Seven Weeks in Shakespeare's Life

A talk by by James Shapiro, Larry Miller Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, at The Hunter College Graduate English Club, Tuesday, December 12, 7:30 p.m.
8th Floor Faculty Dining Room, Hunter West

1599 was no ordinary year. In the course of these twelve months Elizabethans dispatched an army 16,000-strong to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered a terrifying Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless Queen. It was also the year that the Globe Theater was built, and one in which Shakespeare completed Henry the Fifth, wrote Julius Caesar, and As You Like It in quick succession, then drafted Hamlet.

Professor Shapiro's talk focuses on what Shakespeare did as the year began. In offering this slice of a writerís life, it situates Shakespeare in time and place, exploring the art, books and even sermons that inspired him, the venues at which he performed, and the contemporary preoccupations that fueled his work as he was finishing Henry the Fifth.

Professor Shapiro is author of Shakespeare and the Jews (Columbia UP 1997) and 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (Harper Collins 2005).

Reception to follow
For an ASL interpreter and to RSVP, please contact Lindy Kosmitis, lkosmit@hunter.cuny.edu