Morgan Lloyd Malcolm
William Shakespeare. Kit Marlowe. Emilia Bassano?
In 1611 Emilia Bassano penned these words to her ‘Vertuous Reader’, as part of a volume of radical, feminist and subversive poetry. It was also the first published collection of poetry written by a woman in England.
The little we know of Emilia Bassano is restricted to the possibility that she may have been the “Dark Lady” of Shakespeare’s Sonnets – and the rest of Her Story has been erased by History. In this witty and lively play for an all-femme cast commissioned specifically for Shakespeare’s Globe, this play reveals the life of Emilia: poet, mother and feminist. This time, the focus will be on this exceptional woman who managed to outlive all the men the history books tethered her to.
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