
The Year of Lear
Shakespeare in 1606
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Narrated by:
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Robert Fass
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By:
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James Shapiro
About this listen
In the years leading up to 1606, since the death of Queen Elizabeth and the arrival in England of her successor, King James of Scotland, Shakespeare's great productivity had ebbed, and it may have seemed to some that his prolific genius was a thing of the past. But that year, at age 42, 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 Cleopatra.
The Year of Lear sheds light on these three great tragedies by placing them in the context of their times while also allowing us greater insight into how Shakespeare was personally touched by such events as a terrible outbreak of plague and growing religious divisions. For anyone interested in Shakespeare, this is an indispensable book.
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Story
AD, 98. The bustling army base at Vindolanda lies on the northern frontier of Britannia and the entire Roman world. In just over 20 years' time, the Emperor Hadrian will build his famous wall. But for now, defences are weak as tribes rebel against Rome. It falls to Flavius Ferox, Briton and Roman centurion, to keep the peace. But it will take more than just a soldier's courage to survive life in Roman Britain.
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Much like Bernard Cornwell in style
- By Daniel P. Fradl on 06-28-18
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Batavia's Graveyard
- The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny
- By: Mike Dash
- Narrated by: Guy Bethell
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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It was the autumn of 1628, and the Batavia, the Dutch East India Company's flagship, was loaded with a king's ransom in gold, silver, and gems for her maiden voyage to Java. The Batavia was the pride of the company's fleet, a tangible symbol of the world's richest and most powerful commercial monopoly. She set sail with great fanfare, but the Batavia and her gold would never reach Java.
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Perhaps the best book ever
- By Ray928 on 03-12-19
By: Mike Dash
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Sometimes a Great Notion
- By: Ken Kesey
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 30 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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A literary icon sometimes seen as a bridge between the Beat Generation and the hippies, Ken Kesey scored an unexpected hit with his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. His successful follow-up, Sometimes a Great Notion, was also transformed into a major motion picture, directed by and starring Paul Newman. Here, Oregon’s Stamper family does what it can to survive a bitter strike dividing their tiny logging community. And as tensions rise, delicate family bonds begin to fray and unravel.
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Sometimes a Great Novel Pops up out of Nowhere
- By Mr. Eyuz on 06-07-19
By: Ken Kesey
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Heart of Darkness: A Signature Performance by Kenneth Branagh
- By: Joseph Conrad
- Narrated by: Kenneth Branagh
- Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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A Signature Performance: Kenneth Branagh plays this like a campfire ghost story, told by a haunted, slightly insane Marlow.
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Disgusting Revision
- By Long_Schlong_Silver on 09-27-18
By: Joseph Conrad
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Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent
- By: Judi Dench, Brendan O'Hea
- Narrated by: Barbara Flynn, Brendan O'Hea, Judi Dench
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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For the very first time, Judi opens up about every Shakespearean role she has played throughout her seven-decade career, from Lady Macbeth and Titania to Ophelia and Cleopatra. In a series of intimate conversations with actor & director Brendan O'Hea, she guides us through Shakespeare's plays with incisive clarity, revealing the secrets of her rehearsal process and inviting us to share in her triumphs, disasters, and backstage shenanigans.
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The theatre history, the mischievous leading lady and her delightful interviewer
- By JAH on 06-29-24
By: Judi Dench, and others
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SPQR
- A History of Ancient Rome
- By: Mary Beard
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 18 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In SPQR, world-renowned classicist Mary Beard narrates the unprecedented rise of a civilization that even 2,000 years later still shapes many of our most fundamental assumptions about power, citizenship, responsibility, political violence, empire, luxury, and beauty.
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Shallow and unsatisfying
- By Joe on 02-19-17
By: Mary Beard
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The Anglo-Saxons
- A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 - 1066
- By: Marc Morris
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea, and established themselves as its new masters. The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy, and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the vikings.
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"Pretty Good"
- By Stephen on 05-30-21
By: Marc Morris
What listeners say about The Year of Lear
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- D. Littman
- 02-15-16
Very enjoyable slice of history
This is a very enjoyable audiobook, well read, interesting set of facts. What is odd about it is the light connection with the play King Lear. It is certainly connected with Shakespeare, and Shakespeare's writings (including Macbeth). It provides a quite useful context for Shakespeare's life in 1606, but I am not quite sure that it provides a useful context for his play King Lear. As long as you understand that, that the volume does not tease out answers to the mysteries of Lear, but rather to the time & to Shakespeare's life & times, you can find the story very enjoyable.
As an answer to your questions about the play, let me recommend, recommend highly, another book available on Audible -- It is "King Lear, Shakespeare Appreciated."
