years old that's a full life, one worthy of covering here on the history of literature, if for no other reason than her book of poetry. And we haven't even told you the most enticing part. There's no hard evidence, but there are some tantalizing suggestions that she knew Shakespeare. She may have inspired his writing. He may have absorbed certain subjects from her. She may have even written some of the lines in his plays. Or at least his lines may have been written with her poetry in his mind. And in fact, they may have been lovers. And she might be the dark lady of Shakespeare's sonnets. And yet her name is barely known. She was born Emilia Bassano. Her name comes to us as Emilia Lanier, and we will call her often just Amelia as we discuss her work and her life today on the history of literature. Okay, here we go. Welcome to the podcast, everyone. Emilia Lanier. This is a fun one. There is a school of thought that the Shakespearean connection is a bit of a distraction that speculating about whether Amelia is the dark lady takes away from Amelia's poetry. I'll try to do both halves of that justice today. Our interest in her is amplified by her being a poet, and I think there is room to talk about both. Can you hear the cricket? The cricket is back. People remember the cricket from last year. When I sit here in silence, I hear nothing. When I start to talk, the cricket chimes in. I guess that's. I don't know what we're gonna do about that. I guess you'll just have to live with it. The cricket is my friend. A little bit of cold weather here. The cricket is looking for a refuge. He's somewhere in here. Let me see if I can find him. Okay, I'm back. I think he might have quieted down a little bit. We'll see how it goes. Okay, where was I? I was talking about the school of thought that talking about Amelia as potentially being the dark lady takes away from her poetry. There's another school of thought that says that questions of Shakespearean authorship are really just disguised snobbery. The idea that Shakespeare could never have been educated well enough to write the things that he did must have been the Earl of Oxford or Sir Francis Bacon or the Earl of Derby or some other well educated man. Well, the Amelia piece of this fits into these theories in a very interesting way. And I don't feel as snobbish in presenting these theories. We'll get there. Oh. Oh, this is fun. What a great topic. Part of our Thursday theme for the month of September 2020. We are going to dive in. We had Eneduanna, the ancient Mesopotamian priestess. Did I say what the theme is? Forgotten Women of Literature. In case you missed that in the title as you were downloading, there's the cricket. Hi Cricket. This is going to be. Bear with us people. We are going to dive in. We had an Aduana, ancient Mesopotamian priestess. We had Cyan, AKA Wengie, the Chinese poet and musician in the Han dynasty. And now we move to Elizabethan and Jacobean England, where we will find a story as intriguing as any story we've told here. I don't know. I don't mean to over promise. Maybe I should underplay it, right? Okay, it's a boring story. Don't get your hopes up. Go away. Don't come back. Wait, maybe that's going too far in the other direction. How do you set this stuff up? How about this? We'll take a quick break, then come back with some listener emails. And then Amelia Lanier. Foreign. Hey folks, when I started this podcast, it seemed like I had to figure everything out all on my own Website hosting platform, scripts, recording, editing. When you're trying to build something new, your to do list can quickly become overwhelming. Finding the right tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything can be such a game changer for millions of businesses. That tool is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind household names like Heinz and Mattel and exciting new businesses just getting started. Shopify can help you create a beautiful new e commerce site that matches your brand style. They can help with all the supporting features too, like email and social media campaigns, inventory, shipping, payments, analytics and more. See fewer carts go abandoned and more sales go with Shopify and their Shop pay button. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com literature. Go to shopify.com literature that's shopify.com literature
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- [09:42]
Jack Wilson
Okay, first email comes from Margarita. Subject Alice Munro hello. Recently read the Globe and Mail article on Twitter about best podcasts. I'm an avid follower of Backlisted who had retreat retweeted. The article mentions that you did a recent podcast on Alice Munro, but I can't seem to find it on your list of episodes which look really interesting. I would love to listen to this if you could tell me when you covered Ms. Monroe. She is my favorite writer. Thank you Margarita. Well, thank you Margarita. I'm glad you found us through the Globe and Mail article, which was very kind toward the podcast. So I emailed Margarita back and I said we've covered Alice Munro many times, including full episodes in episodes 115 and 234, 235 and 236. Was also in our short story episode. She made a cameo in our great Literary Endings episodes and some others too. Nobel Prizes by decade was another. She is a real favorite of ours, Alice Munro. You can also search for alice munro@historyofliterature.com or in your favorite podcast app which should bring up the history of literature. Happy listening and that's what I emailed Margarita. She emailed back and said she had already found the Alice Munro episodes and was happily taking them all in. So we are good with Margarita. Thank you for the email. Subject Kendrick Lamar Pulitzer Prize episode hi, I am Josie. I have been listening to your show for about half a year now. I can't put into words how much joy your show brings me. My appreciation for literature came late, but not too late in my life. Realities fall into place around me. Flip of the page strides me into a journey Language for Black Americans is often viewed in the image of white America. How many people know what it's like to hear you talk like a white boy? Or what it is like to say that phrase, what conversation is like? If I were to cross paths with the people who echoed that phrase from my childhood today, don't say sorry. Our voices are gifted to us, then beat out of us, then reimagined in order to disguise as acceptable. I ponder on how poets from prior periods