It’s Valentine’s Day, and so I thought we would celebrate with some Shakespeare and Love by interviewing Cassidy Cash of That Shakespeare Girl. Grab the free guide she put together just for Renaissance English History Podcast listeners at CassidyCash.com/england-cast.
Thanks so much for your listenership and support, and I hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!
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Transcript: Shakespeare and Love
Hello, and welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast a part of the Agora Podcast Network. I’m your host, Heather Teysko, and I’m a storyteller who makes history accessible because I believe it’s a pathway to understanding who we are, our place in the universe, and being more deeply in touch with our own humanity.
This is Episode 97. And it’s for Valentine’s Day. It’s a special interview with Cassidy Cash of That Shakespeare Girl about Shakespeare and love. Because when we think about Shakespeare, we often think about love, don’t we? All these great love quotes, and he was also such an enigma with his own love life. And so I thought it would be great to have her on the show to talk about what we know about Shakespeare and love and what his plays tell us about how he saw love.
Also, those of you who are really aware and following and really with it, will notice that I had actually said I would be back with the Battle of Lepanto before this. I got the flu, I got that nasty flu that’s going around and it knocked me out for about a week and a half. And so I am behind with my Lepanto research. So I will be back with that in about a week and a half and I don’t like to skip things up like this and switch around and not do an episode when I said I was going to do it, so I apologize to those of you who are really with it and really keeping track of me and my episodes. So I didn’t forget about it. It will be here. Blame the flu.
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So now let me introduce you briefly to Cassidy Cash, then we’ll jump right into the interview. Cassidy Cash produces a weekly video series on William Shakespeare for her YouTube channel That Shakespeare Girl and she’s currently recording episodes to launch That Shakespeare Life Podcast in April of 2018. Cassidy is a respected Shakespeare consultant as well as a regular contributor to digital and print publications on the life and plays of William Shakespeare.
She’s a partner with British History Tours and will be leading a tour of Shakespeare’s life in Stratford Upon Avon in England in 2019. And she believes that understanding the history of Shakespeare’s life and the culture of Renaissance England is essential to the study of Shakespeare’s plays.
So we jumped right in with me asking her what Shakespeare’s love life was really like. Because there’s so many rumors, there’s so many different things that you hear about the second-best bed in the will and not reading the banns and everything like that when they got married. Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway didn’t read the banns publicly as many times as they should, and she was pregnant. And so there’s all these different rumors around that. So I asked Cassie to elaborate a little bit on Shakespeare’s own love life.
Cassidy:
I think one thing we do learn from history is despite the lack of reliability. There’s often truth found inside the rumor and the legend and Shakespeare is an example of this. With his love life, Anne Hathaway kind of gets a bad rap. She gets dismissed because she was this kept woman. She was tossed aside and left in Stratford alone while ambitious Shakespeare frittered away off to London to selfishly make his fortune.
I think that, I mean there’s some facts there obviously, they got married, and she stayed in Stratford, and he went to London, but I don’t think that she was abandoned. This was kind of a life that she chose. I think their marriage relationship and what we do know about how they got married, tells us that.
I mean, she was pregnant when they got married. And people point to that as, “Oh, gosh, that she was pregnant when they got married. So that must be the reason that they rushed into marriage.” And I think that’s a modern interpretation.
Because at the time, being pregnant or getting pregnant was often used as a kind of betrayal. It was a statement of “I’m already committed to this woman”, and the marriage was the legal side of it, but it wasn’t necessarily the commitment side of it. So her being pregnant could have just as much been an indication that Shakespeare was committed to her.
The idea of the banns not being read three times, has also been tossed out as an indication that the marriage was rushed. And that might be true. But it could be just as true that maybe they were more progressive or modern-minded and opted out of that tradition. You obviously can’t know about why they didn’t read the banns three times without asking them.
Me personally, I’m a hopeless romantic, and I like to believe that he did love her, we know that Shakespeare traveled regularly back to Stratford while he was working in London. And I don’t think a man who doesn’t love a woman travels regularly to the town where she lives in, especially if that town is a small town like Stratford.
