What disease was around when Shakespeare was alive?
Abigail Rogers
Updated on February 25, 2026
During the 16th century, a young couple in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, lost two of their children to the bubonic plague. The pair barricaded themselves inside to protect their 3-month-old son — William Shakespeare. The legendary playwright’s life was shaped by the plague.
What did Shakespeare do during the plague?
During a previous terrible plague outbreak in June 1592, when the theatres were closed for nearly six months, Shakespeare turned to poetry: his long narrative poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece were both composed during this time, perhaps because their young author was desperate for a more reliable source …
Why is tuberculosis called the White Plague?
In the 1700s, TB was called “the white plague” due to the paleness of the patients. TB was commonly called “consumption” in the 1800s even after Schonlein named it tuberculosis. During this time, TB was also called the “Captain of all these men of death.”
Was the plague around in Shakespeare’s time?
It is little surprise that the plague was the most dreaded disease of Shakespeare’s time. Carried by fleas living on the fur of rats, the plague swept through London in 1563, 1578-9, 1582, 1592-3, and 1603 (Singman, 52). Shakespeare mentions plague in several plays, including The Tempest (1.2.
What disease wiped out much of the population of the time of Shakespeare?
Shakespeare lived his life in plague-time. He was born in April 1564, a few months before an outbreak of bubonic plague swept across England and killed a quarter of the people in his hometown. Death by plague was excruciating to suffer and ghastly to see.
Did Shakespeare write his sonnets during the plague?
The Bard churned out ‘King Lear,’ ‘Macbeth’ and ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ as London reeled from the foiled Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and an outbreak of the bubonic plague the following year.
What was the plague in Elizabethan times?
1592–1593 London plague
| Map of London in 1576 | |
|---|---|
| Date | August 1592 – December 1593, with cases until 1595 |
| Type | Outbreak part of the ongoing second plague pandemic since the 14th century |
| Cause | Yersinia pestis |
| Deaths | 19,900+ |
What disease was in the Elizabethan era?
Elizabethans faced the deadly and frightening threat of bubonic plague, or the Black Death, as it was popularly known.
What was the deadliest virus during Shakespeare’s time?
Plague laid waste to England and especially to the capital repeatedly during Shakespeare’s professional life — in 1592, again in 1603, and in 1606 and 1609. Whenever deaths from the disease exceeded thirty per week, the London authorities closed the playhouses.
What was the nastiest disease in Shakespeare’s play London?
Shakespeare’s overcrowded, rat-infested, sexually promiscuous London, with raw sewage flowing in the Thames, was the hub for the nastiest diseases known to mankind. Here are the worst of the worst. 1. Plague
Why is tuberculosis called the romantic disease?
Tuberculosis, known variously as consumption, phthisis, and the great white plague, was long thought to be associated with poetic and artistic qualities in its sufferers, and was also known as “the romantic disease”.
What is an example of a novel about tuberculosis?
Many other novels have tuberculosis as a major plot element. For example, The Constant Gardener by John le Carré, and its movie adaptation directed by Fernando Meirelles, tells the tale of the testing of anti-tuberculosis drugs on unwitting subjects in Africa.
What are the symptoms of tuberculosis (TB) disease?
Other symptoms of TB disease are. weakness or fatigue. weight loss. no appetite. chills. fever. sweating at night.