would think of the rap culture today. I imagine Shakespeare would be moved by the art grown from black America's culture and marvel as he reflects on how his own work accepted was accepted through time as criticism simmered, Kendrick Lamar winning the Pulitzer was so huge for everyone, especially the legitimizing of the rapid hip hop community. I think all young people have a hard time seeing the application of education as it relates to their future. However, for me and perhaps my other minority allies, who are still cultivating tradition out of a history which shows trends, I should stop. Forgive me. I am still working on my unapologetic blackness with intention. Josie is an excellent email. Thank you, Josie. I agree with you about Kendrick Lamar. We did an episode on Prince after he passed away, but that was sort of nostalgia based for Mike and me because we are children of the 80s and we did one on Bob Dylan after he won the Nobel Prize for literature because Mike was furious and I knew it would be a fun show to let him blow off some steam. But I think doing an episode on Kendrick Lamar is probably one we should put on the list. I loved your idea of Shakespeare. Thinking about him today, looking around what he would enjoy. I think he would love rap and hip hop. I think he would love the energy of it. I think he would love the words and the wordsmithing of it. And he had such a nose for being in the center of things. I think he'd have found his way into it. What you say about language for black Americans is wise and fills me with sadness. What you're saying is true. There's a vision of America as a melting pot, as a place of diversity, as a land of immigrants, a democracy that hears all voices and celebrates all voices. A place where people can live together side by side and work together and respect each other's religion and culture. The freedom to do that. If you read the founding documents and none of the history that America, the vision of America I just described is in there. The words in the documents are better than the history itself has been. And those words give us something to live up to. And you can say that the arc of history is long and it bends toward justice, which is comforting, but not if it bends so slowly that you can't see the bend. If it takes 50 years or 100 years or longer. There are a lot of people in the meantime who don't benefit from that bend toward justice. And we could talk about the big tragedies like poverty and incarceration and police brutality, places where the government is actively harming a subset of the group of people it's supposed to protect. Those are terrible, awful, horrendous. Those founding documents guaranteed from the government life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those don't happen when we have people dying or being locked up unfairly or living in fear of the police or federal agents. They can't. It's directly in opposition to those words. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So those are the big problems. But there are the smaller tragedies as well, the less visible struggles, the issues of identity itself, the biases. How do you talk? How do you dress? What name do you use? What does your hair say about you when you apply to school or sit in a classroom or interact with a teacher, or when you apply for a job or work with co workers or ask for a promotion that you deserve, or complain about something that's unfair or suggest an improvement. Those things are hard enough to navigate without also having to work through biases toward identity, racism. If that's there, well, then you have no chance. The dice are loaded. The deck is stacked. It doesn't matter what you do. But even if you're dealing with people who aren't racist, but they make little judgments, they're not in the frame of mind to understand and appreciate differences. They're not excited about that. They don't view it as an opportunity. But they're scared or they're cautious or they're uncomfortable. Look, I've been on a lot of hiring committees over the years. I've looked at a lot of resumes. And what I've found in listening to people talk about candidates is how strongly they tend toward versions of themselves one way or the other. I used to say that every resume should have a mirror coating on the back. That the next time I send out a resume, I'm going to coat the back of it with a mirror. You read the resume on one side and then you flip it over and see the reflection of it. Sorry, you see the reflection of yourself on the back. Because that's what everyone looks for when they look at resumes. Some version of themselves, maybe a younger version of themselves, maybe a version that looks just like themselves. You hear someone praising a candidate and saying, let's say it's John Smith. You're in the hiring committee office and you hear a person say, oh, I liked how John Smith was in the marching band. It showed me that he's got some discipline and he likes being part of a team. And you look at the person who said that and you'd think you were in a marching band too. Or they'd say, hmm, military background, great leadership qualities there. And you'd think you were in the military, too. It happened all the time. Sometimes it would point out A hole that they had. Someone from a small college might say, oh, wow, Stanford. That's impressive. But usually it was, oh, yes, I liked so and so. I thought it was great how she went from a small town in North Dakota and ended up at Harvard. And you'd think you went from a small town in South Dakota and went to Yale. Where am I going with this? That's what I hate about what you're facing, Josie. The insidiousness of people who tend to feel more comfortable with the familiar. There are straight up racists in this country, no question about it. And they've come out of the woodwork now, and that sucks. It sucks that they're emboldened and they make the country worse every single day. And those people who want to say, oh, stop politicizing everything, Jack, or, oh, stop accusing people of racism, what they're saying is, leave me alone and let me be racist. Whenever you hear someone use the word woke in a sentence, whenever you hear someone say, I'm tired of politics, that's what they mean. You can take those sentences, take a sentence with the word woke in it and swap in the sentence, leave me alone and let me be racist. So that's there. But then, because guess what? Other people, the people who aren't racist don't mind hearing this. They don't