Bright Ruined Things by Samantha Cohoe (ARC Review)

Information

Goodreads: Bright Ruined Things
Series: None
Source: Goodreads Giveaway
Publication Date: October 26, 2021

Official Summary

Forbidden magic, a family secret, and a night to reveal it all…

The only life Mae has ever known is on the island, living on the charity of the wealthy Prosper family who control the magic on the island and the spirits who inhabit it. Mae longs for magic of her own and to have a place among the Prosper family, where her best friend, Coco, will see her as an equal, and her crush, Miles, will finally see her. Now that she’s eighteen, Mae knows her time with the Prospers may soon come to an end.

But tonight is First Night, when the Prospers and their high-society friends return to the island to celebrate the night Lord Prosper first harnessed the island’s magic and started producing aether – a magical fuel source that has revolutionized the world. With everyone returning to the island, Mae finally has the chance to go after what she’s always wanted.

When the spirits start inexplicably dying, Mae starts to realize that things aren’t what they seem. And Ivo, the reclusive, mysterious heir to the Prosper magic, may hold all the answers – including a secret about Mae’s past that she doesn’t remember. As Mae and her friends begin to unravel the mysteries of the island, and the Prospers’ magic, Mae starts to question the truth of what her world was built on.

In this YA fantasy, Samantha Cohoe wonderfully mixes magic and an atmospheric setting into a fantastically immersive world, with characters you won’t be able to forget.

Samantha Cohoe’s latest novel takes readers to a magical island, where the Prosper family has subdued the spirits and used their power to produce a fuel source that has granted them unimaginable wealth and influence. Mae, the orphan daughter of a loyal servant, longs to be taught magic, and to find a place within the family she has learned to love and envy from afar. As First Night approaches, however, the night when the Prospers flaunt their riches to the world through an extravagant party, Mae begins to question the facts her life has been based on. The Prospers, it turns out, have secrets–and some of them could be deadly. This imaginative, high-stakes thriller takes inspiration from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest to present a historical fantasy that feels wholly and wonderfully original.

Although marketed as a sort of Tempest retelling set in the 1920s, Bright Ruined Things is more properly conceived of as a mystery/thriller book, in the vein of Karen McManus’s The Cousins. Connections to The Tempest are scarce, aside from the presence of magicians on an island full of spirits. And the world of the 1920s is one largely left to the readers’ imaginations, aside from the depiction of a Gatsby-esque party. The island, after all, is largely cut off from the rest of society, so readers, like Mae, never really get to immerse themselves in the culture. Readers wanting a straightforward Shakespeare retelling will likely be disappointed. But those desiring a high-stakes plot full of Shakespearean double-crossing and intrigue, all set against the backdrop of a glitzy party, will be delighted.

The plot is truly the highlight of the book, along with the deft characterization. Readers may think they know where Bright Ruined Things is taking them, but Cohoe throws in enough red herrings and plot twists to keep her audience second guessing themselves. Watching the lies of the Prosper family finally unspool gives one that satisfying feeling that only a well-written mystery can give.

Aiding the plot are the characters, none of whom seem to be telling all they know, and all of them desperate to gain something for themselves, even at the expense of others. Mae, the protagonist, somewhat complicates things. She exists not quite in the world of the Prospers, but not quite in the world of the servants. This makes her perfectly positioned to realize that the perfect facade of the Prosper world has begun to crack. However, though others may find her mousy, Mae is not without her own secret longings. Rejecting everything she thought she knew in order to uncover the truth will cost Mae, as well–and it is a price she is not sure she wants to pay. Mae not be an entirely likable character, but she is a complex one–and it is her flaws and layers, along with everyone else’s, that makes the book so entertaining to read.

Bright Ruined Things is an engrossing mystery about the lies people will tell and the lives they will ruin in order to climb to the top. Fans of Karen M. McManus and Maureen Johnson will enjoy this new page-turner from Samantha Cohoe.

Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us about Our Past and Future by James Shapiro

Information

Goodreads: Shakespeare in a Divided America
Series: None
Source: Library
Published: 2020

Official Summary

From leading scholar James Shapiro, a timely exploration of what Shakespeare’s plays reveal about our divided land, from Revolutionary times to the present day.

Read at school by almost every student, staged in theaters across the land, and long highly valued by both conservatives and liberals alike, Shakespeare’s plays are rare common ground in the United States. For well over two centuries now, Americans of all stripes–presidents and activists, writers and soldiers–have turned to Shakespeare’s works to address the nation’s political fault lines, such as manifest destiny, race, gender, immigration, and free speech. In a narrative arching across the centuries, James Shapiro traces the unparalleled role of Shakespeare’s 400-year-old tragedies and comedies in making sense of so many of these issues on which American identity has turned. Reflecting on how Shakespeare has been invoked–and at times weaponized–at pivotal moments in our past, Shapiro takes us from President John Quincy Adams’s disgust with Desdemona’s interracial marriage to Othello, to Abraham Lincoln’s and his assassin John Wilkes Booth’s competing obsessions with the plays, up through the fraught debates over marriage and same-sex love at the heart of the celebrated adaptations Kiss Me Kate and Shakespeare in Love. His narrative culminates in the 2017 controversy over the staging of Julius Caesar in Central Park, in which a Trump-like leader is assassinated.

Extraordinarily researched, Shakespeare in a Divided America shows that no writer has been more closely embraced by Americans, or has shed more light on the hot-button issues in our history. Indeed, it is by better understanding Shakespeare’s role in American life, Shapiro argues, that we might begin to mend our bitterly divided land.

Review

In Shakespeare in a Divided America, James Shapiro invites readers to a deeper understanding of how Shakespeare has been received in America, and how his plays have been understood, performed, and mobilized for various political, social, and cultural causes throughout the history of the nation. This engaging survey will appeal to both avid Shakespeare fans and more casual readers, demonstrating how and why the Bard and his works continue to be relevant today.

Chapters include:

• a look at race and miscegenation through the lens of Othello
• a look at how gender was perceived in 1845 with an emphasis on gender-bending actress Charlotte Cushman and her performances as Romeo
• class warfare and the Astor Place riots in 1849
• John Wilkes Boothe’s and Lincoln’s views on Shakespeare and government and leadership
• immigration and xenophobia in 1916, with the rise of performances of The Tempest
• marriage and gender roles through the lens of The Taming of the Shrew and the making of Kiss Me, Kate
• same-sex love and the making of the movie Shakespeare in Love
• the political divide in 2017 when a production of Shakespeare in the Park infamously depicted the assassination of a Trump-appearing Julius Caesar.

Rooted explicitly in its own historical moment, written during the rise of Trump, the book repeatedly returns to questions of America’s divisiveness, its inability to reconcile many of its high ideals with its own practices. Through a study of Shakespeare, Shapiro illuminates how the nation has grappled with many of the same issues since its inception, always returning to the Bard not only in an attempt to understand itself and its place in the world, but also as a means to justify various social and political agendas. But perhaps this is no surprise. The issues the U.S. faces are the same ones that Shakespeare and his contemporaries faced.

Part of what makes Shakespeare and his works so compelling, and so open to use by competing political agendas, is that the plays give no easy answers. The final chapter on the 2017 performance of Julius Caesar, in which a Trump-like leader is assassinated, perhaps most clearly illustrates how open to interpretation the works are. While the producers of Julius Caesar evidently meant for the performance to shock, to make playgoers think through the actual effects of a political assassination, outraged Republicans saw the performance as a straight invitation for the opposition to resort to violence. But the play itself is ambiguous about this. The play both praises and condemns Brutus. The play both praises and condemns Caesar. In other words, the play can be interpreted any way you like–either as a call to violent political action, or as a cautionary tale about enacting political violence. The play could be co-opted by either side of a political movement. How an audience receives the play says more about the audience than it says about the play.