So the fact that he went back there regularly, shows that maybe he wasn’t what we would consider a modern definition of a faithful husband and devoted father. But I think that that action indicates that he probably was for the late 16th century.
Another aspect of their marriage that I really like is, you mentioned, the second-best bed. I’ve always thought that little nod was one of the most romantic. I mean, can you imagine what kind of inside jokes they might have had about the bed?
When a couple gets married as Shakespeare did when he wasn’t popular or well off financially, but he stayed married to Anne through basically from poverty to riches. They probably had stories that could tell but would only whisper to themselves about the second-best bed. So I mean, why go to the trouble of writing out that it was the “second-best” in your will if it didn’t mean something to her.
Heather:
Right. Also, like the best bed wouldn’t have necessarily been the marital bed. That was the bed for guests. And the second-best bed would actually have been the bed that they shared, I think.
Cassidy:
That’s what I’ve thought. Yes. Yeah. So that’s what I mean, but I’m not I’m not an expert in 17th-century beds. So I can’t know for sure. But I’ve always thought it was interesting that he was so detailed. Like who lists off “make sure she gets the second-best bed”? It seems like something about that was important. Whether it was an insult to her or a statement of romance is probably up to interpretation, but I leaned towards the romantic side of it myself.
Heather:
I see. Well, I like that. That’s sweet. So what do you think about what we can infer about how Shakespeare viewed love based on the representations of love in his plays? And I mentioned, it seems like it never really ends fully happily for anybody. Even in the comedies and the ones where there’s like the supposed happy ending, someone always seems to have to sacrifice something.
I’m thinking specifically like The Taming of the Shrew, how the shrew has to be tamed. And then the places where there is actually genuine romantic love seem to just end in everybody dying. Seems like there’s never really just this nice marriage of people just coming together and being nice and happy.
And I’m sure part of that is because of the stories he was telling and the drama and everything like that, but it just kind of seems, it makes me feel a little bit cynical about what he seemed to think about love. So what do you get out of the way he describes love?
Cassidy:
Well, my English degree background insists that I point out the idea of intentional fallacy and say that, “Shakespeare could write about being a horseshoe maker and it wouldn’t make him personally a farrier.” So, I think there’s that aspect to it.
But I think, probably first and foremost, Shakespeare was a businessman and he knew his audience very well. So I think more than what Shakespeare personally thought about love, you get a taste through what he wrote of what love was thought of in that time period, during the 16th and 17th century, what did his audience think or find entertaining about love.
And as far as love stories that all end in tragedy, I mean, we have Tarantino today, so you can take extremes of everything. So I think theater and stage performance was so tense during Shakespeare’s lifetime with many playwrights and including some of his contemporaries like Ben Jonson getting put in prison for misrepresenting some minor things in a play, that what we confer about Shakespeare’s opinions is that he didn’t write for his own personal opinion. He wrote to please the crown, to stay out of prison, and to make money doing what he was good at.
Sonnets are probably really where it gets more personal. But I still don’t think they’re necessarily personal declarations about Shakespeare as a man. Some of the things that you’ll read in there have different themes that could be about Shakespeare’s opinion of love, and it could also just be “Hey, this would look really great in a book,” or “When I write this in the play, people are going to gasp at this moment.” And that was the effect it would have on the audience was important.
Heather:
Yeah. Well, so can you tell me about the sonnets, then?
Cassidy:
All of them?
Heather:
Tell me about the sonnets in like 10 minutes. I know this wasn’t one of the questions I sent you, so I apologize. I know you’re having to off the cuff here or whatever.
Cassidy:
That’s okay! We can off the cuff it.
Heather:
Who were they written for? I know that’s like a mystery. What was the kind of events surrounding the writing of the sonnets? How are they all compiled? What can you tell us about the sonnets?
Cassidy:
I’ll admit to not knowing as much of the history of the sonnets in terms of who he wrote them for, or who paid for them, or how much money exchanged hands for their publications, and all of that, which I think is relevant to Shakespeare, but they are poems and not diary entries. So I think it’s reasonable to consider that like a poet, the images were there to stand in for something else.
I think he used some of his imagery to talk about broader issues that he couldn’t come right out and express because of the politics of the day. For example, in sonnet 127, Shakespeare writes “Fairing the foul with Art’s false borrowed face,” and I think of how in one of his Henry plays, he talks about King Charles of France, and the image in the play is of him being this proud, responsible king.
When in fact, that particular king of France was a lunatic. He was known as Charles the Mad. So Shakespeare’s painting him as this nice person when he was really crazy. He has painted fair the foul reality of this King Charles, and using his art of theater to give him a borrowed face.
And so I think one of the things that we see in the sonnets is not strictly love declarations, but we also see sort of the turmoil of a man who is separated from the theater and thinking back over, “What did I write? How have I influenced this?”
Especially with the political nature of the theater, and how much the monarchy depended on the theater to present certain political agendas to their nobles that were in the room for the play. It was all this big political game. And Shakespeare was probably writing a lot about the conflict internally that that would bring to an artist.
Heather:
Sure. Yeah. It’s interesting, what do you think about what he thought his legacy would be? And this is, again, I’m just asking off the cuff here. But just thinking about that he was writing this for commercial purposes, did he think that 400 years after he died, we’d still be tearing these things apart, do you think?
Cassidy:
No, I don’t think so. Actually, I think one of the reasons Shakespeare’s enjoyed such longevity with his legacy is specifically because it’s not what he was focused on when he was doing his work. He was focused on being the best at the career he had chosen to do.
He was talented. He was, I would say, extraordinarily talented. He had a great gift for dialogue and communication and theatre. And he applied that to what he was doing. But no, I don’t think he thought he would be known by the time his grandchildren were grown, much less 400 years later.
Heather:
Interesting. And so that’s the sonnets. One of my questions like one of the things people have been talking about for 400 years is, who this Dark Lady that makes this appearance in the sonnets? I’ve heard all kinds of theories about that, from a woman who owned a brothel and to just all kinds of people. What’s your thought?
Cassidy:
Well as a dramatist and an artist, Shakespeare was in a committed relationship with his patrons. He was bound dutifully to write what they would approve of, to stage what they would enjoy, and to pay to have performed. And while he was good at his job, it doesn’t mean he was necessarily indulging his own creative ideas. He was instead applying his creativity for the satisfaction of others.
Maybe it’s my inner poet, but I take the sonnets much less literally than people tend to when they talk about the Dark Lady, and see it as figurative, the way poems are often meant to be. And the mistress he refers to is his real creativity buried in the shadows beneath his personal commitments.
Maybe you could argue, I’m not an expert or whatever, but I think that he’s calling attention to the fact that what his audience considered beautiful and to be esteemed is false, and is a narrative contrived by the wants and desires of his audience. I think the sexual terms that you have in the Dark Lady sonnets like lust, and desire, and seduction can all be used to describe what drives a particular audience to want to see in a theater.
The rival poet argument is just as easily Shakespeare lamenting that the muse has given her graces to someone like Ben Jonson, who presented this amazing court masque before James I. We can see from some of the elements Shakespeare included in his plays after that, that Shakespeare was envious of Ben Jonson for how well he had done and some of the examples like when Shakespeare talks about “black wires in her head”, I think that can refer to the stage and his performance technique of suspending objects over the stage using wires and out of the top of the stages’ head.
So I think Shakespeare is using language of the sonnets and the imagery of love and sex, which is true to the form of a sonnet, to talk about his love frustrations and passions with his first love, which is the theater. I don’t think Shakespeare was having an affair or an illicit relationship with anyone.
I think he was writing the sonnets when he really wanted to be in London performing plays, but the plague had trapped him outside the city. And he was doing what he could to make money in this undefined interim until they decided to open the theater back and he could go back to his love that was there in London. I think the Dark Lady was the theater.
Heather:
Interesting. That’s a good one. This episode is going to go out around Valentine’s Day, and there’s so many quotes that people use at this time on Valentine’s with all these discrete love quotes. What do you think is it that has him stay so relevant, and be able to express even 400 years later, emotions that people have now? And these universal themes that he touches on? What is it for you that keeps him so relevant? What do you find exciting about him? And why do you think he’s so relevant?
