Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language.

This is episode 170, printers, plague, and poets.

In this episode, we're going to take a look at the connection between poetry and plague

in the early 1590s.

We'll see how a widespread outbreak of the recurring sickness led to Shakespeare's early

career as a poet, and that poetry likely included his many sonnets.

We'll also examine how an old acquaintance from Shakespeare's hometown emerged as one

of the leading printers in London, and we'll see how modern spelling was forged in those

printing shops during the Elizabethan period.

But before we begin, let me remind you that the website for the podcast is historyofenglishpodcast.com,

and you can sign up to support the podcast and get bonus episodes at patreon.com slash

history of English.

Now last time, we looked at these surviving evidence to determine what's actually known

about the life of William Shakespeare.

But prior to that episode, we got our first glimpse of a Shakespeare play being performed

on the stages of London.

The performance of that play was documented by the owner of the Rose Theatre named Philip

Henslow.

Henslow's surviving diary records the performance of a play called Harry the Sixth on March

3rd, 1592.

That entry was almost certainly a reference to the play we know today as Henry the Sixth

Part I.

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