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This digital document is an article from Baseball Digest, published by Thomson Gale on June 1, 2007. The length of the article is 4712 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: The fans speak out.(Letter to the editor)
Author: Walter C. Robertson
Publication: Baseball Digest (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 66Issue: 4Page: 6(8)

Article Type: Letter to the editor

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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5 pages of sheet music arranged for voice and piano. Cover photo is of Frances Arms; charming art deco frame-able cover. ... Read more

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An intimate history of Shakespeare, following him through a single year -- 1599 -- that changed not only his fortunes but the course of literature

Customer Reviews (33)

A different approach
I vacillate between giving this book 4 or 5 stars. I ended up giving it 5 due to its novel approach to its subject, and the amount of research involved. However as a text that consistently keeps your interest it is a 4, because I often found myself a little bored, and wishing for the author to get to his next subject.
This text is not a biography of Shakespeare. Rather it is a historical exploration of the year 1599, and the culture of Elizabethan England, and how those aspects of his life and times informed the four plays that Shakespeare probably wrote in that pivotal year in his career. This is a unique and solid way to approach Shakespeare and Mr. Shapiro is certainly well researched and insightful in his observations. This book made me think of many things in Shakespeare in a new way, and that is a great testament to its scope and depth. Mr. Shapiro is very strong in his analysis of how the political and cultural situation in England in 1599 informed Shakespeare's writing of "Henry V", "As You Like it", and "Hamlet". However, he has to reach a little to find much cultural context that is specific to 1599 for "Julius Caesar". Still, the points that he makes about how life in Elizabethan England relate to this Roman story are insightful, and certainly worth exploring.
If you want a text that is in the vein of biographies of Shakespeare, such as "Will in the World", etc I don't think you will like this book. It is a little more History and England than it is Shakespeare, and if you are not a fan of History, and specifically that period, you will not enjoy this read. There are some times where the literary history that Shapiro explores will bore the casual reader.
A different type of text to add to the library of writing on Shakespeare, but a welcome one!

a year in the life of wm. shakespeare
An erudite, very informative, well-researched book. Affords edifying perspective about shakespeare's political and social environment. Very readable. Somewhat discursive, but on independantluy interesting and enlightening topics.

A Work of Genius About a Genius
There are two major reasons why this book will be a classic.

First, if you ever thought that after 400 years, there could be nothing new to say about William Shakespeare, this will prove you wrong. Although the author graciously acknowledges predecessors, his ability to place Shakespeare's plays within the context of their times is extraordinary. You have a much better grasp of the plays that Shakespeare wrote in 1599 - including Julius Ceasar, Henry V, As You Like It and Hamlet - after Mr. Shapiro informs you of the current events which colored their writing. The author's excellent prose makes this as much a book to read for pleasure as it is for learning, a difficult combination to acheive.

The other reason is that as a "biography of a year," the book is unsurpassed. There is an interesting subgenre of popular history which sets out to inform the reader of the events of a particular year. These can be enjoyable exercises, but, ultimately, even the best of them are, when the smoke clears, no more than a collection of headlines. Not 1599. Mr. Shapiro sets out, not to recount everything that happened in that year, nor even everything that happened to England or to London in that year, but simply to tell about how the events of the day had an impact on one man, Mr. William Shakespeare. The result is that you have a stronger sense of what it was like to live in that year in that place than any other work of history I know. You can sense the smells and sounds and sights of turn of the 17th Century London almost as if you lived there.

This is an extraordinary acheivement.

Amazing scholarship and entertaining writing
Occasionally, you come across a book in which the scholar has so much depth in his or her subject matter that he (she) can see patterns and pick out details that are simply amazing.This is one of those books.

Author James Shapiro has obviously spent a lifetime getting to know Shakespeare's works and the time in which he lived and worked.That knowledge is fully on display in this book.

Shapiro sets out the premise that 1599 was a seminal year in Shakespeare's professional development, and that the breakthroughs he displayed that year in the four plays he wrote that year -- yes, four! -- Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet -- can be directly traced to business, cultural, political, and artistic trends in Shakespeare's environment.Along the way, Shapiro demolishes any suggestion that Shakespeare didn't write his plays because he gives a sense of how he managed to do such prodigious, innovative work (basically, it's because Shakespeare was a great borrower and improver of the work of others, so he didn't have to create his plots, characters, and even some of his themes from whole cloth).

To cover everything that the book covers would make this a long review and far beyond my non-scholarly abilities.Here's a summary.It begins with a discussion of the difficult atmosphere that the theater company with which Shakespeare worked -- The Chamberlain's Men -- faced in late 1598.Plays were banned in London, and the Chamberlain's Men's arrangement to build a theater fell apart in a dispute with their landlord. They literally took apart a nearly-built theater and moved it to the other side of the Thames in late December, and then spent the next six months overseeing its construction as The Globe.

So Shakespeare had to write crowd-pleasing works that would enable the Globe to quickly build a reputation. He started that way with "Henry V, Part II," a relatively safe bet. But then, as he began to understand the features of the new Globe and the capabilities of new members of the performing troop, he started to add depth that had been unseen in theater in the past.This book chronicles how he did it.

Henry V set out the themes of chivalry, knights, and fighting that were obsessing the London court at the time.Those themes came to life in the spring and summer of that year, as the unrest in Ireland resulted in the forced conscription of a huge army under Essex, who failed in his attempt to subdue the Irish.Meanwhile, rumors ran rampant all summer that Spain's armada would sail up the Thames and attack a defenseless people, as their army was in the north. That nervousness and intrigue ran through his plays of the time, too.