And this is the whole premise of the book: Shakespeare illuminates America and how Americans perceive themselves. One of the most interesting chapters (for me) was the chapter on the 1849 Astor Place riots, rooted in the professional rivalry between American actor Edwin Forrest and British actor William Macready. Their interpretations of Shakespearean roles lead to the working class followers of Forrest rising up against the wealthier supporters of Macready. (Tensions were exacerbated by the construction of a theatre meant clearly only to welcome the rich at a time when theatre was one of the few places open to the masses.) Attempts to disrupt Macready’s performances ultimately erupted into a full-scale riot as Macready performed Macbeth, leading to at least 22 deaths. The riots say less about Shakespeare than they do about Americans’ perception of their country as one where the rich should not get to shut out the poor, as a place where Shakespeare should be open to all. It is probably fair to say that no one that day died for Shakespeare; they died for their ideals, which Shakespeare reflected back to them.

Shakespeare in a Divided America is not a book merely for readers passionate about Shakespeare. Its engaging writing style, combined with gripping history, makes it an excellent choice for readers who enjoy social history or even readers who just enjoy a well-written nonfiction. It certainly makes Shakespeare a lot more exciting than your English class probably did.

Why Shakespeare Remains Relevant Today (Classic Remarks)

WHAT IS CLASSIC REMARKS?

Classic Remarks is a meme hosted here at Pages Unbound that poses questions each Friday about classic literature and asks participants to engage in ongoing discussions surrounding not only themes in the novels but also questions about canon formation, the “timelessness” of literature, and modes of interpretation.

HOW CAN I PARTICIPATE?

Leave your link to your post on your own blog in the comments below. And feel free to comment with your thoughts even if you are not officially participating with a full post!

You can find more information and the list of weekly prompts here.

(Readers who like past prompts but missed them have also answered them on their blog later and linked back to us at Pages Unbound, so feel free to do that, too!)

THIS WEEK’S PROMPT:

What relevance does Shakespeare have today?

When I consider the sheer range of Shakespeare’s plays, the question for me becomes, “How could Shakespeare not continue to have relevance today?” His works deal with everything from relatable emotions such as unrequited love, social rejection, grief for the loss of a loved one, and the thrill of young love to deep questions about the nature of power, authority, and government. His plays contain meditations on topics such as gender and sexuality, and marriage and fidelity. They engage with religion, prejudice, politics, art, and history. Readers and playgoers looking for something in Shakespeare will very likely find it. And all these things continue to interest and influence people today.

Perhaps what continues to make Shakespeare extremely relevant, however, is precisely what kept him relevant in his own day. In his work A Year in the Life of Shakespeare, James Shapiro notes that Shakespeare’s plays tend to be extremely ambiguous. Interpretations of his works as both pro-government and anti-government both work. Interpretations of Shakespeare as Catholic, Protestant, and atheist all work. No matter what side of an argument one is on, one is likely to find evidence for that stance in the plays. Shapiro suggests that this helped Shakespeare navigate an extremely fraught political and historical moment because it meant he both avoided alienating playgoers with opposing views and because he avoided offending the government, who controlled and reacted to what was shown on stage. However, this extreme ambiguity is also what makes Shakespeare so topical today.

Other writers sometimes show their age by espousing views that modern audiences no longer agree with or accept. However, because Shakespeare never shows his hand, it is not entirely possible to label him as outdated. In his plays where the women cross dress and homoerotic relationships are hinted at, but the women ultimately reveal their identities as women, is Shakespeare endorsing same-sex love or not? In plays where kings are said to be the anointed ones of God, but are shown to be wicked, is Shakespeare endorsing monarchy or not? In plays where Shakespeare seems sympathetic to outsiders, but never fully brings them into the fold of society, is Shakespeare being progressive–or not? Shakespeare always walks a tight line, where audiences could convincingly argue either side, meaning that people from his own day to our own have continued to refer to him as an authority for their political stances.