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7 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-24-18
Lear's Context
I must admit that only as I studied King Lear did I begin to realize how relevant it is to my life. What to tell a parent considering reducing the responsibility for her living---well how did that play out for Lear? Are we living in a world with clashing world views--well so was Lear. Working under the pressure of administrative turnover--so was Shakespeare as he wrote and performed Lear. Learning a bit more about life during the creation of King Leaf promotes understanding of this play and as a result our lives. Dr. T.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Laurence R. Baker
- 04-15-24
Very Interesting and Perfectly Narrated
The Year of Lear was continuously interesting to me. It is exquisitely well researched but written in a very accessible way. I taught King Lear for many years and have considerable knowledge of the history of Shakespeare’s time. That said, by reading Shapiro I learned many historical facts and gained some fascinating perspectives. Regarding his description of Shakespeare’s life in 1600, the author makes innumerable conjectures. This is also true of how he surmises that contemporary history may have entered into the composition of Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. Nevertheless, the conjectures seemed reasonable and were not misrepresented as factual. I would also add that the narration was terrific.
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- Penelope Victor McGuire
- 10-07-24
Most thoughtful and fascinating account of 1606 England.
Stunning collection of events during the reign of James I&VI - plague, witch burning, treason - and their effects on the writings of Shakespeare
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- wylie smith
- 04-27-22
jacobean, not Elizabethan
Shapiro made clear to me how Jacobean England had a different feel than Elizabethan England did. His description of the Gunpowder Plot is the clearest that I have read, and also does a commendable job of explaining how the English public responded to it both immediately and after. Shapiro demonstrates how events in this time affected Shakespeare's writing and choice of subjects. Of course there is not a lot of data from the period, but Shapiro does find evidence that is usually ignored by most writers on this period. By definition, Shapiro's writing is somewhat speculative, but I found it quite convincing, and enlightening on subjects that I knew about. For me, a fun read.
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- chetyarbrough.blog
- 02-27-23
REBELLION
As a Shakesperean scholar, James Shapiro addresses the times of Shakespeare’s plays during King James I’s reign. His history reveals the times in which Shakespeare is producing his most memorable plays. The three most relevant to this review are King Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth.
Part of Shapiro’s theme is the use of the word equivocation. The word first appears in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It is a common technique used in Shakespeare’s plays to avoid giving definitive answers to questions. Shakespeare is purposefully obscuring some unclearly expressed truth. It is a way of misleading without flatly lying. Shakespeare conceals the evil nature of the witches. Their predictions of Macbeth’s existence are true, but they obscure the precise truth of events that unfold.
Though Shapiro’s book is about Shakespeare’s plays, it is also about the history of an era in which the gunpowder plot of 1605, the plague, and the reign of James I occur. The events of that time offer precedent for today's makers of history. James Spiro offers an insightful history of the greatest playwright of all time. For today’s events, Shakespearean plays are as relevant today as in the 1600s.
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- Tad Davis
- 02-24-16
Detailed and satisfying
Shapiro takes another journey through a year in Shakespeare's life, this time documenting the world surrounding the creation of the plays "King Lear," "Macbeth," and "Antony and Cleopatra." Elizabeth is dead, James is on the throne, and the Lord Chamberlain's Men are now the King's Men, complete with the scarlet livery they're required to wear on ceremonial occasions.
Shapiro is good at describing the political and religious currents: James wants to unite England and Scotland. A group of Catholics plot to blow up the king and Parliament and place the king's daughter on the throne. James takes up the "popish" practice of curing the King's Evil. King Christian of Denmark visits and drinks everyone under the table. Fellow playwrights are imprisoned for making fun of the Scots. A distant relative of Shakespeare's is hanged, drawn, and quartered; and his own daughter Susanna is fined for avoiding Anglican services.
It would be nice if somehow a more intimate picture of Shakespeare himself came into focus from this mass of detail, but he remains elusive. Shapiro insists he's not trying to recover Shakespeare's private life; at this point no one can. What we CAN recover is some of the zeitgeist, the issues that caused people sleepless nights, the bits and pieces of daily life, news from home and abroad; and see how these bits show up in the plays. Conclusions can at times be made about Shakespeare's artistic goals and methods: Shapiro provides an excellent guide to the differences between the two versions of "Lear" and what they may signify. But we still don't know whether Shakepeare loved his wife, or whether he preferred his beef medium rare or well done.
The narrative is detailed and at times - during the description of the Gunpowder Plot, for example - it moves forward at breakneck speed. There are many small surprises, such as the fact that Samuel Harsnett - source of the litany of devil's names in "King Lear" - is also the source of the unusual adjective "corky" (as in "bind fast his corky arms").
Fass is an excellent narrator. I was mainly familiar with him for his work on the Oxford History of the United States. He does an impeccable job here, maintaining a clear and consistent pace through the historical events and reciting the many speeches from Shakespeare's plays with genuine passion. (And, thankfully, with no attempt to assume a British accent. I'm not saying Fass himself would have been bad at this, but I've heard other North American narrators try this, with uniformly dismal results.)
It's an interesting excursion, and I recommend it.
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19 people found this helpful
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- forensic doc
- 04-15-20
Plague
Life goes on. Masterworks wwriten and most survive.Lear and Macbeth. Are legacy of 1606. Life continues
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