May 4, 2020
During the life of William
Shakespeare, plain water was often unclean and filtration, while
available, was rudimentary at best. It was not safe to drink the
water of the Thames river, and in order to compensate for a general
lack of fresh drinking water, the most popular beverage in
Elizabethan England even for regular meal times, was beer or ale.
Drunkenness was a common occurrence, as was the consistent
consumption of large amounts of alcohol. There are court records
showing the monarchs of England often celebrated festivals,
parties, and visiting dignitaries with the serving of excessive
amounts of alcohol, at times amounting to hundreds of barrels of
wine, beer, or ale. One of Shakespeare’s most enduring characters
is a drunken knight, and even Shakespeare’s own death is shrouded
in a mystery involving excess drink. With all of this drinking
going on in the life of William Shakespeare, what was the opinion
and response to drunkenness?
Our
guest this week, Rebecca Lemon, included an entire chapter on beer
and addiction to alcohol in her latest publication
titled Addiction and Devotion in Early Modern
England. Dr. Lemon
joins us today to explain some of the most common alcoholic
beverages, the state of alcoholism in the 16th century, and what
understanding these facts about the cultural relationship to
alcohol can tell us about Shakespeare’s characters whose
personalities were specifically inclusive of drunken behavior like
Falstaff and Prince Hal.