#NonFiction The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606

• Author:  J. Shapiro
  
• Title: The Year of Lear
  
• Published: 2015
  
• Genre:  non-fiction
  
• List of Challenges 2020
• Monthly plan

Introduction:

1. This book is about what Shakespeare (WS) wrote in and
2. around 1606 and what was taking place at that time.
3. It is a slice of a writer’s life.
4. WS’s emotional life in 1606 is lost to us.
5. But by looking at what he wrote in dialogue in these times (King Lear (1605),
6. Anthony and Cleopatra (1606), Macbeth (1605)
7. …we can begin to recover what he was thinking about.

What did I learn?

1. Shakespeare’s defining feature was his
2. overhauling of plots old plays then inventing his own.
3. Ch 1-7 were the most interesting  (50% of the book)
4. giving me new insights about “King Lear”.
5. The play turns on King Lear’s
6. ill-fated decision to divide his kingdoms.
7. Does the king go mad b/c foolishly divided his kingdoms or
8. b/c of his ruinous relationship with his daughters?

What did 1606 mean for Shakespeare?

1. The description of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up
2. the House of Lords was evidence
3. ..that resentments were bubbling up.
4. Shakespeare and other playwrights recognized
5. that something had changed in their world.

Conclusion:

1. Shakespeare struggled to find his footing in the early years of the 1605-1607.
2. No year’s output would be more extraordinary than that of 1606.
3. He finished this year—King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra.
4. They form a trilogy of sorts that
5. collectively reflect their fraught cultural moment.
6. An outburst of The Plague in July 1606
7. ..had a clear impact on WS and his plays.
8. In Macbeth the ringing of church bells
9. for the dead and dying is most striking:
10. “The dead man’s knell / Is there scarce asked for who;
11. and good men’s lives expire before the flowers in their caps…” (Act 4, scene 3)

Last thoughts:

1. I wanted to know more about Shakespeare’s plays
2. and had to do some serious ‘cherry-picking’ to extract
3. what I was looking for.
4. 75% is history and only 25% is really about the plays by Shakespeare.
5. Too much history….not enough Shakespeare!
6. #InformativeButDisappointing