Cassidy:
I think what I find exciting about Shakespeare is what a large part of people find exciting about Shakespeare, and it’s the ability to self-identify with what he is writing. But I think it’s not because Shakespeare is so much universal. I really don’t think he is.
I think Shakespeare is the embodiment of rule number one of entrepreneurship, which is “the narrow your topic, the broader your reach”. Shakespeare was very, very narrow in what he was writing. And narrow topics help people self-identify. A broad scope makes it harder to do that. When you can effectively communicate very specific ideas, It draws others to you and to your content.
And so I think, Shakespeare at the time he was writing, and what he was writing, always had a very narrow focus and a very narrow audience. But his stories, while great examples of the complicated nature of love and humanity, the reason they enjoy this broad reach is because when we read it, its narrow focus allows us as an audience to self-identify with what we’re seeing.
Like when Hamlet is plagued with emotions and asking all these questions on stage, we as audience members are sitting there asking the same questions about Hamlet, and we understand what it’s like to have that struggle, but the text itself that Shakespeare wrote, was very, very focused.
Heather:
Interesting. There’s so much I suppose I want to ask you about here. I love that when you said there’s that rule that if you’re trying to talk to everybody, you’re talking to nobody.
Cassidy:
Exactly. Shakespeare knew this probably better than anyone else. And I don’t know if he did it on purpose, but he definitely wasn’t writing to the entire world. He wasn’t even writing to different countries. I think sometimes, he was writing specifically to one person, the monarch that was reigning at the time. He was writing to please that person. And that’s it. You can’t really get a more narrow focus than writing to one person.
Heather:
One person, sure. What happened with him when with the changeover from when Elizabeth died and James became king? How did that affect him?
Cassidy:
Well, the audience changed and his focus changed. I think Elizabeth had a lot to overcome in terms of being a woman, in terms of not being married, not having kids. She had a lot of political agendas that didn’t apply to James. And so what she wanted to see from the theater, what she considered a good story was different.
I think in Elizabethan Shakespeare, you see a lot of stories that are pro-England, they’re like cheerleader statements about the strength and honor of this great country. And then with the turnover to James, you’ve got the Gunpowder Plot is sort of kicking off in his reign. A horrible way to start things there, James. So you’ve got a country that is reeling from a massive, foiled terrorist attack. And they almost lost this king. And it’s at a time when–
Heather:
And everybody in Parliament too, it wasn’t just the king–
Cassidy:
Exactly. It was gonna take out everybody. And so it’s just panic and stress. James is already trying to function as a peacemaker because everybody’s freaking out over Catholic versus Protestant. People are wondering, Scotland versus England. Are we going to be friends? Are we going to come together? Or are we not? So it’s a significant amount of turmoil.
And so I think with plays like Macbeth that come after James takes the throne, you see Shakespeare really trying to play to James’s priorities of unifying the country. So you see a lot of unification themes, a lot of, “let’s come together and work together” kind of themes in his plays. I think there’s a significant shift, which is kind of why I think Shakespeare was so aware of his audience because he didn’t write the same thing the whole time. You do see him change when his audience changes.
Heather:
Yeah. Interesting. I want to ask you about his early life. How do you think he got involved in wanting to go into the theater?
Cassidy:
That is such a fun question.
Heather:
Okay, great. I’m glad.
Cassidy:
Yeah, I love that question. Actually, I think it started when he was in grammar school. Actually, James S. Shapiro talks about this in his book 1599, and he mentions it again in The Year of Lear, but the idea that Shakespeare may have actually met Richard Burbage when he was a child because Richard Burbidge was part of one of the touring companies.
James Burbage, his father would tour through Stratford, and it was Shakespeare’s dad, who had to approve these plays coming into Stratford. So there’s a high probability that Shakespeare was exposed to real acting companies as a child, but his education and grammar school was centered around the theater. They would study people like Sophocles and Euripedes, who were Greek tragedians, and they were dramatists in their own right.
So some of the Latin and Greek that he was studying in school was all drama. The school itself, actually at the end of the year, each year, Shakespeare and his classmates would put on a play for the end of the year. It would be to demonstrate their memorization skills and their learning of Latin and all of this that they had done during school. But he was definitely exposed and rather saturated with the theater as a child.
