The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Chronicles #3 ｜ Shakespeare with Academic Agent

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to this very special episode of Chronicles where we're going to be talking

00:00:19.240 all about the Bard himself, William Shakespeare. I'm joined by the artist formerly known as

00:00:25.120 Roland Ratt. Dr. Nima Parvini, thank you for joining me. Hi there, you all right? Yeah, really well, really well.

00:00:32.120 I've never been introduced as that before. Well, thank you. I'll take that. So Shakespeare, you're obviously an authority.

00:00:41.120 You've written five books, is it, on Shakespeare? Five books on Shakespeare and there's probably going to be a sixth coming out later this year.

00:00:49.120 Yeah, and I've just completed a course on Shakespeare, so it's relatively fresh in mind. It's been the first time I'd worked on Shakespeare since 2018 or something.

00:01:00.120 So, yeah, it's all there. Right, it's all fresh. Yeah, and I will just say as well that even though I say it to you, I have actually myself started Nima's Foundations of Shakespeare.

00:01:12.120 And it is thoroughly engaging. You tell it in a really compelling way. And this isn't the Lotus Eaters like tapping me on the shoulder. 0.95

00:01:19.120 This is just me as Lucas saying it's a wonderful course and I'd highly recommend it.

00:01:24.120 So, one of the things that I wanted to start with was let's just rip off the bandaid and get the irritating little normie question out the way.

00:01:35.120 Did he write the plays? Did he write all the plays? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, there was a couple at the start of his career that he collaborated on and a couple at the end of his career that he collaborated on.

00:01:48.120 But all the ones in the middle, all the famous ones that you'll have heard of. Yeah, he did. He wrote them all.

00:01:54.120 Exactly. And one of the things that you say is that it's because there are certain, you know, things that happen and references that happen in certain plays that it would have been impossible for him to know if he'd have died sooner.

00:02:09.120 Or they're so based upon the times in which he lived in that it has to have been. Yeah, there are certain contemporary allusions that he makes, for example, to the gunpowder plot in 1605.

00:02:21.120 You know, the Guy Fawkes one and various others that basically makes it impossible for it to be some of the people, you know, people say it's the Earl of Oxford, people say it's Marlow, people say it's Bacon and all this sort of nonsense.

00:02:36.120 The real question you have to ask is, why do people say that?

00:02:40.120 That is what I was going to ask you.

00:02:42.120 And I think the reason people say it is because it's Shakespeare, because he's like the one writer that everybody's heard of.

00:02:48.120 And so the standards of evidence are above and beyond what is expected for the time.

00:02:56.120 Paper was scarce in those days. It was a valuable resource. They reused it.

00:03:01.120 And so the documentary evidence is, I mean, it's not scant.

00:03:07.120 I mean, there's quite a lot of evidence, but it's, you know, not as full as somebody living, let's say, 100 or 200 years later, because they did reuse paper.

00:03:17.120 But because it's Shakespeare, there's all sorts of conspiracy theories around whether he's really, really him.

00:03:25.120 There is not a Christopher Marlowe conspiracy that Christopher Marlowe didn't really write his own plays or a Ben Johnson one or a John Dunn one or a Francis Bacon one or a Philip Sidney one.

00:03:41.120 Why? Because nobody, because nobody cares.

00:03:45.120 Whereas, you know, if you make it about Shakespeare, well, it's a it's a big story.

00:03:51.120 So I actually once upon a time interviewed the head of the Oxford Association who pushed this idea that Shakespeare wasn't really Shakespeare.

00:04:01.120 And frankly, a lot of the arguments are based on snobbery that, you know, he wasn't university educated.

00:04:09.120 How could this guy from a rural town, Stratford, how could he write these plays?

00:04:15.120 One of the arguments he put forward is, well, how has he got knowledge of Milan in the Tempest when he's never been there?

00:04:22.120 Well, I mean, guess what? He could read books.

00:04:26.120 And the fact is, is that Shakespeare got loads of stuff, gets loads of stuff wrong all the time.

00:04:32.120 Historical details, geographic details, because he's working from sources a lot of the time.

00:04:39.120 One of the things I stress is having a knowledge of those sources can then, if you know where he's working from, you can see what he changes.

00:04:52.120 You can see what he's taking. You can see what's new and novel, where his innovations are.

00:04:58.120 And he did make many, probably the greatest innovations in English literary history.

00:05:05.120 But it's still worth knowing what exactly he was doing.

00:05:11.120 So, yeah, I mean, there's just nothing to it, really.

00:05:15.120 We actually have quite, we've got his will.

