Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Many of us have holiday traditions: we trim trees, spin dreidels, trick-or-treat, set off fireworks, and host parties. People had holiday traditions in Shakespeare’s time too: they crossdressed, roleplayed, acted in amateur theatricals, fought, ate pancakes, and watched cockfights. If you’re thinking some of those holiday traditions sound familiar from Shakespeare’s plays… well, you’re right. Dr. Erika T. Lin studies holidays in early modern England. Some of them, like Christmas and Easter, are still big dates on today’s calendars, while others, like Martlemas, Shrovetide, Midsummer, or The May, are less familiar. Lin talks with Barbara Bogaev about how people celebrated and how they might have felt about Shakespeare’s plays in a period when the line between holiday festivity and theater wasn’t quite so clear. Dr. Erika T. Lin is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance at CUNY Graduate Center in New York. You can find her writing on Elizabethan festivals and holidays in a couple of places. Her art