“The Year of Lear” by James Shapiro is a book about Shakespeare’s life and works during the year 1606. James Shapiro is an author and professor at Columbia University that specializes in Shakespeare and the Early Modern period. He carefully analyzes the events that occurred during that year that gave Shakespeare inspiration to write his tragedies. Shapiro was successful in demonstrating how events like the unification of England and Scotland by King James, the outbreak of the plague, the gunpowder plot and equivocation shaped Shakespeare’s works during the year 1606.
King James VI of Scotland rose to power in April 1603. The previous ruler, Queen Elizabeth I had no children, therefore, he would succeed as King James I of England. King James…show more content… During the seventeenth century, Catholics were encouraged to use this method when under oath. After the Gunpowder Plot, authorities discovered a Jesuit handbook that outlined how to equivocate. (Source B) This concept influenced Shakespeare’s writing of “Macbeth.” Throughout the play, Macbeth realizes that the witches have tricked him with equivocation. (Source D) He had understood from the prophecy that, “no man of woman born” could hurt him, so he was basically invincible. In his fight against Macduff, however, Macduff tells Macbeth that he was not of woman born, but “from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripped,” something we now call a c-section. However, it’s not just the witches who equivocate, almost everyone in the play do so. (Source A) Lady Macduff equivocated when she is asked by her son if his father is a traitor. The nobleman Ross equivocates when he tells Macduff his wife and children are at peace, when they were actually killed. By the end of the play, the truth and the lies come to feel like the same thing. In “Macbeth,” Shakespeare blames power and its capacity to corrupt language and corrode