mind spending a few minutes listening to Jack talk about it. They just don't. It's leave me alone and let me be racist. So that's there. And then there are other people, the people closer to, let's say, Dolly Parton. God bless Dolly Parton. The white people who say, don't be a dumbass. Why would you intentionally hurt someone? Did you hear that Dolly's quote the other day a few weeks ago? Now, I guess, why would I hurt someone? I would never want to hurt someone intentionally. Don't be a dumbass. It's such a great philosophy. Don't be a dumbass. Those people are closer to Dolly, but maybe not there. They're in a position of power. Maybe they're not Dolly the top of the mountain, but somewhere in the middle. And they're trying to write an annual review or give some feedback or hire a new person. And they're not trying to discriminate, they're trying to assess. They're trying to do a good job. And they look at a name, it's not familiar to them. They look at a hairstyle, not familiar speech patterns, not familiar. And they're not sure what to do exactly. They're like a basketball coach trying to assess a tennis player looks good. Fast, good hands. They don't see things that a tennis expert might see. They lack the frame of reference, the perspective. All the little things they look for are a little off. And that's what sucks. What sucks is when race is such a filter and diversity is such a divider that we can't just look at the work, we can't just look at the person, we can't just look at the content of character or the quality of performance. We're stuck thinking something's what is that the hair? Is that good? The speech? Is that off putting? Will that offend clients? Does it sound educated? It's unfamiliar, so I don't know. It's a long rant. Probably too long. Good luck to you, Josie. I wish I could do more for you, but but all I can do is keep putting out these shows and saying what I can about literature and life and hope that we can keep moving things forward as best we can. And I hope literature has some help for you as well. Two more we'll read these quickly and keep our comments to a minimum Subject Another great show. Hi Jack. I don't want to bombard you with emails, but your podcast has become one of my favorites and I think kudos should be given where kudos are deserved. I listened to your the Bard's Top 10 Lines podcast last night. It was absolutely delightful. It was simply awesome. It is easy to forget that all of these great lines and sayings came from Shakespeare. Things we all say today. It is simply mind boggling. I'm sure that a lot of the people who use them today don't even know that they were written by Shakespeare. Is he the king? Now I know even more why we read Shakespeare in Honors English in high school. I love the shows where you and Mike bounce around ideas. In any case, keep up the great work. Looking forward to your next episode. Regards, William P S. Your last show on Ovid was really good as well. You would think that an ancient poet would write odes to pagan gods or something obscure like that, but no. He wrote about very human things that we all relate to today. It helps to put history in its true perspective. Thank you William. I'm very glad you're enjoying the show. I agree with you here about Shakespeare, about Ovid especially. That was very striking to me too. When I found those poems to read from Ovid, I was glad to be able to do it. Last Email Subject Mexican Literature Hi Jack, I am delighted to have stumbled upon your podcast. You and Mike make great companions on my daily walks. I'm a history student at the University of Texas with a casual interest in literature. Over the summer I've been taking a class about the Mexican Revolution of 1910, an oft overlooked movement celebrated as the first great social revolution of the 20th century. When looking through the reading list, I noticed that some literary novels were scattered among the selected historical texts. This is because the bloodshed occasioned a cultural renaissance in which authors, singers, and painters could negotiate Mexico's precarious sense of self. Three works in particular receive attention mentioned in this course Mariano Azuela's the Underdogs, Martin Luis Guzman's the Shadow of the Strongman, and Nelly Campobello's Cartucco's Sorry Nelly Campobello's Tales of the Struggle in Northern Mexico. Uncoincidentally, these authors are regarded as the principal novelists of the Mexican Revolution. Might you consider doing an episode on Mexican literature? My interest in this stems from my personal relationship with our southern neighborhood. I spent my adolescence within a short car ride of the Mexican border, and Mexican culture was a constant, albeit distant, presence in my childhood. Taquerias, mariachi music, enchiladas, and Mexican sodas figure happily into many memories of my youth. It recently occurred to me that I have never engaged with Mexico on a level deeper than its cultural imprint on the American Southwest. This point hit especially hard when I realized I could speak Farsi, the language of Iran, at a semi conversational level, but could not speak Spanish, a language omnipresent in Texas beyond the most basic level that I could read Jefez but not the Spanish signs on my bus route. Through these novels I have only dipped my toes into the immensity of the Mexican literary pantheon. Mexico exists at the confluence of innumerable cultures, and it is interesting to read these books in the context of a country that wrangled with conceptions of selfhood and nationalism well after its independence, a country which endured a traumatic 19th century replete with civil wars and foreign invasions, and which spent the first quarter of the 20th century embroiled in a tragic and apocalyptic convulsion which orphaned and widowed many, and which spent the second quarter of the 20th century reconciling that violence with a new national narrative. I don't mean to digress. One day I'd love to load up Spotify and see you apply your literary wisdom to this smiley face. Best wishes from Austin, Texas, Ben well, Ben, thank you for the email and yes, this is a great idea for a show. I will try to do a full maybe a Mexico month would be in order. Maybe that should be one of our theme months. But in the meantime, stay tuned. We are hopefully going to have something to wet your whistle next week. Amelia Lanier after this.
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Jack Wilson
Experian there's no one like you and there never will be.
