Episode 14: Shakespeare's Borrowed Feathers with Darren Freebury-Jones

Was Shakespeare an original genius—or an expert remixer?

In this episode of The Shakespop Podcast, I’m joined by Darren Freebury-Jones to talk about his book Shakespeare’s Borrowed Feathers, which challenges the myth of Shakespeare as a solitary, self-generating author. Instead, we explore Shakespeare as a writer shaped by influence, imitation, and creative borrowing—working inside a competitive early modern literary marketplace.

Drawing on attribution studies, close reading, and literary history, Darren shows how Shakespeare absorbed and transformed the language of his contemporaries, particularly Marlowe, in ways that feel strikingly modern. This conversation reframes Shakespeare not as an untouchable monument, but as part of a shared cultural ecosystem—closer to sampling, remix culture, and collaborative authorship than we might expect.

We also talk about why the lone-genius myth persists, what we lose by clinging to it, and how letting it go opens up new, more inclusive ways of thinking about authorship, creativity, and popular culture—then and now.