James Shapiro’s book Shakespeare in a Divided America chronicles some of the fascinating ways in which artists and politicians have used Shakespeare throughout the years to further their own political agendas, to respond their historical moment, or to try to make sense of their culture. Through a few case studies, he reveals how Shakespeare has revealed everything from Americans’ discomfort with race to their views on matrimony to their understanding of government and authority figures. His book ends with an exploration of the infamous 2017 production of Julius Caesar by Shakespeare in the Park, which depicted a Trump-like Julius Caesar. Audiences were divided over the play was endorsing assassination or condemning it–an ambiguity the play also had when it was first staged in 1599. The outcry over the production illustrates just how much Shakespeare continues to speak to us, because the topics he deals with are ones that continue to engage and trouble us today. In the words of Ben Jonson, Shakespeare was “not of an age, but for all time.”

Why Don’t We Talk More about Shakespeare’s Collaborators?

WHAT IS CLASSIC REMARKS?

Classic Remarks is a meme hosted here at Pages Unbound that poses questions each Friday about classic literature and asks participants to engage in ongoing discussions surrounding not only themes in the novels but also questions about canon formation, the “timelessness” of literature, and modes of interpretation.

HOW CAN I PARTICIPATE?

Leave your link to your post on your own blog in the comments below. And feel free to comment with your thoughts even if you are not officially participating with a full post!

You can find more information and the list of weekly prompts here.

(Readers who like past prompts but missed them have also answered them on their blog later and linked back to us at Pages Unbound, so feel free to do that, too!)

THIS WEEK’S PROMPT:

Why do you think people tend to ignore Shakespeare’s collaborators and speak as if Shakespeare always wrote alone?

William Shakespeare is perhaps the most celebrated author in the English language. His works were popular in his own day, and his reputation has only grown through the years. It is difficult to overemphasize the influence of a writer who inspired David Garrick’s Jubilee celebration of 1769, who became an emblem of the British empire, and who continues to inspire seemingly endless translations and adaptations. To speak of Shakespeare is to speak of “genius.” But how could Shakespeare be a genius if he had the help of others?

Today, the Romantic notion of the solitary genius continues to have a hold on the imagination. Collaborations in writing are not highly regarded. However, in Shakespeare’s time, ideas of authorship were quite different and collaborations quite common. Shakespeare may not have collaborated with others as much as some of his peers did, but there is ample evidence that he did, indeed, collaborate, even if scholars are still trying to determine which of his plays might have had additional writers, and who those writers are.

Scholars generally accept, for example, that Shakespeare wrote Titus Andronicus with George Peele, Pericles with George Wilkins, and Henry VIII with John Fletcher. Shakespeare seems to have worked quite a bit with both John Fletcher and Thomas Middleton, actually. The authorship of the Henry VI plays is still debatable, with not everyone accepting the relatively new claim that Christopher Marlowe was involved. Still, even though we know that Shakespeare did collaborate at times, and that there is sufficient evidence to identify some of his collaborators, we still commonly attribute the plays only to Shakespeare. It may be that only a foreword or an introduction touches on issues of collaboration at all, while title pages and even teachers may completely ignore issues of attribution. Some people get positively touchy about the idea that Shakespeare collaborated at all.

This goes back to our modern ideas of authorship and the genius associated with it. Conventional wisdom says that Shakespeare could not have been a singular literary genius if he had the help of others. After all, what are we to do? Admit that writers like John Fletcher were possibly just as good–so good that the average person cannot look at a Shakespeare play and immediately identify which passages Shakespeare wrote and which he did not? To talk about Shakespeare’s collaborators is tear him down from his pedestal and admit he may not be quite the god we thought all along.