- [26:49]
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Jack Wilson
Okay, so we sketched out her life briefly already, and because we're talking about the late 16th and early 17th centuries in England, we don't necessarily know a whole lot more than the sketches. What we have comes from church records. We know where and when she was baptized, for example, and some legal documents. We know she was basically penniless after her father died, and we know that she got married and so on. We know the burial dates of her mother, and there are a few letters. There's her published poetry, of course we know the date of that, and these are like anchors in a long life. She knew an astrologer who kept a diary, and this gives us a bunch of additional information about her to the extent you can trust the astrologer. Here's the picture we get from all of this combined. Her father was definitely a court musician, definitely from Venice, born there, spoke Italian, most likely Jewish, converted to Christianity. And her mother, or the woman most commonly believed to be her mother, appears to have been connected with the court, the aunt of the court composer. The two were not married. They must have had an affair, and Emilia was the result. And Bassano recognized her. She took his last name, but then she moved into the home of the Countess of Kent. We don't know why. Was it to be a ward of the countess who was going to foster her, or was it to serve in the household? We're not sure. She was broke. Her father had died by then, but her mother was still alive. We don't know exactly the contours of all of this. What we do know is that the Countess of Kent made sure that Amelia learned Latin and got a good broad humanist education. Amelia was educated. Her education was as good as the one that boys got in the day, which is extremely rare for her times. It must have made her one of the very few women who would stand out and as we'll see, it comes into play in her poetry. After living there with the Countess of Kent, she went to live with Margaret Clifford, the Countess of Cumberland, and Margaret's daughter, Lady Anne Clifford. And then Amelia's mother died when she was 18. We don't really know how affected she was by becoming an orphan. Certainly she already had a kind of support network with these other women who were looking after her and to whom she expressed a lot of gratitude later in her life. And then not long after her mother's death, she became the mistress of Henry carey, Baron Hunsdon, aka a cousin of Queen Elizabeth I. He was 45 years older than her, 63 to 18. He gave her money and jewels and 40 pounds a year. She seems to have enjoyed her time with him and spoke of it fondly later. But he was married to another, unhappily, so it appears from the records, from some diaries. And then when Emilia became pregnant, they had to figure out what to do. So they married her off to her cousin, a fellow named Alfonso Lanier, who didn't love her as much as Henry Carey had loved her. She had a child, the child Henry was the parent and she named the child Henry, not Alfonso. And Henry Carey was paying them both and Alfonso took full advantage. The money and jewels went to him. This is all around 1592 or 1593. And if you followed our month of Shakespeare sonnets, you, your ears might prick up when you hear those years, because those are the years when Shakespeare was writing his sonnets and we don't have a lot or really any information about what he was doing. There's a 10 year gap where Shakespeare's life is continuing in a very busy way, and yet the record is more or less silent. And those 10 years are when the sonnets are being written. Is it too much to speculate that this striking woman. You know what? So let's save this part, let's hold off on Shakespeare just a little bit longer because we want to jump into the rest of Amelia's life and her poetry. She had a few miscarriages, tragically, and she had a daughter who died at 10 months, also tragically. And then in 1611, when she was 42, she published Salve Deus Rex Judorum, her volume of poetry. It arrived in London on the London scene, like a bombshell. It was considered radical for its day. It is a volume of firsts. It's the first big book of poetry written entirely by a woman using her full name. And it was dedicated to a series of women, also a first. And it's all about women. It's the sort of book a woman writes. Well, we've seen how women have reacted to this, right? Sometimes they'll write as a man and assume the name of a man and sneak in that way. And sometimes they'll say defiantly, no, no, here I am. I am woman, hear me roar. Not only am I a woman, I'm going to make this poem about women and correct some wrongs and show you a few things about the patriarchy that you probably haven't seen before. You blind losers. You blind, blinkered men. Open your eyes. I can write as well as you and think as well as you. And I have a few things to point out that you've missed. Now, that's not to pass judgment on the women who wrote under a man's name, of course, or who still do when the deck is stacked against you. There are only so many options available. You must do what you can. But as a reader, it's kind of refreshing. It's exciting to read Emilia Lanier's poem when it's so bold and iconoclastic. So what is it? It's a story of the crucifixion. It's called Salva Deus. I said this already. Hail God, King of the Jews. That's the English title containing. It says, one, the Passion of Christ, two, Eve's Apology in Defense of women, three, the Tears of the Daughters of Jerusalem, and four, the Salutation and Sorrow of the Virgin Mary. And then it adds with divers. That means several, of course, with divers. Other things not unfit to be read. It's a nice thing to put on the COVID of your poem. A lot of other things in here, too. It's not unfit to be read. Written by Mistress Amelia Lanier, wife to Captain Alfonso Lanier, servant to the King's majesty, this was something like the fourth poem ever published in English attributed to a woman. There was a pamphlet published that included three women poets within its pages, but this was the first one that was entirely by a woman. All the dedications are to women, and the poem is about Christ's crucifixion, the Passion, written from a woman's point of view. Formally, the poem was influenced by Spenser, along with the influences that Amelia had from reading Ovid, Petrarch, Chaucer and Boccaccio and others. She pulls upon plays translated by Mary, Sidney and several other plays as well. But the real star of the poem is the subject matter. Ten poems dedicating the work to various individuals, all of them aristocratic, all of them women. She was looking for a patron, but also she was praising women and the women who had taught her, the women who were as good as the men, the women who showed kindness, the women who made things happen. And then 200 stanzas, few more than that, actually telling the story of Christ's crucifixion from the point of view of women. 