![]() ![]() 1606 was, as Shapiro laconically puts it, “a good year for Shakespeare but an awful one for England”.īefore the Jacobean era, Shakespeare was obsessed with English history, in plays such as Henry V and Richard II. By the time it was first performed at court in December 1606, the hopes of British unity - which had greeted the accession of James, and had then, at least in the view of propagandists, been cemented by the seemingly providential foiling of the Gunpowder plot - were wearing threadbare. Lear offered a disturbing counter-portrait of ancient Britain divided. ![]() In coming to the throne, James was bringing together Scotland and England. ![]() At that time, according to Shapiro, the playwright had recently been working on King Lear, a play which offered a much more worrying take on kingship. ![]()
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