The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 - James Shapiro Audiobook

Written by James Shapiro
Read by Robert Fass
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc. Edition: Unabridged
Awards: Audie Award Nominee
Release date: January 26, 2016
Duration: 11:06:55

In the years leading up to 1606, Shakespeare’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 autumn—King Lear—then writing two other great tragedies, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatr

In this compelling book, 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.

He starts by acknowledging that writers, including Shapiro himself, have traditionally treated Shakespeare as an Elizabethan playwright instead of a Jacobean one, though some of his greatest plays are from the latter era. Shapiro goes on to trace the Shakespearean implications of a year that included the trial (and execution) of Guy Fawkes for the Gunpowder Plot, plague, European royals visiting England, and family drama. It’s an inherently fraught task—“I’m painfully aware that many of the things I’d like to know about him… cannot be recovered”—but Shapiro convincingly demonstrates how closely contemporary events are reflected in the plays.

The parties in Antony and Cleopatra that leave Pompey drunk “have no source in Plutarch,” so the reports of such events during the visit of Danish King Christian seem a likelier source. The other tragedies explored here—Macbeth and, of course, the titular King Lear—show similar contemporary influences on both plot and theme. Shapiro is as compelling when documenting historical events as when analyzing Shakespeare’s text, and his sizable bibliographic essay provides ample fodder for readers wanting to dive deeper into his research.

Deep religious schisms, the threat of terrorist revolution, a return of a deadly pandemic. Today’s headlines? No, it’s 1606. With a voice of gentle authority and a good command of historic detail and literary deconstruction, Audie-winning narrator Robert Fass takes the listener on a fascinating tour of a pivotal time in William Shakespeare’s life and career. …. The American-accented Fass leaves aside classic theatrical rhythms and delivers the many passages of the Bard with a conversational clarity that is much appreciated. Whether he’s discussing Scottish independence, Guy Fawkes, or the Black Plague, Shapiro’s descriptions of Shakespeare’s times always sound so distant and so familiar all at once. B.P. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine