The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606

Preeminent Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro shows how the tumultuous events in 1606 influenced three of Shakespeareâ€™s greatest tragedies written that yearâ€”King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. â€œThe Year of Lear is irresistibleâ€”a banquet of wisdomâ€ (The New York Times Book Review).

In the years leading up to 1606, Shakespeareâ€™s great productivity had ebbed. But that year, at age forty-two, he found his footing again, finishing a play he had begun the previous autumnâ€”King Learâ€”then writing two other great tragedies, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra.

It was a memorable year in England as wellâ€”a terrorist plot conceived by a small group of Catholic gentry had been uncovered at the last hour. The foiled Gunpowder Plot would have blown up the king and royal family along with the nationâ€™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.

â€œExciting and sometimes revelatory, in The Year of Lear, James Shapiro takes a closer look at the political and social turmoil that contributed to the creation of three supreme masterpiecesâ€ (The Washington Post). He places 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. â€œHis great gift is to make the plays seem at once more comprehensible and more staggeringâ€ (The New York Review of Books). For anyone interested in Shakespeare, this is an indispensable book.
Country USA
Brand Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer Simon & Schuster
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber 9781416541653
ReleaseDate 2016-10-18
UnitCount 1
Format Illustrated
EANs 9781416541653

Country	USA
Brand	Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer	Simon & Schuster
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	9781416541653
ReleaseDate	2016-10-18
UnitCount	1
Format	Illustrated
EANs	9781416541653

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606

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