Reviews for Macbeth, King Lear & Contemporary History

The average rating for Macbeth, King Lear & Contemporary History based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-02-12 00:00:00 Rory Kingerley This is a must-read for any serious student of Shakespeare. Winstanley successfully sets two of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies against the contemporary history illuminating the reasons these works were so popular, and well received by King James himself. These plays were symbolic of the life and history of King James and his parents, as well as depicting what Shakespeare feared for the future of England. She sums up her thesis best at the conclusion: "...Shakespeare is really writing of his own age and ...his work is a kind of symbolic mythology. The reason we have ignored it so lomg is because... we assumed there was no essential difference between the psychology of the sixteenth century and the psychology of [today]. "... It is only by studying the mentality of Shakespeare's contemporaries that we can understand the mentality of Shakespeare himself." The history surrounding these two plays include The Gunpowder Plot, The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, the murder of Darnley (King James's father) which Mary, Queen of Scots (James' mother) was tried and executed for ordering, among others. This was an elightening read.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-11-02 00:00:00 Sylvain Hamilton F this book.