Writing About the Plague in Shakespeares England
b'Between 1348 and the early years of the 18th century, successive waves of the plague rolled across Europe, killing millions of people and affecting every aspect of life. Despite the plague\\u2019s enormous toll on early modern English life, Shakespeare\\u2019s plays refer to it only tangentially. Why is that? And what did people write about the plague in early modern England?\\n\\nOver the past 20 years, Rebecca Totaro has been collecting contemporary writing about the plague. She has written five books about its cultural impact. We asked her to join us for a conversation about what Shakespeare\\u2019s contemporaries wrote about the plague\\u2014and why, just as often, they turned away from it. She is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev.\\n\\nDr. Rebecca Totaro is an associate dean and a professor of literature in the College of Arts & Sciences at Florida Gulf Coast University. She has written or edited five books: Meteorology and Physiology in Early Modern Culture; Representing the Plague in Early Modern England, which she wrote with Ernest B. Gilman; The Plague Epic in Early Modern England: Heroic Measures, 1603\\u20131721; The Plague in Print; and Suffering in Paradise: The Bubonic Plague in English Literary Studies from More to Milton.\\n\\nFrom the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published October 13, 2020. \\xa9 Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, \\u201c\\u2019Twas Pretty, Though a Plague,\\u201d was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California.'