200 Stanzas, defending women in the way they had been treated. She goes outside of church tradition for this, independent of church tradition was the phrase. She points to Eve, for example, and says, why is she blamed for original sin? Why does she take all the blame? Why not Adam? Wasn't he supposed to be the strong one? Wasn't he supposed to be in charge? Couldn't he have helped? Why not blame him? And then after talking about the crucifixion, in comes Pontius Pilate's wife, who tries to prevent the trial and crucifixion. And then she's like the other women in the Bible, the Virgin Mary, what a saint. Just look at how the women understood Jesus and treated him well. And Pilate's wife says, look at what all the men did here. You blame Eve. What about Herod? What about Pontius Pilate? What about the male apostles who denied Christ, who didn't save him, who ran, who betrayed him? They were all men. She also blames Jews. Amelia does, which is unfortunate, but consistent with her era. The best part here is that she not only writes about women, she writes as a woman, showing what a different viewpoint can do for us, how it can open our eyes. We could all use different viewpoints to shake sub sometimes. And that's what she gives us. Let's hear a little bit so you can get a sense of her poetry. Here's where she speaks of the glory of Christ. Oh, wonder more than man can comprehend Our joy and grief both at one instant framed, compounded contrarieties contend each to exceed, yet neither to be blamed Our grief to see our Savior's wretched end our joy to know both death and hell he tamed that we may say, O death, where is thy sting? Hell, yield thy victory to thy conquering king. Can stony hearts refrain from shedding tears to view the life and death of this sweet saint, his austere course in young and tender years, when great endurements could not make him faint. His wants, his pains, his torments, and his fears, all which he undertook without constraint to show that infinite goodness must restore what infinite justice looked for. And more yet had he been but of a mean degree, his sufferings had been small. To what they were, mean minds will show of what mean moulds they be. Small griefs seem great, yet use thus doth make them bare. But, ah. Tis hard to stir a sturdy tree. Great dangers hardly puts great minds in fear. They will conceal their griefs, which mighty grow in their stout hearts until they overflow. If then an earthly prince may ill endure the least of these those afflictions which he bare, how could this all commanding king procure such grievous torments with his mind to square legions of angels being at his lure, he might have lived in pleasure without care. None can conceive the bitter pains he felt. When God and man must suffer without guilt, take all the sufferings thoughts can think upon in every man that this huge world hath bred. Let all those pains and sufferings meet in one. Yet are they not a mite to that he did endure for us. O, let us think thereon that God should have his precious blood so shed his greatness, clothed in our frail attire, and pay so dear a ransom for the hire. Lo, here was glory, misery, life and death, and union of contraries did accord gladness and sadness. Here had one birth. This wonder wrought the passion of our Lord. He suffering for all the sins of all the earth. No satisfaction could the world afford but this rich jewel which from God was sent to call all those that would in time repent. Okay, she wrote some other poems as well. But let's move to our Shakespeare portion of this. There are people who think after reading this poem and looking at the history and looking at Shakespeare's works, they think she was the author of Shakespeare's works. And I kind of don't mind this speculation. I'm not a big fan of the Shakespeare authorship theories, but I kind of don't mind this one, at least speculating about it, because the underlying truth behind it is such an intriguing one. The other Shakespeare authorship theories say, hey, how could this yokel from Stratford have known enough to write these plays? Must have been some other famous person, some well educated person who couldn't put their own name on their works for some reason. So they used this vessel. Shakespeare. That's a little bit offensive to yokels such as myself. People pick things up very quickly Sometimes they can surprise you with that. But the speculation is a little bit different. This one is, what if there was a woman who was well educated, but she needed a vessel, an empty vessel. Maybe she fell in with an actor and she started feeding him lines and plays and he's the one getting credit for all of these things she's writing. That's interesting. I don't think there's a lot of evidence for it, but you never know. We could be one diary away from the truth. At least this theory doesn't make me feel like I'm being a bad guy. Maybe by entertaining this idea, I'm helping to keep alive the little flame that will someday turn our world upside down. Amelia Bassanolan, you're the greatest writer who ever lived. That would be amazing. I almost hope that it happens. That would be fun. We'd do an episode on that. But we don't need to go that far. Because if Shakespeare was the author, and if, as I tend to think happened, he was at least friends with Amelia, possibly lovers, probably obsessed. If he was, then it helps explain a lot about Shakespeare. So first of all, did he know her? I think he did. He almost certainly knew of her. London had 200,000 people, not huge. Anybody who was anybody knew everybody who was anybody. She was the mistress of Henry Carey. Remember I told you that he was the cousin of the queen and all that? Well, guess what? He was also Lord Chamberlain to the Queen. And Shakespeare was in the acting company known as the Lord Chamberlain's Men. I think it's safe to say that the group of actors whose patron was Lord Chamberlain would know of Lord Chamberlain's mistress. And some people have argued that this means that Shakespeare wouldn't have gone anywhere near her, that it was way too risky. Why would he risk offending his patron? Well, is that really so surprising? An 18 year old woman in London, a great beauty, extremely educated, a mistress of a man who's married. She is herself an aspiring poet, someone who reads dramas, we know all that. A theater