How to Read Shakespeare

Start with a Properly Annotated Edition

Annotations are notes that help to explain a text. It may be tempting to read Shakespeare from a free online download or from an inexpensive copy that contains nothing but the text. However, when it comes to older books, sometimes paying more for scholarly notes can really make a difference in understanding the work. Try to find a copy that is glossed–one that has footnotes or end notes explaining what unusual words mean, what allusions Shakespeare may be making, what double meanings or bawdy jokes he is making, etc. Then make sure you read the notes. Having these explanations can really aid your comprehension.

Read the Introduction

A properly annotated version of Shakespeare will usually be accompanied by an introduction to the text. It may be tempting to skip the introduction to save time. However, the introduction will explain important aspects of Shakespeare’s work: when it was written, the political climate, the cultural context, and more. The introduction will help you understand what Shakespeare’s contemporaries may have been thinking about when they saw his work, as well as the questions that continue to inspire conversation among scholars and lovers of literature today. It may also provide a short summary of the work–really helpful if you are new to Shakespeare and feel a little uncertain about your understanding of his language.

Read Along with an Audio Version

If you are struggling to understand Shakespeare’s words, try following along with an audio recording. Hearing the actors’ inflections and their emotions can help bring the work to life, and help you understand what is happening in the text.

Watch a Performance

Shakespeare’s plays were originally meant to be performed. They were only first published after his death. Try watching a live performance or a film version to achieve a better understanding of what is happening in the plot and how the characters are feeling. And don’t worry too much if you don’t follow every single line–Shakespeare’s contemporaries probably didn’t catch every nuance, either.

Try a Version with Contemporary English

It’s a common misconception that Shakespeare was writing in Old English. He wasn’t. Shakespeare was actually writing early modern English, so readers will be familiar with many of the words he uses, if not all of them. However, Shakespeare’s language can still be tricky, especially because he is fond of inversion–he often writes sentences with the verb preceding the subject, instead of the other way around. If you’re not sure you’re following Shakespeare’s words, try reading his work in tandem with a version that updates his language to contemporary English.

Practice, Practice, Practice!

Everyone who has read Shakespeare had to start somewhere–usually feeling very lost indeed. However, in time, reading Shakespeare will become easier! Keep at it and you’ll feel like a Shakespeare pro in no time!

What are your tips for reading Shakespeare?

*Read more of our posts about Shakespeare here!

Richard III by William Shakespeare

Information

Goodreads: Richard III
Series: War of the Roses #8
Source: Gift
Published: 1593

Summary

Richard seeks to obtain the throne of England, even if it means murdering his own family.

Review

With the caveat that Richard III probably would have made more sense to me if I had read the historical plays that precede it, I enjoyed this portrayal of a ruthless man willing to cut down everyone around him to attain power–and the effects his actions had on those around him, including his own family.

I did have a friend explain to me who the characters were and how they were related; otherwise, I probably would have needed to consult Wikipedia or a family tree in order to understand the text. (I was reading a Dover Thrift Edition, which has close to zero explanatory material.) Once I sorted that out, however, and the multiple people who had the same name (historical accuracy, not Shakespeare’s fault), I was in for an exciting time.

My friend did point out to me that a large number of people die in this play, which is true, but much of it happens off-stage, and I wasn’t emotionally invested in many of them. Personally, I thought the interest of the play was in the relationships between the characters and the emotional turmoil many experience because of the deaths and Richard’s path to grabbing power.

There is a strong cast of women in the play, and they have a lot to say. There are a number of brilliant speeches from them cursing Richard for his actions, and Shakespeare’s incredible writing really shines; I can’t think of another author who would write such creative and compelling monologues. One of the women in the play even asks another to teach her how to curse her enemies, since she does it so well! And I was very much invested in the drama and seeing Richard get chewed out the way he deserves.

