A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare

Author: James Shapiro
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061840904
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 618

Book Description
Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize’s 25th Anniversary Winner of Winners award What accounts for Shakespeare’s transformation from talented poet and playwright to one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this gripping account, James Shapiro sets out to answer this question, "succeed[ing] where others have fallen short." (Boston Globe) 1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen. James Shapiro illuminates both Shakespeare’s staggering achievement and what Elizabethans experienced in the course of 1599, bringing together the news and the intrigue of the times with a wonderful evocation of how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman, and playwright. The result is an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare

Author: James Shapiro
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0060088737
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 419

Book Description
A portrait of a year in the life of the bard traces his career in 1599, which marked the building of the Globe Theater, the English invasion of Ireland, and the creation of the plays "Henry V," "Julius Caesar," "As You Like It," and "Hamlet."

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare

Author: James Shapiro
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 9780060088736
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 440

1606

Author: James Shapiro
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780571235797
Category : English drama
Languages : en
Pages : 423

Book Description
"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 ... [and] profoundly changes and enriches our experience of his plays--Publisher's description.

Contested Will

Author: James Shapiro
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416541632
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Book Description
Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays.

Shakespeare in a Divided America

Author: James Shapiro
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525522298
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
One of the New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year • A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • A New York Times Notable Book A timely exploration of what Shakespeare’s plays reveal about our divided land. “In this sprightly and enthralling book . . . Shapiro amply demonstrates [that] for Americans the politics of Shakespeare are not confined to the public realm, but have enormous relevance in the sphere of private life.” —The Guardian (London) The plays of William Shakespeare are rare common ground in the United States. For well over two centuries, Americans of all stripes—presidents and activists, soldiers and writers, conservatives and liberals alike—have turned to Shakespeare’s works to explore the nation’s fault lines. In a narrative arching from Revolutionary times to the present day, leading scholar James Shapiro traces the unparalleled role of Shakespeare’s four-hundred-year-old tragedies and comedies in illuminating the many concerns on which American identity has turned. From Abraham Lincoln’s and his assassin, John Wilkes Booth’s, competing Shakespeare obsessions to the 2017 controversy over the staging of Julius Caesar in Central Park, in which a Trump-like leader is assassinated, Shakespeare in a Divided America reveals how no writer has been more embraced, more weaponized, or has shed more light on the hot-button issues in our history.

Oberammergau

Author: James Shapiro
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0375708529
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
The Bavarian village of Oberammergau has staged the trial, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ nearly every decade since 1634. Each production of the Passion Play attracts hundreds of thousands, many drawn by the spiritual benefits it promises. Yet Hitler called it a convincing portrayal of the menace of Jewry, and in 1970 a group of international luminaries boycotted the play for its anti-Semitism. As the production for the year 2000 drew near, James Shapiro was there to document the newest wave of obstacles that faced the determined Bavarian villagers. Erudite and judicious, Oberammergau is a fascinating and important look at the unpredictable and sometimes tragic relationship between art and society, belief and tolerance, religion and politics.

The Life of William Shakespeare

Author: Lois Potter
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118231775
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 514

Book Description
The Life of William Shakespeare is a fascinating and wide-ranging exploration of Shakespeare's life and works focusing on oftern neglected literary and historical contexts: what Shakespeare read, who he worked with as an author and an actor, and how these various collaborations may have affected his writing. Written by an eminent Shakespearean scholar and experienced theatre reviewer Pays particular attention to Shakespeare's theatrical contemporaries and the ways in which they influenced his writing Offers an intriguing account of the life and work of the great poet-dramatist structured around the idea of memory Explores often neglected literary and historical contexts that illuminate Shakespeare's life and works

Rival Playwrights

Author: James Shapiro
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231075404
Category : English drama
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Book Description

Shakespeare and the Jews

Author: James Shapiro
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231541872
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 351

Book Description
First published in 1996, James Shapiro's pathbreaking analysis of the portrayal of Jews in Elizabethan England challenged readers to recognize the significance of Jewish questions in Shakespeare's day. From accounts of Christians masquerading as Jews to fantasies of settling foreign Jews in Ireland, Shapiro's work delves deeply into the cultural insecurities of Elizabethans while illuminating Shakespeare's portrayal of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. In a new preface, Shapiro reflects upon what he has learned about intolerance since the first publication of Shakespeare and the Jews.