buff. Wouldn't she want to hang around the theater and the playwrights and the actors once in a While? While her 63 year old lover, who has to spend at least some time with his wife and has court duties, he's occupied with other things. Is that really such a stretch to think that she would have gone to see these plays or hung around the rehearsals and Shakespeare is one of the stars of the company, one of the bright young stars. Isn't it possible even likely that she and Shakespeare would have crossed paths at this time. And even if you think that Shakespeare would have been afraid to take up with his patron's mistress, well, do you really think that would stop a young man in his 20s? When an 18 year old is the mistress of a 63 year old man? You know how young people think. They think, I'll free you up from that old codger. And even if you accept that he's afraid of the patron, once she was married off, unhappily, to her cousin, we can still think that Shakespeare might have found an opportunity at that point, persuaded himself that it was safe enough to do in spite of the patronage issue. And she might have wanted to, and he might have dared. I don't think any of this is that far fetched. Now you might say, well, there's no evidence of that, Jack. And that's true, we don't see any. There are no letters to one another that we find. We wouldn't expect those to survive anyway, necessarily. We don't have a lot of information, so their absence doesn't necessarily mean anything. But we can't root this in evidence. And I get it, if you're going to speculate, you could say anything. So, don't want to get too wild here, but we do have a few things that we need to explain. Let's say you're arguing that the two never met because there's no evidence of it and you don't want to speculate, so you're not even going to entertain the notion. You want to stick to facts, facts that we can prove. They were in different social circles. You might say she was above him. She was devoted to Lord Chamberlain. Shakespeare was afraid of his patron, whatever. No evidence. So no. But he names characters Amelia, multiple times. Maybe that's a coincidence. But he also names them Bassanio, his Merchant of Venice. About a Jew in Venice, like Emilia's father, a Jew who came from Venice. And that play has a town called Bassano, Emilia's last name, and a character named Bassanio. Does that sound like someone who had no idea who Emilia was? In Titus Andronicus, Two people hold a crown, like two bookends to the play. One is named Amelius and the other is named Bassanius. Do we really think that in tiny theatrical London he didn't know this poetry writing, theater loving mistress of the man who was sponsoring his theatrical company, and yet somehow these names happen to get used in plays that follow her biographical origins? Or does it sound like someone who might have heard these stories from her or known them about her and Dropped them into his plays as a tribute to her or an angry message about her. Or to her. Some kind of reference that he made either because he was obsessed or because he was smitten or because he was bitter. Right. Doesn't that make sense? But names are one thing. Here's the other big thing that you have to explain. If you're denying me this speculation. Knowledge. Knowledge. What's the biggest argument against Shakespeare's authorship? I'm going to quote here most anti Stratfordians. Those are the people who think the uneducated Shakespeare couldn't have written his plays. Stratfordians means you think William Shakespeare was the author. Anti Stratfordian means you think it was somebody else or Francis Bacon or somebody. Most anti Stratfordians suggest that the Shakespeare canon exhibits broad learning, knowledge of foreign languages and geography and familiarity with Elizabethan and Jacobean court and politics. Therefore, no one but a highly educated individual or court insider could have written it. End quote. Okay. Could have written it is too far. Like I said, I believe in the power of smart yokels to learn things quickly in surprising ways. I don't think you have to be in the court in order to write about the court. But if you ask the question, how did Shakespeare learn it? That's a different question. Look at that list again. Broad learning, knowledge of foreign languages and geography, familiarity with the court and politics. Amelia Bassan Olanier had every one of those things. Things? Every single one. Let's say she and Shakespeare were lovers, or even just platonic acquaintances, if you'd like. Let's say they spent time talking together. He could have absorbed it all from her. What does Shakespeare need to satisfy the anti Shakespeareans? They say he writes about Italy and Venice. How could he know it? He didn't travel there. He seems to know Latin. How? He wasn't taught it in school. He knows all about court intrigue. But he wasn't an insider at court. How could he know? And now I think of the two lovers who are off the radar. History doesn't record their hours of conversation, their captivated, entrancing conversation where Shakespeare listens to the smartest and most beautiful woman he's ever met. And she tells him all kinds of things he doesn't know. And he soaks it all up like a sponge and goes out and learns everything he can so he can understand her better and keep up with her and her education. I've done things like that on a much smaller scale with my meager abilities. I think a genius like Shakespeare, a genius of intellect as well as a Man of deep, profound passion could have done just such a thing and then sprinkled it throughout his plays, because that's what was in his mind. And maybe because that's what he wanted her to know, too, because she jilted him. At least that's what we come to understand if we associate her with the Dark Lady. So we come to the Dark lady sonnets, as we talked about during our month of Shakespeare sonnets. There are the Fair Youth sonnets, and then there are some Rival poet sonnets, and then there are some Dark lady sonnets where Shakespeare is agonizing, suddenly the fair youth, who. He's kind of acts kind of like a patron to the fair youth. He loves the fair youth, but it's not clear exactly how or in what capacity. He's giving him a lot of advice about getting married and about how to make your way in the world. And then the Dark Lady. And suddenly our poet, our sonneteer, is in agony. He's obsessed, he's frustrated, he's furious. He's in love, he's in lust. The passions are running high with the Dark Lady. So again, there's no hard evidence that Emilia Lanyer is the Dark Lady. But I find the objections to it not very plausible. It's kind of hard to argue against