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

This is episode 177, dressed for success.

This time we're going to conclude our look at the 1500s.

As we take the story into a new century, we find ourselves nearing the end of the Elizabethan period.

But William Shakespeare was just starting to hit his stride.

In fact, we are entering into the period of his great tragedies.

We'll look at a couple of his plays he composed about successful military leaders,

specifically Henry the 5th of England and Julius Caesar.

A close look at those plays reveals that Elizabethan actors weren't really concerned about

historical accuracy when it came to costumes and clothing.

From the text of the place and from other information available to scholars, it's clear that

the characters often dressed like contemporary Elizabethans, even if the plays were set in ancient Rome or Greece.

So this time we'll also look at what writers of the period had to say about Elizabethan clothing, both costumes worn on the stage and regular

clothing worn on the streets.

We'll also examine the connection between clothing and language, and we'll see how clothing terms

were often appropriated to refer to certain types of speech.

But before we begin, let me remind you that the website for the podcast is History of English

podcast.com. And you can sign up to support the podcast and get bonus episodes at Patreon. Patreon.com.

History of English.

Also, I want to give a quick plug to a couple of projects that I think you might find

interesting.

Many years ago, I did an interview with a podcast called Silly Linguistics.

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