So I really think he got into this early. He knew early on what it was he wanted to become and was kind of on that trajectory from the beginning.
Heather:
Yeah, I’ve heard a theory, I think it was the book Will in the World.
Cassidy:
Bill Bryson?
Heather:
It wasn’t the Bill Bryson one, it’s another.
Cassidy:
Stephen Greenblatt
Heather:
Yeah! Him. And it said that it’s possible that he would have been at the amazing pageants that Robert Dudley had for Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth when he staged this–
Cassidy:
Yes, I read that too!
Heather:
Yeah, and I just love that idea, thinking about that, because it was only like eight or nine miles away, I think. And so–
Cassidy:
That was impressive to me. It’s fascinating, to think, oh my gosh, it was right there. There’s no way he didn’t know.
Heather:
And his father had some kind of a role in town where it’s possible that he would have been involved in putting on the festivities. The idea that maybe Shakespeare tagged along as a young kid and saw this stuff and was impressed by that, I just, I love that vision of him. Because that pageant was just the most amazing thing England had ever seen. I can just imagine his eyes just being boggled and amazed.
Cassidy:
Exactly, I picture a seven-year-old William Shakespeare, standing between adults like peeking around someone’s leg to watch this play going on the other side, and just the pageantry of it all. Because they brought it out there to the country, so they had to have you know, overcompensating for the lack of sets or staging with elaborate performance. It would have been amazing to see, I’m sure it had to have made an impression.
Heather:
Yeah, yeah. I’m getting way off topic here, but you know a lot about this, you know more about this than me, and I’m interested in how theater changed throughout his lifetime? Because it went from almost being like a religious, the mummers’ plays and that kind of thing, to then suddenly the Puritans didn’t want it at all.
Cassidy:
The Puritans caused so many problems. Yes, they did. They were not nice. But that I mean, that was their religious conviction at the time that they didn’t like it.
Heather:
It’s just interesting that it was like the Protestants that almost got theater started in putting on some of these masks early on, to tell these religious stories and kind of PR the Reformation kind of stuff. And I just wonder what you think about that.
Cassidy:
Exactly! Nobody tells you that. You listen to this, and you’re like, “Wow, the Protestants started theatre? Really?” But you’re right, they did. It’s interesting that you mentioned that because the mummers’ plays weren’t that different from the Elizabethan stage in the fact that they were coming from a place of political agenda.
It was highly scrutinized in Shakespeare’s time. You had to be very careful how close to the prevailing political winds you chose to sail there with what you put on stage. Because there were contemporaries of Shakespeare that would get put in prison for “Oh, you use the wrong word. And that made somebody in power really mad. So now well you’re going to prison.” I think dialogue was huge for lack of a better word. It was really important that you get the words right, and that you communicate correctly.
But I think maybe the form changed. Obviously, they didn’t do as many religious plays, or they weren’t acting out the Bible when Shakespeare was putting things on stage. But I think the idea that it had a political angle changed a lot. It’s also interesting that it went from being this very conservative, very something you would do in church, to being a community that was pretty rife with various forms of debauchery, and considered kind of the bad side of town, it was kind of sketchy, the people of disrepute were found in theaters.
Actually, Elizabeth one time, when she was ordering conscription for wars abroad, she would go to the theater, because she thought the people who frequented the theaters were expendable. So when she needed a whole bunch of people to fight, and she didn’t care if they died or not, she would go to the theaters to find them. And it was that kind of thing.
There was a reputation about the theater that I think Shakespeare helped reframe. I think the reason modern-day theater is considered this highbrow affair or this high society way to be or thing to be involved in, is because Shakespeare’s reputation helped carry it there.
I’ve actually wondered about the disconnect there, because on the one hand, it’s this thing that’s disreputable, and on the other hand, you have sitting monarchs regularly ordering in these plays. So how disreputable could it have really been if they’re saying, “Well, I want you to perform for my nobles.” That doesn’t sound disreputable to me. So I’m not sure where the disconnect is. If it’s happening in a playhouse, somehow it’s a low value, but if it’s happening in a court session, now it’s grand, and it’s acceptable.
