peach acid- shakespeare's lost years first podcast outline

 New Semester Introduction-

 Hi Peach Acid Listeners! My name is Cira and I´ḿ this year's Media Team, leader. I am the scriptwriter, researcher, and podcast coordinator as well as aiding the layout team in promoting and publishing the AHHS Literary Magazine, The Jabberwocky. This year I plan to publish episodes frequently and interview many talented students and staff alike. 

Hi, I'm Tori Valadez, I'm a Junior on the Art team in LitMag and am very excited to help create the Artwork for this year's JubJubs and Jabberwocky!

• Do you consider yourself an artist? 

To an extent yes, but I don't think I qualify to be labeled as an artist, mainly because my creative thoughts only relate to creating written pieces. Although I can make suitable art for the Jab, I think I'm more of a writer than an artist.

• What made you choose to work with Lit Mag? 

I love the idea of contributing to a written magazine, and especially since I looked up to the people in lit mag and my creative writing class I'd get to produce and create alongside them, and I thought that was pretty cool.

• We have an upcoming publication coming up, can you tell us a little bit about the theme? Have you submitted it? 

The theme is sort of a third person, stalking, admiring, observing the type of style where you are writing about something or someone being watched (or something along the lines of that, creatively). Personally, I've actually had a hard time thinking of something unique to submit, I already submitted one piece, a classic carrier-type narration

• What Shakespeare pieces have you read? What did you think of them? Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet, are obviously both esteemed classics in literature but this also makes them the blueprint for so many other movies plays, and pieces, so when you read them straight up, they're a tad bit predictable 

• What does Shakespeare mean to you?

Shakespeare to me is essentially the founder or first creative writer who got to get his pieces to the public and on stage, gaining so much appreciation and allowing him to continue writing his stories.

1. To start, the mid to late 1500s in Europe were remarkable times for the height of the Renaissance movement, While England became the most powerful nation in Europe, new ideas and religious concepts emerged and the growth of a middle class held power without noble birth, radical changes erupted in  European society. William Shakespeare, The Bard of Avon, as you may have been taught in any English or Literature Course, spoke and wrote in Early Modern English or Elizabethan English which paved the way for the modernized grammar and spelling of New English. Shakespeare also expanded on the idea of Characterization, plot development, and genre, he also was arguably the first playwright to connect the dots between love and tragedy and paved a new possibility for literary tropes wordplay, and symbolical concepts in one universal language that still dominates today. 

2. William Shakespeare was a world-renowned English playwright, known for the creation of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Timon of Athens, Macbeth, and many more extensive works of fiction that paved the way for the Renaissance drama literature movement of the 16th century in Europe, But it’s not as well known that Shakespeare had many obscure years of his career, where he wrote many plays that have been missing to this day. Shakespeare left school at the age of 14 like most students, married 4 years later, and had a daughter in 1583 and twins later on in 1585, which happened to be the same year the Plague began to break out in London, For one thing, as a shareholder in two playhouses and a company, he was as anxious as any West End producer in 2020 about theater closures, the effect on the bottom line, and whether there was even any point in him generating new scripts if no one could stage them, with nothing else to do, Shakespeare turned to writing poetry with an air of early Romanticism ideas. 

3. In 1593 Shakespeare published a poem, Venus and Adonis, dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton, a young courtier and favorite of Queen Elizabeth, writing Shakespeare attempted to illustrate the unfortunately close relationship between love and sacrifice, a subject he touched on in Romeo and Juliet. But the Plague had a dramatic and painful influence on the young Shakespeare’s life, the writer had seen many people die often from this eruptive disease. However, the lockdown only lasted about 6 months so Shakespeare returned to playwriting and aided many more productions. By 1597, Shakespeare moved him and his family to a new place in Stratford- upon Avon and continued to strengthen his production business, this is when Shakespeare’s notoriety bloomed into much more relevance than ever before in his career, he’s known and respected by most around town, even approached by many fans. 

4. By 1599, Shakespeare used old timber from his old theater to build “The Globe” an even bigger, improved theater which had been built by Richard Burbage's father, James Burbage, in Shoreditch in 1576. The Burbages originally had a 21-year lease of the site on which the theater was built but owned the building outright to pursue a wider range of theatrical entrepreneurs. In 1600, Shakespeare is now 36, he wrote ¨Hamlet” and for the first time in his career his poetry his featured in Bell- Vedere the first literary common compilation book to include playwrights. Around February of the next year, the First recorded performance of 'King Richard II', a revival performed at the Globe and commissioned by supporters of the Earl Of Essex and a year later Shakespeareś's father dies from the plague at only 55.

• Shakespeare’s Lost Years and Lost Plays

1. It’s theorized there is a gap in the timeline scholars have constructed – a seven-year period during which we know nothing at all about where he was and what he was doing, although there is much, unsupported, conjecture about it, those years have been labeled ‘the lost years”  beginning in This period spans from 1585 to 1592. According to an interview with David McInnis, co-founder of the Lost Plays Database from the Folger Shakespeare Library. “there are at least two plays Shakespeare wrote that has definitely been lost: Love’s Labour’s Won and another play he wrote with John Fletcher called Cardenio. But when Shakespeare’s First Folio was put together posthumously, it was not a perfect document. The plays included are of uneven quality. Some of them are very roughed, worked over manuscripts and some of them are much more polished final products. They took whatever they could get, and they printed it. In the course of doing so, they managed to publish for the first time about 18 of Shakespeare’s plays that hadn’t appeared in print during Shakespeare’s lifetime. Plays like Antony and Cleopatra and Macbeth and Twelfth Night.”