As Shakespeare wrote Julius Ceasar, he reflected on a time when people were in revolt against their rule, as was occurring in England against Elizabeth.Though we realize now that she held onto the throne through her death in 1603, this wasn't a guarantee in 1599 -- especially as she did not have a child to follow her.The battles of succession in Henry and Caesar resonated with theater-goers of the time.

Next, Shakespeare returned to his pastoral themes in As You Like It. He was from the country, or at least a very small town, and he proudly traced his roots back to the Forest of Arden, a place that evoked for the British at the time a period when they were a simpler, happier people. Shakespeare felt this intensely, and his comedies were often set in these pastoral areas, where he could contrast the slick city folk with both the wise and foolish country folk.In "As You Like It," he raised the complexity up several notches by having Rosalind cross-dress as a man, but then tell her future love that he should pretend she was a woman. This type of role-playing could only go on in a place like the woods, a magical place.

Finally, Shakespeare ended the year with his first masterpiece: Hamlet.He reworked a tale that had been told since at least the 1200's of a Danish prince avenging his father's death, and which had been made into a play in England about 30 years prior. Shakespeare's genius was to add extraordinary depth to Hamlet, and to show him wrestling with ideas of good and evil, and whether doing something for honor (revenge) was really acceptable to God. The idea that people would wrestle with these questions in print, which seems to obvious to us, was a completely new idea at the time; only Montaigne's essays in France, published a few years earlier, and Cornwallis's tentative foray into essays in London (which Shakespeare probably heard or saw) started this path.And then Shakespeare raised it up a notch.

Again and again, the book shows how Shakespeare took what was around him -- court intrigue, fear of revolution, a new sense of "self" by essayists, etc. -- and brought it into his plays.The book also shows how much understanding we have lost when we lack the knowledge of what was the atmosphere in London at the time.Things that don't make sense to us in the plays were references that would be obvious to the average person in London at the time, and Shakespeare was, of course, playing to that audience.He was a man of his time, and a very successful one.

At times, the author goes through the plays line-by-line, and he makes keen points about what the lines meant at the time.He explains how the plays began to reflect the exit of the troop's clown Will Kemp and his replacement by a more versatile comic actor.At other times, he looks at sweeping events, such as the battle effort by Essex and then his imprisonment and execution, and uses those to explain the larger sweep that Shakespeare also wrote about.

The book is truly a tour de force of scholarship and a "must" for anyone interested in Shakespeare.

Great History; Great Literature
James Shapiro gives me much more than I received from an elective college class in Shakespeare. Concentrating on the year 1599 (actually from mid-1598 through early 1600), the author discusses the historical background of the times, the politics of the Elizabethan age, the wars in which England was involved, the geography of London and southern England, the life of Shakespeare as well as of the other playwrights of the time, and folds all this into a marvelous web of a united history so that the reader gets a full picture of this era. We become aware of the political tightrope that playwrights needed to walk in those days. The development of the plays, the interpretation of the language in historical context, and the meanings of words and phrases to the audience of that day make the allusions of Shakespeare relevant to those times and more understandable to ours. The descriptions of the theaters themselves grant a realistic view of the troubles with which the production companies coped while continuing to produce plays which the citizens of the day appreciated.

One personal note sets an example: A trip by Shakespeare to visit his family in Stratford-on-Avon is describedwith details of geography, the length of the trip, the hardships along the way, and the landmarks he would have passed, thus giving the reader a realistic view of travel in those days, which today we can cover in a couple of hours.

There is so much more in the book than can be adequately covered in a short review. Take my word for it: any history/theater/language/literature buff will be well-served by this book. If you do not currently place yourself in one or more of those categories, you will do so after reading this book. ... Read more

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Chapters: Serj Tankian, Brenda Song, Vanessa Hudgens, James Iha, Bianca Ryan, Monica Yunus, Carmit Bachar, Patrick Lew, Leila Bela, Asobi Seksu, the Slants, Ben Fong-Torres, Vijay Iyer, Nichkhun, Emily's Sassy Lime, Gabby La La, Leslie Mah, Lady May, Jeff Chang, Sky Lopez, Mike Relm, Lucia Micarelli, Axiom of Choice, Monica Young, List of Asian-American Hip Hop Musicians, Sam-Ang Sam, Doris Muramatsu, Melinda Lira. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 47. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Brenda Song (born March 27, 1988) is an American actress and model. Song started in show business as a child fashion model. She began her television career by starring in the television shows Fudge (1995) and 100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd (1999). After many commercials and television roles in the late 1990s, Song won a Young Artist Award for her performance in The Ultimate Christmas Present (2000). She went on to appear in theatrical films aimed at children, such as Like Mike (2002) and College Road Trip (2008). In 2002, she signed a contract with the Disney Channel. Her movies on the Disney Channel include Get a Clue (2002) and Stuck in the Suburbs (2004). In 2005, she was selected for a role in the Emmy-nominated Disney series, The Suite Life of Zack ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 820 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Signed essays ranging from 500 to 2,500 words, written by subject experts and edited to form a consistent, readable, and straightforward reference. Entries include subject-specific bibliographies and textual cross-references to related essays. ... Read more