However, the play also thoughtfully explores the grief of the women, who have lost husbands, sons, and brothers to Richard–and occasionally other murderers. And although the women have not always been on the same side in the struggle for power, they can appreciate what the others have lost and learn to wish each other well. They understand each other and how little power they have (even when they are queens) and effect much more sincere reconciliations than the men in the play, who are frequently just pretending.

My overall sense of the play was that “not much happened,” even though, yes, a large number of people died. I most appreciated the drama of people despising Richard and then the relationships between the characters who were trampled in his path. Ultimately, most of the characters seem to agree that power is not worth attaining at such a cost.

Why Do People Still Doubt Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare? (Classic Remarks)

What Is Classic Remarks?

Classic Remarks is a meme hosted here at Pages Unbound that poses questions each Friday about classic literature and asks participants to engage in ongoing discussions surrounding not only themes in the novels but also questions about canon formation, the “timelessness” of literature, and modes of interpretation.

How Can I Participate?

Leave your link to your post on your own blog in the comments below. And feel free to comment with your thoughts even if you are not officially participating with a full post!

You can find more information and the list of weekly prompts here.

(Readers who like past prompts but missed them have also answered them on their blog later and linked back to us at Pages Unbound, so feel free to do that, too!)

This Week’s Prompt:

Why do you think some individuals believe in the Shakespeare authorship “controversy” even though the scholarly consensus is that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare?

My understanding of the Shakespeare authorship controversy has long been that proponents of alternate candidates for Shakespeare were simply classist and ill-informed. Conventional arguments that someone else must have written the plays argue that Shakespeare was too middle-class and too uneducated to write the plays, and so someone else like an aristocrat or a university playwright must have done so instead. These arguments suggest that great art can only be achieved by someone who is wealthy or of noble birth–which seems obviously wrong in the 21st century–and ignore the fact that the grammar school Shakespeare attended would have taught Latin and a great many other things the author of the plays knew. (Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro suggests in Contested Will that such schools gave an education better than universities today.)

My reading of James Shapiro’s Contested Will, which traces the history of the Shakespeare authorship controversy, has since expanded my thoughts on the matter. Shapiro demonstrates how Shakespeare’s authorship began to be questioned when the concept of authorship changed. Victorian readers thought that authors could only have written what they had experienced firsthand, and so Shakespeare could not have written about foreign lands or the court if he had never been to foreign lands and never been a member of the court. It seems obvious that people can write about things they have read of or imagined (dragons, for instance, or time travel), but Shapiro notes that even authors like Mark Twain found this argument convincing.

Victorian times are over, however, and the “controversy” rages on. Shapiro suggests this is in part because Shakespeare scholars have largely remained silent on the matter and partly because the rise of the internet gave everyone equal footing in the debate. The Baconians and the Oxfordians could create compelling websites for their proposed candidates, while Shakespeare scholars largely stayed out of the fray. I would extend Shapiro’s argument farther, however. I think the continued fascination with the “real” author of Shakespeare’s plays is also part of the backlash towards academia and expertise in general. People do not only not read academics’ thoughts on Shakespeare–they find them suspect. The academy, they think, has some political agenda and must be hiding things. There is some conspiracy among scholars to keep insisting Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.

Along with the doubt in expertise must necessarily come a renewed fascination in conspiracy theories. If you cannot trust the experts, the scholars, the news, then you must conclude that they are all part of a vast conspiracy meant to keep people in the dark. Why exactly it must be so important to uphold William Shakespeare over the Earl of Oxford, I do not know. But I think a general distrust of the system and a general fascination with hidden codes and hidden identities is enough to keep people engaged by the thought that William Shakespeare was simply a front for someone else.

I believe the evidence available conclusively demonstrates that William Shakespeare wrote his own works. However, for some, the evidence will never be enough. There is something too compelling about a conspiracy centuries old for some to acknowledge that the simplest explanation might, in this case, be the right one.

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 by James Shapiro

Information

Goodreads: The Year of Lear
Series: None
Source: Library
Published: 2015

Summary

James Shapiro takes a look at a pivotal year in the reign of King James I of England and how political and historical events may have affected Shakespeare and informed his writings.