00:05:18.120 He was a joint stockholder in the company.

00:05:21.120 He made a lot of investments.

00:05:24.120 He made a lot of money.

00:05:25.120 He was, unusually for the time, a star playwright, who had a guaranteed, so the model, how it used to work before Shakespeare's company, was much like Hollywood, where you'd get writers trying to kind of pitch for their script around different playing troops.

00:05:50.120 So someone like Christopher Marlowe, he didn't have a set company.

00:05:53.120 He went from company to company saying, I've written this good play.

00:05:57.120 Do you want to put it on in exchange for some sort of fee?

00:05:59.120 Shakespeare was different because he was attached to a company that he was a part owner in.

00:06:05.120 So in a way, he had a guaranteed, like he had like a house company.

00:06:11.120 So he knew when he wrote Hamlet, for example, when he wrote Macbeth, that, oh, it was going to be done by these actors.

00:06:18.120 It was going to be put on in these places.

00:06:20.120 One of the other great innovations of Shakespeare's company is that they built their own theatre, The Globe.

00:06:27.120 I was about to say it's still there today.

00:06:29.120 That was built in 1997, but a bit down a long time ago after it was shut down by Puritans back in the 1640s.

00:06:38.120 Sure.

00:06:39.120 But yeah, so they actually revolutionized the business model in Elizabethan London.

00:06:48.120 They actually changed the way that people went to the theatre.

00:06:54.120 So it was a combination of having their own company and then they put on their shows at The Globe and a few other places.

00:07:03.120 And they also did private performances.

00:07:06.120 Anybody could hire the company and some of the performances or some of the scripts that we have are from private house performances.

00:07:16.120 You know, if you imagine if you're a noble who had a big estate somewhere, you had the space, you could hire Shakespeare's company and he put on, he put something on.

00:07:28.120 All of this is to say, though, he was pretty famous.

00:07:31.120 It wasn't like Shakespeare was some unknown in his own time and place.

00:07:35.120 He was a star playwright.

00:07:37.120 He was known to the Queen and later to King James, who took a great interest and became Shakespeare's patron.

00:07:45.120 So it's like, well, what?

00:07:49.120 All of these people, all these hundreds of people are going to engage in a conspiracy to make up this guy, William Shakespeare.

00:07:58.120 What for? 1.00

00:07:59.120 It's stupid. 1.00

00:08:00.120 Actually, what for? 1.00

00:08:01.120 I mean, you could say, well, yeah, maybe they didn't want, maybe some noble didn't want their name attached to, you know, the work.

00:08:10.120 But then there are nobles in the time who wrote poetry, published poetry.

00:08:16.120 It's not like it's not like some great shame.

00:08:20.120 So, yeah, I don't.

00:08:23.120 There's just nothing to it, really.

00:08:25.120 That's all.

00:08:26.120 They all engaged in this grand conspiracy so that 400 years later in each group of academics could be needless contrarians.

00:08:32.120 Yeah, I don't.

00:08:33.120 I don't.

00:08:34.120 I really don't know where this.

00:08:35.120 I think it's kind of popular in America to go down these lines.

00:08:38.120 Right.

00:08:39.120 Honestly, though, there's a bigger question for us to ask as patriots, as people who are interested in the history of this country.

00:08:48.120 Why would you want the greatest writer in the nation's history and arguably in world history?

00:08:55.120 Why are they trying to pull him down?

00:08:57.120 Why are you trying to?

00:08:58.120 I mean, you know, all that stuff about, you know, wokes to say, well, really, it's a black woman and all this sort of stuff.

00:09:03.120 I mean, it's like, well, why are you trying to take away from the mythos of the greatest writer?

00:09:12.120 Yes.

00:09:13.120 Another thing.

00:09:15.120 I won't go on about this too much.

00:09:17.120 Another thing is that Shakespeare grew up in a household as a glover.

00:09:23.120 His father was a glover and he grew up in a rural town.

00:09:27.120 And, you know, scholars really looked at this very closely.

00:09:32.120 And there are, he has knowledge of agricultural procedures, herbal remedies, you know, details of tailoring and things like this.

00:09:46.120 That you should go, well, how would, let's just pretend it was some nobleman.

00:09:50.120 How would he know those things?

00:09:53.120 Another thing which we were talking about earlier on is that, I mean, and this is a little bit more contentious, but, you know, my first book was on the history plays.

00:10:03.120 And there's a very noticeable, let's just say like local bias in certain characters.