it. Hard to argue that he's not. Some people say, well, he wouldn't have written them and risked losing his patron. I talked about that already. I'm not so sure that a person sitting down to write a poem, a sonnet, a love sonnet, if their whole life has been turned upside down by the love they feel for someone, that they would be thinking necessarily, oh, if I do this, I might really irritate my patron. Lovers write poems boldly. People, that's what they do. Passions sometimes overrule judgment, especially when, like Shakespeare, you are bitter and angry and your weapon is your pen. Because you're not rich, you're not powerful, but you're good. You're good at what you do, and you know it. So you wield that weapon, the weapon you have. Because here's the thing. The dark lady of his sonnets has other lovers, too. She's not some sycophant. She's not some groupie. She's not some, I don't know, some housemaid, somebody working in an inn, not somebody who's dependent on Shakespeare. She's an equal, even a superior. She's got wealthy men. She doesn't necessarily need this passionate little poet. She gets wealth and jewels and money from one of the most powerful men in England. Who is wrapped around her finger. I'm speculating that Amelia is the Dark Lady. When I say that you could imagine reading the Dark lady sonnets, that this is what is driving Shakespeare crazy. If you've ever been obsessed, and maybe you were reaching up a little bit and the person you were trying to connect with is willing to stoop down a little bit for a while and then returns to her social class. Because it makes sense to. To do so. To be around the people with the fine manners and the wealth and the power and the jewels. To say, I loved you, Will. I really do. I really think you're talented. I really think you're fun. I like those times we had together. But, boy, if only. If only you were. Had been born a different person. If you've ever been obsessed in a situation like that, you can imagine what Shakespeare would have been going through. And then my final piece of evidence. This is the most tantalizing piece of all. Sonnet 130. We did a whole episode on this last month. It was one of the five sonnets we chose. One of the five best of Shakespeare's sonnets. My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun. Let's repeat that sonnet here, just to set the stage. I think you're gonna like this. Okay. Sonnet 130. This is by William Shakespeare. My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun. Coral is far more red than her lips red if snow be white, why then her breasts are done. If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask'd red and white, but no such roses see I in her cheeks. And in some perfumes is there more delight than. Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak. Yet, well, I know that music hath a far more pleasing sound. I grant I never saw a goddess go. My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she belied with false compare. Now, some theorists. Agatha Christie was one of them. By the way, she took it for granted that everyone knew. Oh, yes, the Dark Lady. Amelia Lanier. Of course. That's what Agatha Christie said in a letter. Now people say, well, look, could this be an Italian or a half Italian Jew? The Sonnet 130. Black wires, the wiry hair. And apparently reeks. I'm getting into some textual analysis by some strong Amelia is the dark lady advocates. Apparently, reeks is the same word as some other word that was used to describe a smell that was associated with Jews at the time, which historians think is because they included garlic in their diet, which was not common in England until the mid 16th century. Point to that and say, look at this. It's telling the audience the breath that from my mistress reeks. Using the word for reeks that's associated with this Jewish diet smell. That's the kind of thing we're working with here, people. And damasked is a reference to carpet from Damascus, which was also associated with Jews. Maybe there are some clues here, like this little signs that would have been obvious to Shakespeare's readers or to him and Amelia, which is maybe the important thing. But there's an even greater connection here. If that's all I had to go on, I would be a little bit shaking my head slowly. Hmm, wish there was a little more, but here we go. I've saved the best for last. It comes from Peter Bassano, who is an English conductor, a descendant of Amelia. He looked at a collection of songs that were dedicated to Lord Hunsdon, written by William Byrd, dedicated to Lord Hunsdon, aka Amelia's lover, Henry Carey, the Queen's Lord Chamberlain, the 63 year old guy. Okay, so we've got songs that were written by William Byrd and dedicated to the Lord Chamberlain. And Bassano says that Amelia wrote some of the lyrics for these songs. So she was a poet. It's possible. Not sure exactly what the evidence is for it, but she knew these songs. At the very least, we can assume that she knew them or hope they hope. I'm betraying myself here. We can think that she may have known these songs because they were dedicated to her lover. She has a connection to them. And Bassano has got some evidence that she may have written the lyrics to them. And Shakespeare came along and later he was writing his satirical sonnet, his parody sonnet, sonnet 130. He's clearly making fun of all the lovers writing poems who came before him. Right? We heard that when we did the sonnet. That's the basic argument of Sonnet 130. You say, your lover's eyes are like the sun, she walks on air, her breath is like perfume and all that. Well, my lover is not anything like that. And yet my love is stronger. And I'm not going to spoil my love by getting all over the top with poetry. That's the take that it's not just a problem for you and your lover, but it's a problem for poetry in general, that it gets too moony when it's talking about lovers. That's the conceit of sonnet 130. And for the most part, we assume that he's inventing what a poet might say and writing against that. Oh, those sonneteers, they talk about snow white snow skin and rosy cheeks and so on. All those cliches. Well, I'll talk about hair like black wires and breath that reeks. Right? Are you still with me? The idea is that Sonnet 130 is Shakespeare kind of cataloging all the things that he knows go into poems like this. And maybe they were a little bit in here, a little bit there. Come from a lot of different poems like this. Maybe one that he made up. Like you might sit down and say, oh, right, I know what people think. They say, her eyes are like the moon, her lips are like pillows. Then you use those cliches to make your parody