Heather:
What you say there reminds me of that movie Amadeus and how there was like the court opera, and then it shows Mozart composing the Magic Flute for the local opera and you know how different it was. There’s these scenes where it shows the court opera and he’s doing, these very highbrow kinds of pieces, and then he’s doing the folktales and stuff for the people and his wife was saying, “Why do you compose for this stuff?” And he says, “Well, they give me money and that’s why I do.” And it’s in that same kind of disconnect that you talk about.
Cassidy:
Exactly. I often wonder if that’s not why Shakespeare’s works – they have this intentional duplicity to them where you read this phrase, and it could mean one thing, but it could just as easily mean something else. James S. Shapiro calls it, we have this word that I should know, and I can’t remember because I’m trying to say it to you right now. Equivocation! And how this word was coming into its definition, during this time. It wasn’t typically used, but the word when it got used in plays, or when it got used during investigations for the Gunpowder Plot, the definition they put behind the word equivocation was the idea to say one thing, but mean another.
Or to say something and not complete the thought, so that you said something that sounded like it could mean one thing, but if you had finished your thought it would mean something else. He goes on to talk about how the play Macbeth was written with a ton of equivocation. The idea that you can never really be sure what the person speaking actually meant. I wonder if Shakespeare didn’t include that, because it was a time of duplicity.
And society really was sort of split into two camps. He was having to please monarchs, and nobles, and people that had one set of expectations, but he was having to take that same play back to his playhouse and sell tickets for a completely different audience. So when you write something that can leave room for a wide amount of interpretation but still follow an organized plotline, it is pretty impressive.
Heather:
Yeah, yeah. It really is. Gosh, I could just talk to you forever. I love and I wonder if you can tell, if you know it, or if you could tell me what you think happened? And it’s a story I love about Shakespeare kind of being, I don’t know, the idea of when they moved the Globe Theater across the frozen–
Cassidy:
Yes! Do you know that story?
Heather:
Can you tell me what happened? Can you tell us what happened? I love it!
Cassidy:
Yes, yes. I can tell you what happened. When they started the Globe Theatre, it wasn’t actually the Globe, it was called The Theater, and it was James Burbage’s theater. I’m not sure how partnered with Richard Burbage he was, but it was kind of a family thing. So James and Richard have the theater, but they were leasing the land from someone else. And their lease ran up. I don’t know quite the details of why they weren’t allowed to renew their lease or why they couldn’t pay him something and get this back.
But basically, the man who owned the land said, “No, you’ve got to leave, I’m kicking you out.” So Shakespeare got together with Richard Burbage and some of the other Will camp and some of the other people that were his friends and compatriots there in the theater. They got together and said, “Well, we’re going to start our own theater.”
So they waited until it was nighttime, and they went over there together and beam by beam, they dismantled the entire theater. And this is in the dead of winter, it’s like snowing outside and it’s cold. Yeah, they dismantled the whole thing and carried it across the river outside of the jurisdiction of the City of London, right, so they can’t come and get them and even prosecute them for this.
So they take it across there. They rebuild it on the other side of the river and created the Globe Theater that we think of as Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, just them and his friends. Because they own the theater, they just didn’t own the land, and so they stole it.
Heather:
I just love that idea. I think the story was that when the lease came up for renewal, it was at a period when they were starting to frown upon theaters in general, and the guy who owned it didn’t want to be associated with the theaters.
Cassidy:
Yeah, he had some issues with the reputation of the theater.
Heather:
Yeah, yeah. I love that story. It’s so perfect.
Cassidy:
I know. It’s amazing to me. Shakespeare is definitely someone I would have loved to have been friends with.
Heather:
Yeah, yeah. Way off-topic here, but I want to have two final thoughts. And I guess the first is I would like for you to come give us an overview of what you think Shakespeare or how we can see love through his eyes? Because I am going to release this around Valentine’s Day, so the romantic sense there, and then I want you to plug your podcast.
Cassidy:
Okay. I think Shakespeare gives words to our deepest emotions of love. He enables us to say what you are normally only feeling which is a distinctly different action, right? To put words to something that you think is different than to give words to a feeling which is by its very nature not originating in the mind.
