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1606: Shakespeare and the Year of Lear

James Shapiro

1

award won

8

score

#758 of 3,809 books · #316 in Biography & Memoir

Won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography (2015).

An intimate portrait of one of Shakespeare's most inspired moments: the year of King Lear, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. 1606, while a very good year for Shakespeare, is a fraught one for England. Plague returns. There is surprising resistance to the new king's desire to turn England and Scotland into a united Britain. And fear and uncertainty sweep the land and expose deep divisions in the aftermath of the failed terrorist attack that came to be known as the Gunpowder Plot. James Shapiro deftly demonstrates how these extraordinary plays responded to the tumultuous events of this year, events that in unexpected ways touched upon Shakespeare's own life.

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Topics
Shakespeare's life and worksGunpowder Plot and Jacobean EnglandWriting of King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra

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