Part 3. Shakespeare’s Dark Lady
Emilia Bassano Lanier, the daughter of Venetian Jewish converso musicians, is now widely believed to be the most compelling candidate for Shakespeare’s Dark Lady – the mysterious woman alluded to in several of his sonnets. She was an accomplished poet in her own right. In this session we’ll look at her Jewish family roots, her life as a woman in Elizabethan England, and her writing, which was published in the Jacobean period. We’ll explore parallels between her poetry and Shakespeare’s to think about the influence she may have had on him, and he on her.