00:10:11.120 One of the people that Shakespeare gives quite a kind treatment to in the Henry VI plays is Warwick, the kingmaker, Richard Neville.

00:10:20.120 Yes.

00:10:21.120 You know, who was of Warwick Castle and fate.

00:10:25.120 I mean, if anybody...

00:10:26.120 Daughter Anne Neville who married Richard III.

00:10:28.120 Yes.

00:10:29.120 That figure, who was obviously instrumental in the War of the Roses and who famously switched sides.

00:10:36.120 He put Edward IV on the throne and then he put Henry VI back on the throne for a second time.

00:10:43.120 These things actually happened.

00:10:45.120 Now, anybody who studied that period in school, I mean, he's not generally taught to us as a kind of a heroic figure or...

00:10:55.120 Whereas in Shakespeare, somehow he's like, oh, well, this is the one...

00:10:59.120 He's kind of one of the good guys.

00:11:01.120 He cares about the Commonwealth. 0.92

00:11:03.120 And you think, well, why is he kind of sucking up to...

00:11:06.120 And then you figure out, well, if you grew up in Stratford, the local law would have been from Warwick. 0.54

00:11:12.120 It's in Warwickshire.

00:11:14.120 And so all of these things point towards it being the man from Stratford.

00:11:22.120 Yes, yes.

00:11:23.120 Let's dive into the history plays a little bit then, because they are essentially a Tudor propaganda.

00:11:30.120 Are they not?

00:11:31.120 In the sense that, as we were saying earlier when we...

00:11:35.120 Before we went on, that really it's interesting that they begin with Richard II and end with Richard III,

00:11:41.120 but they don't then go on to Henry VII.

00:11:44.120 And obviously there is a Henry VIII play, but it was written after Elizabeth's death and is not a serious history play.

00:11:51.120 Well, I would say that it's a little bit more complicated than simply saying it's Tudor propaganda.

00:11:57.120 So Shakespeare, one thing we do know about, he's a shrewd businessman and he had to navigate political censorship.

00:12:06.120 And he had to navigate, had to stay on the good side of the Queen and later the King,

00:12:11.120 especially when James I was his direct patron, but also Elizabeth I went to see his plays and took an interest.

00:12:19.120 And there was a...

00:12:23.120 You know, you could be censored.

00:12:25.120 Ben Johnson, one of his contemporaries, was actually jailed at one time for a play that was called Eastwood Ho.

00:12:34.120 The guys who wrote that were put in jail for anti-Scottish propaganda by James I.

00:12:41.120 Oh, right.

00:12:42.120 When he became the King, they were like, are you having a go at me?

00:12:45.120 So you've got to remember that this was an absolute...

00:12:48.120 They were tending towards an absolute monarchy.

00:12:50.120 Of course.

00:12:51.120 So Shakespeare always had to be super careful in staying on the right side of the authorities.

00:12:57.120 And we can talk more about that as regards to history plays in a second, because there's more to it.

00:13:06.120 So the Tudors wanted to tell this story that when Henry VII defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth and then married Elizabeth of York,

00:13:23.120 he providentially healed the nation by uniting the houses of Lancaster and York, and that basically he was sent by God.

00:13:32.120 He was like a superhero, right?

00:13:34.120 The nation had been torn apart by civil war, and this is unacceptable to God.

00:13:40.120 And so God sends Henry Tudor, okay?

00:13:45.120 And of course, if you know anything about Henry VII, he had a particularly weak claim to the throne.

00:13:50.120 So he needed a political formula to legitimate his rule.

00:13:57.120 Yes.

00:13:58.120 Then as the Tudors go on, of course, Henry VIII, particularly strong on divine right, especially after the split with the Catholic Church.

00:14:09.120 And so there was a sense in which the Tudors had an official state ideology.

00:14:17.120 And Shakespeare, much like today, if your writer was kind of trying to keep on the right side of the British government,

00:14:24.120 maybe they throw a bit of diversity nonsense in there or whatever.

00:14:28.120 In the same way, he had to tick a few boxes when he was telling that history.

00:14:33.120 But there is another way of looking at it, which is many, many critics have made this argument, including me in my first book.

00:14:42.120 Maybe I've changed my mind a bit since, but then I did write it 12 years ago now.

00:14:47.120 But one of the arguments people make is like, well, Shakespeare wanted to uphold the notion of divine right as opposed to a Machiavellian realpolitik view of history.

00:15:02.120 I.e., it's men.

00:15:05.120 It's not God running things.

00:15:07.120 Who's got the bigger army?

00:15:09.120 Who's better at the ABCs of power?

