Name: The Year of Lear
Rating: 3.75 (4 reviews)
ISBN: 9781416541653

James Shapiro

"Shapiro shows how the tumultuous events in England in 1606 affected Shakespeare and influenced three of his greatest tragedies written that year: King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra"--

Shakespeare in 1606

The Year of Lear

Preeminent Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro shows how the tumultuous events in England in 1606 affected Shakespeare and shaped the three great tragedies he wrote that year—King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. In the years leading up to 1606, since the death of Queen Elizabeth and the arrival in England of her successor, King James of Scotland, Shakespeare’s great productivity had ebbed, and it may have seemed to some that his prolific genius was a thing of the past. But that year, at age forty-two, he found his footing again, finishing a play he had begun the previous autumn—King Lear—then writing two other great tragedies, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. It was a memorable year in England as well—and a grim one, in the aftermath of a terrorist plot conceived by a small group of Catholic gentry that had been uncovered at the last hour. The foiled Gunpowder Plot would have blown up the king and royal family along with the nation’s political and religious leadership. The aborted plot renewed anti-Catholic sentiment and laid bare divisions in the kingdom. It was against this background that Shakespeare finished Lear, a play about a divided kingdom, then wrote a tragedy that turned on the murder of a Scottish king, Macbeth. He ended this astonishing year with a third masterpiece no less steeped in current events and concerns: Antony and Cleopatra. The Year of Lear sheds light on these three great tragedies by placing them in the context of their times, while also allowing us greater insight into how Shakespeare was personally touched by such events as a terrible outbreak of plague and growing religious divisions. For anyone interested in Shakespeare, this is an indispensable book.

Greg Talbot

"Who's there?" Hamlet's opening questions references the anxieties of the power change from Queen Elizabeth to King James. Existential dread, ghosts of past authority, insanity oh Ophelia and mounting realities of war with foreign power are a reaction to the new authority. Although Shakespeare's work is ever-adaptable to the times, a testament to his genius as a writer and anonymity as a person, it's a reminder that his times played a foundational role. Three of his most celebrated, darkest and complex plays were produced in 1606 - King Lear, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. Shapiro documents the events that occurred in that year that gave themes and support to these plays. The failed gunpowder plot of 1605, the spreading of the plague and religious upheavel were all existential threats to the Jacobean court. Always retooling, Shapiro documents the original texts such as "King Leir" performed by the Queens Men or Jonson's masque "Hymenaei". Shakespeare's Lear was dramatically altered. Given a new subplot of Gloucester, Cordelia silenced,and Lear's madness heightened by the ever present fool following his heels. This is a read for getting into some of the deeper issues of these classic plays. If Shakespeare was already a byword for literary genius, then 1606 was the year he dived into deeper and still heavier works.

Keven Wang

I am not a Shakespearean scholar. I wanted to see what was the society like in 1606 when Shakespeare got the hot hand and wrote his best known plays.

I am not well read enough to fully comprehend the greatness of this book. Hence 4 starts

The Year of Lear Shakespeare in 1606

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