Review

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 seems to be James Shapiro’s attempt at recreating the success of his previous book A Year in the Life of Shakespeare: 1599. However, while A Year in the Life presents a compelling argument about the ways in which current events shaped Shakespeare’s writing, The Year of Lear seems forced to make more tangential connections–perhaps because the dating of King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra is not even very certain. At times, the connections seem to disappear altogether, and readers are left with a fascinating account of King James I’s rule, but not much Shakespeare. The Year of Lear may be best suited to history enthusiasts and less so to avid Shakespeare fans.

I have read three books by Shapiro so far and Shapiro is generally very good at stressing that we will never know as much about Shakespeare as we would like. We will certainly never get a glimpse into his inner life or his personal thoughts on why he wrote what he did. What Shapiro tries to give readers instead is an account of what was going on in the world around Shakespeare. By looking at moments that rocked the nation such as the Gunpowder Plot or debates that occupied people’s minds, such as the question of Union, Shapiro argues that we can have a taste of what Shakespeare was experiencing and how it might have affected his work.

This argument works very well in A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, but somehow seems less compelling in The Year of Lear. A good deal of Shapiro’s focus does not even seem to be on Shakespeare’s work for much of the play. There is an interesting discussion of Union and how King Lear deals with related questions, a fascinating analysis of Antony and Cleopatra and how Shakespeare diverged from his sources, and a long detour into the supernatural and James’ preoccupation with witches. I never really felt that Shapiro convincingly linked the supernatural back into Shakespeare’s plays despite the fact that he does cover Macbeth. More pertinent is the connection Shapiro makes with England’s preoccupation with “equivocation” and Macbeth. And yet, a good deal of the book simply gets lost in the intricacies of the Gunpowder plot, recusancy and increased anti-Catholic laws, the cracks beginning to show in King James’ reign.

Books on Shakespeare tend to focus on him as an Elizabethan playwright, so I appreciated a book dedicated to exploring Shakespeare’s work under King James. I also enjoyed learning a lot about history I never knew before. However, I do think the connections Shapiro makes between history and Shakespeare are not always as strong as they could be–certainly not as strong as they were in Shapiro’s previous work.

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 by James Shapiro

Information

Goodreads: 1599: A Year in the Life of Shakespeare
Series: None
Source: Library
Published: 2005

Summary

1599. Queen Elizabeth is childless on the throne of England. Her people anxiously await a potential foreign invasion, especially if she does not name an heir. In Ireland, rebellion brews and the queen’s former favorite, the Earl of Essex, sets out to quell it. But some fear he could return at the head of an army, his sights set on England crown. Tensions run high and, through it all, Shakespeare writes four of his greatest plays, speaking to his contemporaries about their unexpressed hopes and fears.

Review

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 is one of my favorite non-fiction Shakespeare reads to date. It focuses intensely on one year in Shakespeare’s life, drawing connections between cultural, political, and religious moments that would have impacted Shakespeare and potentially influenced his writings. No easy one-to-one connections are drawn, but Shapiro convincingly demonstrates that Shakespeare was sensitively attuned to what was happening around him and to how the nation–and his audience–may have been thinking, feeling, and responding. He tapped into their hopes, their fears, their bitterness, and their anxieties in order to write plays that spoke strongly to their historical moment, but that still resonate with us today.

Shakespeare’s ambiguity seems to be one of the defining features of his works that continues to appeal to audiences. It allows for vastly different–and opposing–interpretations of his writing, while also allowing readers who enjoy ambiguity to simply revel in the apparent contradictions. Shapiro compellingly arguments that this feature of Shakespeare’s writing arose directly out of his historical and political moment. It makes sense, on the one hand, not to take sides if you want to draw in as many audience members as possible. But it also makes sense never to take sides if you wish both to avoid appearing like the government’s sycophant and if you wish to avoid getting into legal trouble for producing a play that could offend the government. Walking a middle line where both sides are convincingly argued and rejected, so no one ever knows where the final judgment lays, could be the very best way to keep your audiences coming back and to keep yourself out of jail. (It is notable that Shakespeare appears to have successfully avoided running afoul of the censor for his entire career, unlike many of his playwright contemporaries–perhaps most notably Ben Jonson.)