00:15:11.120 Who is more Machiavellian?

00:15:13.120 Because the Prince was kind of an underground, salacious.

00:15:17.120 Nobody admitted to having it, but everybody secretly was reading it.

00:15:22.120 Of course.

00:15:23.120 Maybe much like today, where nobody admits to watching Lotus Eaters, for example, but everybody is watching it, as an example.

00:15:32.120 Sure.

00:15:33.120 So in much the same way, everybody was kind of into Machiavelli.

00:15:38.120 So there's an argument to say, well, hold on a second, if Shakespeare really wanted to make this case, why did he pick this unhappy period of British history where we got, let's face it, tons of really bad kings?

00:15:55.120 I mean, Richard II, right?

00:15:57.120 If you take the providential view of history, Bolingbroke, by usurping Richard II, caused the rift.

00:16:07.120 It was his crime against God that caused the War of the Roses.

00:16:12.120 He kind of makes an original sin.

00:16:14.120 Yeah, exactly.

00:16:15.120 It trades England. 0.95

00:16:16.120 Exactly.

00:16:17.120 Okay.

00:16:18.120 And that is there in the plays.

00:16:19.120 But don't get me wrong.

00:16:20.120 He is wracked with guilt.

00:16:22.120 There are speeches.

00:16:23.120 The Bishop of Carlisle says, look, if you go down this course, you're going to cause a civil war, et cetera, et cetera.

00:16:29.120 And he does have John of Gaunt's famous The Septed Isle speech, fantastic speeches. 0.98

00:16:35.120 But Richard II, putting it mildly, is a dickhead. 0.99

00:16:43.120 He is a terrible king. 1.00

00:16:45.120 Yeah. 1.00

00:16:46.120 Shakespeare depicts him as haughty, arrogant, selfish, rude, effete, tyrannical, arbitrary, just a bad king. 0.57

00:16:57.120 And an air of invincibility about him, that this divine right will protect him from all. 0.61

00:17:02.120 Yeah.

00:17:03.120 And he's completely convinced in divine right.

00:17:05.120 And what happens in that play is that he banishes Bolingbroke, the future Henry IV, who then turns up with a massive army and says, about that banishment, about you taking away my dad's lands.

00:17:21.120 Because while Bolingbroke's away, Richard II strips John of Gaunt's lands.

00:17:28.120 Okay.

00:17:29.120 And then Bolingbroke's like, well, hold on a second.

00:17:31.120 That's my inheritance.

00:17:32.120 Mm-hmm.

00:17:33.120 We didn't say anything about you taking my titles from me.

00:17:35.120 And this is tyranny.

00:17:36.120 Yes.

00:17:37.120 Anybody who's played Crusader Kings II knows that if you do that in Crusader Kings, you're going to have a rebellion.

00:17:42.120 Okay.

00:17:43.120 Richard II does it.

00:17:44.120 He just doesn't care.

00:17:45.120 In jail, banished.

00:17:46.120 I'm going to take your lands for the taxes. 0.99

00:17:51.120 So when Bolingbroke turns back up with a massive army, Richard II has nothing.

00:17:56.120 And in fact, they did a BBC version starring that guy, Ben Whishaw.

00:18:04.120 Oh, yes.

00:18:05.120 Who was in the Bond films.

00:18:07.120 Right.

00:18:08.120 Is it Q? 0.69

00:18:09.120 Yeah.

00:18:10.120 Yeah.

00:18:11.120 As the tech guy.

00:18:12.120 That actor.

00:18:13.120 Well, anyway, in the recent Hollow Crown, it's played by him.

00:18:18.120 And they depict this scene very well because Richard, in that film version, appears in a golden

00:18:25.120 armor.

00:18:26.120 Okay?

00:18:27.120 Golden armor.

00:18:28.120 And in the speech, he says, listen, if you so much as raise a sword against me, for every man you've got there, a thousand angels will come to my core.

00:18:39.120 The trouble is, everybody knows that's bollocks.

00:18:44.120 Right?

00:18:45.120 Right.

00:18:46.120 Now, what happens is that he's forced to back down.

00:18:49.120 Richard is forced to U-turn and then has an almighty tantrum and says, right, so my divine right's been broken.

00:18:58.120 I'm going to abdicate.

00:19:00.120 He basically is like, there's no point in me being king anymore.

00:19:04.120 If I'm just going to U-turn, you know, that's it now.

00:19:07.120 Yes.

00:19:08.120 And that's how Henry becomes, that's how Bolingbroke becomes Henry IV.

