Shakespeare’s Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England - John Julius Norwich Audiobook

Written by John Julius Norwich
Read by John Curran
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Shakespeare’s Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages: 1337-1485

Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins
Release date: 02-11-14
Publisher: Audible Studios

This history of Shakespeare’s Plantagenet kings contrasts the way the Bard told the stories with the way historians believe they actually happened.

In a sparkling, fast-paced narrative, esteemed historian John Julius Norwich chronicles the turbulent events of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England that inspired Shakespeare’s history plays. It was a time of uncertainty and incessant warfare, a time during which the crown was constantly contested, alliances were made and broken, and peasants and townsmen alike arose in revolt. This was the raw material of Shakespeare’s dramas, and Norwich holds up his work to the light of history to ask: Who was the real Falstaff? How accurate a historian was the playwright? Shakespeare’s Kings is a marvelous study of the Bard’s method of spinning history into art, and a captivating portrait of the Middle Ages.

A review—For the most part Norwich sticks to his area of expertise and concentrates on evaluating the plays for accuracy, at least as far as existing historical sources can take us (which is not always as far as we wish they would).

What makes the book especially worthwhile is that Norwich is very forgiving of dramatic license, and understands the value of compressing time or rearranging events for the sake of emotional or thematic impact on an audience. This spares the reader from a serious of tedious and useless diatribes about the plays’ failure to be historical accounts–which, of course, they were never intended to be.

Instead we get a very useful guide for identifying those places where Shakespeare *does* make changes, and some reasonable guesses as to why he would have made them. Norwich will often note that by sacrificing accuracy in smaller ways, Shakespeare captures larger truths, and does so in ways more effective for the stage.

This is not my rip. Thanks to the original uploader.