Shakespeare finds a patron

... and rivals ... and royal support

Here are the remaining 3 videos from the first module of SHAKESPEARE AND HIS WORLD. We begin with the moment when, the theatres closed because of plague, he turns to poetry and finds a patron in Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton. Then we turn to the rivalry among the playwrights of the early 1590s - the first firm reference to Shakespeare in the theatre world comes when he is insulted by Robert Greene, who in his Groatsworth of Wit called him an Upstart Crow who thinks himself “the only Shake-scene in a country.”