00:19:13.120 Now, Henry IV admittedly does immediately have Richard arrested and then probably killed.

00:19:19.120 Right.

00:19:20.120 Not waxed.

00:19:21.120 Which is not, you know, to be expected.

00:19:23.120 But it's an interesting thing because in the play, Richard II, Richard then is a really tragic character because he's had to abdicate the throne.

00:19:35.120 Now, Bolingbroke, the usurper, is on the throne.

00:19:40.120 And Shakespeare gives him these scenes where he's just saying like, okay, I don't have my crown anymore.

00:19:45.120 I don't have any friends anymore.

00:19:46.120 Like, what am I?

00:19:47.120 Am I still a king?

00:19:49.120 What does this mean?

00:19:50.120 I mean, he goes through a real existential crisis.

00:19:53.120 But basically, the divine right is broken by pure Machiavellian might.

00:19:58.120 Yes.

00:19:59.120 Now, what's interesting is that Bolingbroke is more popular with the people.

00:20:04.120 He's a better military leader.

00:20:07.120 He's got a common, so he's just better in all ways than Richard II.

00:20:11.120 So by meritocracy, by Machiavellian right, it's pretty obvious that Henry is just the better king.

00:20:19.120 Now, because Shakespeare is a really clever writer, it's not obvious where he stands on this issue because he gives you enough to make both arguments.

00:20:30.120 If you want to take this view that it's Tudor propaganda, it's all there.

00:20:34.120 But if you want to take this view that actually Shakespeare is subtly poking holes at this, it's all there too.

00:20:42.120 And when we were talking about Elizabeth II, there's a direct relevance because during Elizabeth II's reign, she didn't have any children.

00:20:51.120 The first, sorry.

00:20:52.120 Sorry.

00:20:53.120 Not Elizabeth II.

00:20:54.120 Sorry.

00:20:55.120 No, no.

00:20:56.120 Elizabeth I.

00:20:57.120 Elizabeth II did have children.

00:20:59.120 During Elizabeth I's reign, she didn't have any children.

00:21:01.120 Of course.

00:21:02.120 Okay.

00:21:03.120 Richard II didn't have any children.

00:21:05.120 Mm-hmm.

00:21:06.120 Mm-hmm.

00:21:07.120 Mm-hmm.

00:21:08.120 So there was a question of succession, the country being in crisis after.

00:21:12.120 Yes.

00:21:13.120 And there was a rebellion against Elizabeth I by a chap called Essex.

00:21:20.120 It was called Essex's Rebellion.

00:21:23.120 And on the eve of the rebellion, Essex paid Shakespeare's company some of money to come and perform Richard II in front of all of the men.

00:21:37.120 Mm-hmm.

00:21:38.120 Okay.

00:21:39.120 Now, to G them up.

00:21:42.120 Elizabeth II then, Elizabeth I, I keep on saying that. 0.82

00:21:47.120 Elizabeth I, then the rebellion failed.

00:21:50.120 Mm-hmm.

00:21:51.120 She had Essex, she had Essex arrested and the, you know.

00:21:57.120 All put down.

00:21:58.120 The rebels executed.

00:21:59.120 Yes.

00:22:00.120 But on the eve of the executions, she hired Shakespeare's company to put Richard II on again.

00:22:07.120 And she famously said, I am Richard II, know ye not that.

00:22:13.120 So she knew that people were going to watch that play as a contemporary analogy to her.

00:22:20.120 Mm-hmm.

00:22:21.120 One thing I've never been aware, kind of never quite figured out is how Shakespeare and his company didn't get into trouble for being hired.

00:22:30.120 Yeah.

00:22:31.120 Like, they got a double payday out of that.

00:22:33.120 Mm-hmm.

00:22:34.120 I don't know how that worked.

00:22:36.120 But it goes to show you the deftness of Shakespeare.

00:22:40.120 Because you can watch Richard II and be like, yeah, this guy deserved to be overthrown.

00:22:45.120 Mm-hmm.

00:22:46.120 You can also watch Richard II and take the Tudor line, the divine right line.

00:22:51.120 And it's just not clear.

00:22:53.120 Both readings are available.

00:22:55.120 Yes.

00:22:56.120 And this actually goes to the heart of what makes Shakespeare a special writer.

00:23:01.120 Mm-hmm.

00:23:02.120 If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from The Lotus Eaters, head to our website where you can find more.

00:23:07.120 Auctioned.

00:23:08.120 Knowing the

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - June 28, 2025

PREVIEW： Chronicles #3 ｜ Shakespeare with Academic Agent

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