But to share love with someone, you have to be able to communicate it to them. And in a lot of instances, Shakespeare’s sonnets and his plays put down into words that we can use to say “Yes, this is how I feel,” or “This is what my emotion is. And I can express that out loud now.” I think that’s why Shakespeare is so good at helping us share love.
One of my favorite quotes is from Hamlet and I hate it, it’s so sad to me every time that I interact with this play. That Hamlet doesn’t actually say this to Ophelia, that it’s written in a letter and Polonius who for whatever reason, I just do not like for the entire play. But he reads it, but he says Hamlet says to Ophelia:
“Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.”
I think I love that because it just “Yes, exactly!” Thank you, Hamlet. There are all these things in life that are questions and you don’t know how it’s gonna go. And you don’t know if what you think you know is real. But you can know love from one person to another.
Heather:
That’s a good quote that people can put on a Valentine’s Day card.
Cassidy:
Is it not?! It looks beautiful on a Valentine’s Day card, it really does. Shakespeare gives us a lot of these. This is really great on a card. But yeah, so I think that’s one of the reasons. Anyway, I hope I answered your question.
Heather:
No, you did. So then where can people learn more about you? And do you have any kind of podcasts coming up?
Cassidy:
I do. I am launching my podcast called That Shakespeare Life on April 23, 2018. We will be celebrating Shakespeare’s birthday by launching a podcast all about his life. And so you can find out more about that at Cassidycash.com. That’s my website there. I’ve got YouTube videos and we’re planning a trip to Stratford for 2019. So all kinds of great things to find out about over there.
Heather:
Alright, so Cassidycash.com you said, right?
Cassidy:
That’s right. It’s just like my name Cassidycash.com. If you want to see That Shakespeare Life, it’s /ThatShakespeareLife, but it’s also all over the webpage. So there’s buttons and things to check that out. Right now, if you’re interested in the trip, you’ll have to email me because we’re not making that public yet. But it’s coming.
Heather:
Okay, cool. Good stuff. And I’ll just now thank you for coming on to this show and telling us more about Shakespeare.
Cassidy:
Thank you so much for having me. I’ve enjoyed being here.
Heather:
Thanks to Cassidy Cash for being here and talking to us about Shakespeare and love on this Valentine’s Day. Remember, you can learn more about her at Cassidycash.com.
I just want to take a second to thank you, my wonderful listeners for listening and give you some love and also to share that I am in my 40’s and I was single for a super long time. And I have been on every area conceivable on Valentine’s Day spectrum thinking it’s totally awesome, thinking it’s horrible and the worst thing in the world.
Actually, when I lived in London, I was about 25 I guess, 24, 25? There was one Valentine’s day where I did not have a boyfriend, and it was raining, and I didn’t have an umbrella, and I was walking down Oxford Street looking at all these couples going out for dinner, and then a bus splashed me. It was just like the most perfect scene out of the movie of “Lonely Heather”.
So I want to leave you with a quote wherever you are in Valentine’s Day world. This is a Shakespeare quote and I think it’s important to sum up that it doesn’t matter if you have a love or not, the most important love and most important relationship you can have in your life is with yourself and your creativity, your spirituality, and your uniqueness, that is the you that will never exist again in this whole entire universe.
“Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting.”
So please do not neglect yourself today. Please do something awesome for yourself and celebrate how awesome you are. Because I think you’re awesome.
Okay, so you can learn more about the Renaissance English History Podcast at Englandcast.com. You can get in touch with the listener support line which is 801 6TEYSKO that’s a US number, 801 6TEYSKO you can tweet me @Teysko.
I will be back about a week and a half with Lepanto, and Elizabeth and the Ottoman Turks. So stay tuned for that. Have a wonderful, super awesome day, and I will talk to you soon. Thanks for listening! Bye, bye!
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, the original Tudor history podcast, started in 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. In 2019 she created Tudorcon, which is now a yearly event, in addition to writing books, and running TudorFair.com - a whimsical Tudor Merch shop.
She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 30 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history (how exciting when she got to interview Alison for the first time!). In addition to history, she is passionate about travel, and has lived in 3 countries and 4 states (not counting her perpetual state of confusion), and her family (who help her host her YouTube channel occasionally).