against that. Right. But here's the thing. I think Peter Bassano makes a pretty convincing point here. Shakespeare was no doubt satirizing all the poets before him, Dante and Petrarch and all the sonneteers and troubadours who got carried away. But there was also a very specific sonnet buried in one of these songs that were given to Lord Chamberlain. That is very close to the same thing as Sonnet 130. It sets forth plainly, unironically, what Shakespeare was about to satirize. It's called Of Gold, All Burnished. Let me take a deep breath here. I'm getting excited. Here's what we know. William Byrd dedicated a song to Lord Chamberlain, Amelia's lover. It included some words that may have been written by the poet Amelia herself. In any event, Shakespeare may have had reason to identify this poem with her. Maybe it's one he heard at a performance she attended. Maybe it's one he associated with her because the Lord Chamberlain was pleased with it, and he was. Shakespeare was privately fuming that Lord Chamberlain and Amelia were together. Whatever. The circle is pretty close here. We can imagine a lot of ways to be inside it and listen to this sonnet. The 14 lines that are the lyric to this song. Here we go. Of gold all burnished Brighter than sunbeams were those curled locks upon her noble head Whose deep conceits my true deserving fled Wherefore mine eyes Such store of tears out streams her eyes, fair stars her red like damask rose White silver shine of moon on crystal stream her beauty perfect Whereon fancy's dream her lips are rubies, teeth of pearls to rose her breath more sweet than perfect Amber is her years in prime. And nothing doth she want that might draw gods from heaven to further bliss. Of all things perfect, this I most complain. Her heart is rock made. All evan gifts, all delight. This last doth only pain. Okay, deep breath. Swallow. Listen to the connections there between the two. Your love. You can imagine Shakespeare saying this to the writer of this sonnet. Your love has curled golden locks brighter than the sun, while mine has hair like black wires. Your love's eyes are like the stars. Mine are nothing like the sun. Your lover has lips like rubies. Mine's lips are nothing like coral. Yours. Your lover has breath more sweet than perfect amber. Well, mine has breath that reeks. Your lover has white skin like the silver shine of moon on a crystal stream. Mine has dark skin. Yours has cheeks like a damask rose. No such rose do I see in my lover's cheeks. Wow. Wow. How many did I just go through there? 7? 8? It's hard not to read this poem after you've read Sonnet 130 and not think that Shakespeare had it in mind when he wrote his parody of just such a poem. It's so close. The Damask Rose. And then to know that Amelia would have known this poem too, and may have written it. Or at least her lover might have known. Here's another idea. Let's say Amelia didn't write the poem. Someone writes this poem for the Lord Chamberlain and he's playing pleased with it. Ah, yes, such a beautiful poem about my lover or about a lover. And Shakespeare says, oh my God, the agony. Here's this old man getting this poem written for him. And everyone is pleased with the poem and all of the beauty, talking about the lover in the poem. And it describes a woman who is nothing like Amelia. It's about white skin and golden hair. My God, Amelia is awesome with her dark skin and black hair. And here's the Lord Chamberlain who doesn't even want honesty in his poem about his lover. And yet I'm losing to this guy. How can I be losing to this guy? I'll write a poem about Amelia as she really is, and it will be better than your stupid poem and screw you all. That's my one wish in life, people. That's all I want. You can take your money and your jewels and your annual stipend. I just want historians to find one letter written in Shakespeare's hand that says, I will write a poem about Amelia as she really is, and it will be better than your stupid poem. And screw you all in those exact words. Because I feel like I know what Shakespeare was thinking, the agony that he felt, and I'd like to know for sure that he felt that way too. Okay, there we go. The dark lady and the accomplished poet Emilia Langyear. Are they the same person? This would have been a good movie too. Hey, I know Shakespeare in Love is a good movie, a great movie. I really enjoy it. It's a great jolt of energy. I'm always smiling when I watch that movie. But this story with Amelia would be good too. The genius poet who meets the woman who is everything he could ever want, more than anything he could have expected, with her education and her manners and her beauty and who dallies with him a little. But ultimately she's out of his reach and he becomes the greatest writer the world has ever known, one success after another, and she then proves what an excellent writer she is. And history remembers him and she is lost to the mists of time. Until now. Until today, when Jack Wilson dives in and does a crazy podcast episode where he has a full head of steam and for a few minutes the two of them can stride the earth again in Jack's mind, if nowhere else. Well, I guess in your mind too now. You're welcome. We are part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network www.thepodglomerate.com. you can find out more about our humble little podcast@historyofliterature.com. you can support the show at patreon.com literature thank you to all of our patrons. Your generosity is much appreciated. Or at PayPal me/Jack Wilson that's J A C K E Wilson. I'm Jack Wilson. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.
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Welcome to Hope Springs Narrator
Imagine a podcast that brings the whole family together. Filled with adventure, heart and a few surprising twists and turns, it's a place for you to turn off the screen, turn on your imagination, and join the everyday wonders and even eternal mysteries of small town life. Introducing welcome to Hope Springs, the new audio drama from the renowned Augustine Institute and the Peabody Award winning storyteller Paul McCusker. Set in a small Colorado town, welcome to Hope Springs follows a group of young friends whose good natured adventures lead to times of laughter, courage and faith. It's solidly rooted in a Catholic worldview, with each episode exploring moral lessons in a natural and authentic way for kids, all while giving parents opportunities for conversations about character and virtue. So don't miss out. Follow welcome to Hope Springs on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening now.
- [68:32]
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