My dear and brilliant friend Robin Lithgow has written a fascinating, well-researched book about Elizabethan education systems titled Good Behavior and Audacity. In it, she writes about coming across Colloquia Familiaria by Erasmus, short scripts written 40 years before Shakespeare was born.  She writes, “To me it is glaringly obvious that, as a boy, Will Shakespeare performed [Erasmus’ colloquias] at school. Characters, circumstances, even specific images and lines show up all over his early comedies…[and] whip-smart women that Erasmus created! Shakespeare is noted for his luminous and opinionated women…Hello!? Erasmus’ women were doing that long before Shakespeare!” 

So in an informal salon setting, I read one of these whip-smart women in an Erasmus colloquy with John Lithgow titled “Abattis & Eruditas”.  

Enjoy!  And for more, sign up for Robin’s blog here and get her book!

In another informal setting, here’s a cold reading of another Erasmus colloquy, “Courtship”, that I read with Dove Rudnick.  

You can see the inspiration Shakespeare must have gleaned from these delicious, verbal sparrings between the sexes!