Welcome to the History of English

English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language. This is episode 178.

Much ado about Hamlet. As that title indicates we'll be exploring a few more Shakespeare plays in this episode

as we start to dig into the first few years of the 1600s.

Specifically, we'll look at a group of plays that are generally dated to the years 1600 to 1601.

As we've seen it's a little difficult to date some of these plays, but what's fascinating

about these works is how many of the passages linger in the English

language to this day.

We use words and phrases and idioms from these plays all the time without even realizing

it.

And in fact, Hamlet has contributed more common idioms and phrases

to the English language than any other play that Shakespeare wrote. Almost every scene gives us an

expression or line that we hear all the time. So this time I'll

take you through those plays as we trace out other important developments that took

place in the first couple of years of the 1600s.

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.com

slash History of English. Now last time in our chronological look at the

history of English we finally wrapped up our look at the 1500s.

The Globe Theater had opened in the spring of 1599, and we looked at a couple of Shakespeare's

plays that were likely performed for the first time in the weeks that followed that grand opening.

Those plays were Henry the 5th and Julius Caesar.

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