• Shakespeare’s Mysterious Death

The mystery surrounding William Shakespeare's death primarily revolves around the exact cause of his demise and the circumstances leading up to it. While the traditional account attributes his death to a fever contracted after a night of heavy drinking with fellow playwright Ben Jonson, there are several aspects that have led to ongoing debate:

1. Lack of Detailed Records: One of the key factors contributing to the mystery is the limited amount of detailed historical documentation regarding Shakespeare's final days and illness. We have some basic facts about his death date (April 23, 1616), but there are very sparse death medical records, autopsy reports, eyewitness accounts, or letters describing his condition.

2. Conflicting Accounts: The accounts of Shakespeare's death come from secondary sources and vary in detail and reliability. For instance, the Reverend John Ward, a 17th-century cleric, wrote in his diary that Shakespeare died of a "fever." However, the lack of specificity leaves room for interpretation.

3. The Drinking Bout Theory: The traditional narrative suggests that Shakespeare died of a fever contracted after a night of heavy drinking with Ben Jonson and other colleagues at the Mermaid Tavern in London. Some have questioned this account, as it relies on anecdotal evidence and might have been embellished over time.

4. Poisoning Theories: At various points in history, theories have emerged suggesting that Shakespeare was poisoned. These theories often speculate about political motives or personal vendettas. However, they lack concrete evidence and are largely considered speculative. 

5. Alternative Medical Explanations: Some modern medical experts have attempted to diagnose Shakespeare's cause of death based on historical records and the limited descriptions of his symptoms. The proposed alternative explanations include various diseases, infections, or even a stroke. Still, these are speculative and inconclusive due to the lack of concrete evidence. According to the Shakespeare’s Chancre (Did the Bard have Syphillyis?) Shakespeare's obsessive interest in syphilis, his clinically exact knowledge of its manifestations, the final poems of the sonnets, and contemporary gossip all suggest that he was infected with “the infinite malady.” The psychological impact of venereal disease may explain the misogyny and revulsion from sex so prominent in the writings of Shakespeare's tragic period. This article examines the possibility that Shakespeare received successful treatment for syphilis and advances the following new hypothesis: Shakespeare's late-life decrease in artistic production, tremor, social withdrawal, and alopecia were due to mercury poisoning from syphilis treatment. He may also have had anasarca due to mercury-related membranous nephropathy. This medical misadventure may have prematurely ended the career of the greatest writer in the English language, this is a bold claim to make, but if we take a look at the cited evidence Shakespeare often refers to the immense variety of syphilitic skin lesions. In Comedy of Errors (act 3, scene 2), a woman of dubious beauty and virtue has “her nose all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires,” alluding to the syphilid of late benign syphilis, a “deep indurated nodule that varies from pinhead to pea size and is brownish red in color,” which is found primarily on the face, upper back, and extremities [17, p. 501]. Lesions of nodular syphilis may scale and produce plaques, mimicking psoriasis or pityriasis rosea [18, 19]. This whitish, psoriaform appearance may explain Shakespeare's use of the term “hoar leprosy” for syphilis in act 4, scene 3 of Timon of Athens. Shakespeare also frequently puns on “French crowns,” which refers to gold coins but also suggests syphilitic alopecia from the French disease, but we would never know for sure how he might have gotten infected with any of these diseases. 

Of course, Shakespeare's awareness of syphilis does not mean that he was personally infected. Shakespeare would be familiar with syphilis from the London arts scene of the 1590s, as an observer of the New York arts scene of the 1980s would be familiar with AIDS. Shakespeare's fellow writers Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe, and George Peele all died young, apparently from syphilis acquired in the London brothels 

6.  Nonsense Theories- Was Shakespeare even that good or even the true author of his plays at all? Until the 1800s, the debate was not about whether Shakespeare was a fraud, but rather whether he was really all that great. Ben Jonson and John Fletcher were generally thought to be superior in the centuries after his death. But critical evaluations shifted, as they are wont to do, and by the 19th century Shakespeare was becoming enshrined as the greatest English-language author of all time. There was also once a theory that Shakespeare was actually a woman all along, 

In summary, the mystery surrounding Shakespeare's death stems from the absence of detailed, contemporary records, and the reliance on secondary sources that offer conflicting accounts. While the traditional explanation of death due to a fever after a night of drinking persists, it is challenging to definitively confirm or debunk alternative theories. As a result, Shakespeare's cause of death remains an intriguing historical enigma that continues to spark curiosity and debate among scholars and enthusiasts.

Sources

• K, Amelia. "Shakespeare's Lost Years." Shakespeare.Org.Uk, 24 Aug. 2020, www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/shakespeares-lost-years/#:~:text=A%20popular%20story%20revolves%20around,in%20order%20to%20escape%20punishment. Accessed 14 Sept. 2023.

• McGreggor, Kurtis L. "Shakespeare's Conspiracy Theories Uncovered: InsideHook." Insidehook.Com, 9 Jul. 2019, www.insidehook.com/article/books/inside-the-weird-world-of-shakespeare-conspiracy-theories. Accessed 14 Sept. 2023.