Reconstructing Shakespeare’s inner life is never going to be possible. However, Shapiro demonstrates that we can have some idea of what Shakespeare may have been thinking about and responding to if we bring our attention to the major historical moments of Shakespeare’s day. Doing so reveals nuances that are easy for contemporary readers to overlook. But it also makes Shakespeare’s work seem even more marvelous in that, by speaking to his own time, he continues to speak to ours.

Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? by James Shapiro

Information

Goodreads: Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?
Series: None
Source: Library
Publication Date: 2010

Summary

James Shapiro, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, traces the roots of the Shakespeare authorship controversy, examining why readers first began doubting the man from Stratford-upon-Avon had written his own plays. He examines the claims of Francis Bacon and Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, as the two candidates with the most support, before explaining why he believes Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.

Review

James Shapiro’s Contested Will is an important addition to the debate surrounding the true authorship of William Shakespeare’s works. Though Shakespeare scholars generally do not credit the idea that someone other than Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, conspiracy theories still abound. Shapiro argues that academic silence on the topic is part of the reason alternative candidates for Shakespeare still flourish. Despite the misgivings of his colleagues, he therefore wrote Contested Will, which traces the early reasons readers had to doubt Shakespeare’s authorship and carries into the present day. The book is an engrossing study of how our conceptions of authorship have changed–or not–over the years.

Previously, I was aware that those who argue Shakespeare could not have written Shakespeare usually based some claims on his class. Shakespeare was not cultured enough, rich enough, or educated enough to have written his plays. To me, the arguments reek of classicism, and are not particularly compelling. Shapiro goes farther, however, revealing how these sentiments arose out of a new conception of authorship in the Victorian era: an author can only write what he or she knows. This belief, that Shakespeare could only have written court scenes if he had been to court, or plays set in Italy if he had been to Italy, convinced even other authors like Mark Twain and Helen Keller than Shakespeare could not have written his plays.

Shapiro uses two of the most popular claimants to the Shakespeare oeuvre (Francis Bacon and Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford) to illustrate how different cultural conceptions over the years challenged people’s beliefs in Shakespeare.. Though many names have been proposed as the “real” Shakespeare, Shapiro argues that these two can reveal to us how Shakespeare’s authorship began to be questioned. In essence, people began to want to know who Shakespeare was, despite a lack of historical facts, and they wanted his image to match their idea of what an author should be. In some cases, this lead to complex forgeries demonstrating that Shakespeare was the urbane, well-connected, and Protestant author the people wanted. This stood in stark contrast to the evidence showing that Shakespeare was a man who did not write simply for writing’s sake, but because he cared about money!

Shapiro examines the evolving conceptions of authorship with what we know of authorship in early modern times. Autobiography was, he notes, practically unheard of, except in some spiritual texts, and even the concept of interiority may have been different: few people kept a diary. He also examines what we do know about the historical Shakespeare, and argues from it that we can conclude that William Shakespeare was, after all, William Shakespeare–a well-known figure in London and not a front for an aristocratic writer.

Interspersed with all this is a great deal of entertaining historical facts, from William Henry Ireland’s complex Shakespeare forgeries to the bizarre authorship theories suggesting that Queen Elizabeth was having incestuous affairs the government had to cover up. The sheer strangeness of the history is sure to pull in readers who love to learn about the past, even if they are not particularly interested in Shakespeare.

Contested Will is a highly readable and entertaining history. Based on extensive research, it is also a compelling work, one well suited to defend Shakespeare’s name and legacy.