1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare [Paperback]

I lived with this book for about a month. Everywhere I went the book went with me. I would read and re-read passages on the tube in the mornings and evenings; I read snippets during brief breaks at work and every evening I would ruffle through a few more pages before going to bed. 1599 is that rare beast - the erudite, informative history book with the narrative drive of a beautiful novel.

Beginning with an account of how an armed group of actors made their way through a snowy London night and stole the timbers of a nearby theatre, taking them back to the site of the Globe, the book goes on to set the scene for the year 1599, a year in which a great deal of unsettling events were taking place. Queen Elizabeth was nearing the end of her reign and the old issues of succession occupied the court, tied in as they were with questions of whether England would remain a Protestant country or revert to Catholicism. Rebellions in Ireland drained the royal coffers and diverted the attentions of one of Elizabeth's more awkwardly charismatic favourites, the Earl of Essex. Also across the seas Spain appeared to be assembling troops and ships for another attempt at invasion. An air of uncertainty held the country in a rather queasy grip and, feeding off these weeks and months of uncertainty, William Shakespeare penned the plays (Henry V, Julius Caesar, As you Like it and Hamlet) that saw him transformed from a highly talented playwright into the greatest writer in our history. Several books have explained, fairly enough, how Shakespeare's work transcends the age in which he was writing, but Shapiro does the reverse, showing how the events around him formed key elements in his plays and helped to shape his development as a creative force.

During the course of 1599 Shakespeare began to transform the world of Elizabethan theatre, replacing much of the bawdy goings-on common to the stage with dramatic works that made intense demands on the audience. Light entertainment was making way for thought-provoking drama and new uses of language. Each successive play pushed the boundaries a little further, culminating in the creation of Hamlet, one of the most complex portrayals of an individual ever accomplished. Also by reflecting the times in which he lived into different locations and periods of history he could, in plays such as Julius Caesar and As You Like it, make perceptive but safe (one didn't want to antagonise the queen after all) comments on the events at the Elizabethan court and the country at large. Great art and social commentary going hand in hand.

This is a fascinating book, of interest to anyone with a love of Shakespeare, drama and the theatre, or indeed Elizabethan history. To some extent we are all shaped by the times in which we live, but to interpret and use those times to create truly great art is, indeed, a mark of genius.

Why would you want to read a book on one year in Shakesepeare's life, written by an American professor? Forget any preconceptions that this introduction conjures. This is a truly amazing read for either the general reader or, I suspect, the academic.

1599 is the year in which The Globe (then called The Theatre) was 'pinched' over Christmas 1598 and transported, timber by timber, from its original site in Shoreditch to be rebuilt on the other side of the Thames in Soutwark - a task which was not to be completed till the following July.

It was a year in which Shakespeare produced 4 plays, saw the downfall of Queen Elizabeth's favourite, the Earl of Essex and during which fear of invasion by Spain was a real and present danger.

Professor Shapiro argues that this year was also a turning point in Shakespeare's writing, and makes a very good case. He points the reader toward the context in which Shakespeare was living and writing, takes us into the world of the theatre and the world at large and goes a long way toward solving the 'problem' of Hamlet as a bonus.

If I have one quibble it is an over-use of the word 'probably'; at times I think that the author strays into the realms of speculation a little too far, though to be fair he usually provides reasons for his assumptions.

This is a densely written book which more than repays the reading. Part history, part mystery, part biography I thoroughly recommend it to anyone with an interest in Shakepeare's works and particularly to anyone who, like me, firmly believes that the plays were for playing, not study.

If you're looking for a standard biography of Shakespeare then this definitely isn't it: Shapiro eschews the usual methods of writing a life and instead concentrates on a single year in Shakespeare's life.

He examines what was happening politically and culturally and how those events both manifest in the plays Shakespeare was writing that year, and also how they might have affected his future work. As he admits himself, this is mostly speculation and cannot ever be confirmed, but it's an imaginiative and original approach which works excellently.

Shapiro examines the 4 plays written in 1599 (Henry V, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, and Hamlet) and relates them to both Shakespeare's (assumed) thinking and external events. He re-reads the plays themselves in light of this and makes some excellent points. But this isn't a 'lit crit' book: it also delves into religion, Shakespeare's possible relationship with his wife and family back in Stratford, the Elizabethan theatrical world, and Elizabethan politics.

The one major gap for me was an exploration of the sonnets written around this time, and the (possible) implications for Shakespeare's personal life. There's nothing here about his emotional life (which admittedly would be pure speculation - but then a lot of this book is). That small caveat aside, this is an excellent, well-written, and entertaining book, as rewarding, I would guess, for the non-specialist as the specialist.