Legacy

Insightful View of the Jacobean Shakespeare
If you're at all interested in Shakespeare's relation to his times, particularly the ways he may have drawn inspiration from the social and political currents that swirled about him, you will likely find this an insightful and valuable documentary series. As Shapiro says in the first episode, his earlier book, "1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare", was very much about the Elizabethan Shakespeare, which caused him to want to put the focus in these three one-hour programs on the Shakespeare of the following Jacobean era to round out the picture. Covering pretty much the entirety of James I's reign, the series looks principally at "Measure for Measure", "King Lear", "Timon of Athens", "Macbeth", "Antony and Cleopatra", "Coriolanus", "The Winter's Tale", "The Tempest", and "Henry VIII". Each play is examined in terms of how it may be related to events, personages, tensions, and dynamics in the realm(s) of James I - and it's fascinating stuff. One measure by which an enterprise...





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