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

Published by Faber and Faber Ltd: London, 2005.

As the extended title states, 1599 tells a history of London and England in the year 1599, while continually suggesting how the local, national, and occasionally international events mentioned would have, could have, or possibly might have impacted on the life and works of William Shakespeare. Shapiro has done his research thoroughly, and the book - broken into sections by season - gives a clear feel about life in a particular year of Elizabeth's England.

The concept is an interesting one, and the quotes on the back cover of the book would have us believe it is "Quite brilliant" (Andrew Motion), "passionately written" (Stanley Wells), that it gives us "a Shakespeare both for his time and our own" (David Scott Kastan), and that, "As a yarn, this is up there with The Da Vinci Code - but in 1599 it's all true!" (Gandalf, aka Sir Ian McKellen).

Well... I enjoyed it. But I must admit, I finished the book feeling a little let down in areas. I do feel the book was passionately written and well researched, and I do think it gives a good taste of the England of 1599... But for a book that is nominally about Shakespeare, I wasn't sure that the Shakespeare element of the book was as successful as the rest.

Part of that is the problem of Shakespeare himself. He is one of those elusive figures about which little is known for sure. Shapiro does his best, and some of the links to events Shakespeare may have been inspired by or responding to seem quite likely.

But that's the problem to me. 'Quite likely' is nice, and when working with a figure like Shakespeare, it might be the best you can hope for. But 'quite likely' also means that the book is unable to definitively state things that it desperately wants to. Shapiro wants to say that Shakespeare heard a sermon delivered by Lancelot Andrewes at Richmond on Ash Wednesday, the 21st of February, and is able to show a number of parallels between that sermon and a speech in Henry the Fifth, but cannot definitively state that he did. So we get the following passage:

When the Chamberlain's Men performed at Richmond on the evening of 20 February, they would have been unable to return to London until the following day. At some point on 21 February, the six shareholders in the company - Burbage, Kemp, Shakespeare, Heminges, Phillips and Pope - would meet with Cuthbert Burbage and Nicholas Brend to sign the lease on the Globe site. They may have delayed signing it until the first day they knew they would neither rehearse nor perform: Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Or perhaps they wanted to wait until they were sure that Giles Allen had failed in his initial legal efforts to prevent them using thet imbed of the Theatre to build the Globe.

There was a powerful incentive to linger at Richmond: Lancelot Andrewes was at court to deliver a sermon... (Page 87)

Everything is littered with 'at some point', or 'perhaps', or 'they may have', and that has the unfortunate effect of undermining those passages for me. While a journey home to Stratford is a great excuse to describe the countryside, it feels less 'real' when we are told that Shakespeare 'may have been feeling' this or that on the way.

I don't want to sound overly negative about the book. It is an interesting read, and Shakespeare devotees are likely to enjoy piecing together what he 'may' have done in any given moment. I also don't know how it could have been done better without resorting to claiming theories as facts.

Just don't judge it by its cover. 

Completed 16 December 2019.

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