Contested Year: Errors, Omissions and Unsupported Statements in James Shapiro's "The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606"

by Mark Anderson (editor), Alexander Waugh (Editor), Alex McNeil (Editor)

Contested Year is an anthology of critical reviews of James Shapiro's book The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606. It is also a side-by-side companion meant to be read and consulted as a supplement to The Year of Lear.

In October 2015, fanfares of acclaim greeted The Year of Lear's publication. Yet none of the reviewers seemed to notice its flaws. The roster of mistakes in The Year of Lear is enough to sink his entire thesis and cast doubt on his reputation as one of the world's foremost Shakespearean scholars.

Contested Year puts The Year of Lear's errors to right with seventeen leading independent Shakespeare scholars correcting, explaining and expounding upon each of The Year of Lear's multiple errors, false statements, omissions and unsupported conjectures, with concision, wit, erudition and keen attention to detail.

Contested Year rebuts fallacies and clarifies misunderstandings while highlighting Shapiro’s inaccuracies of dating, his sloppy confusion of sources, his muddle of historical events, his topographical gaffes, his mix-up of British titles, his errors over names, his genealogical howlers and his flagrant mistakes concerning language, court custom and the historical connections between key figures in his story. Contested Year fills the vacuum left by Shapiro's myopic and controversial insistence that 1606 was the year in which Shakespeare wrote King Lear by introducing a cornucopia of important evidence (omitted from his book) that undermines his thesis.

Contested Year is an essential companion to one of the most flawed and misleading works by an accredited academic professor of the last decade.

Genres: Shakespeare, Nonfiction

140 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 9, 2016

About the author

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Reviews

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another mindless polemic by the Grassy Knoll crowd. They're unhappy with the fact that their favorite aristocrat died before he could author a number of great plays, including King Lear.

I’m sorry I wasted my time with this one. Time is a finite commodity. Stick to writers like Marjorie Garber, James Shapiro, Jonathan Bate, Stephen Greenblatt, and Katherine Duncan-Jones when it comes to Shakespeare.

Shakespeare of Straford said it best when it comes to the authors of this book: "He has not so much brain as ear wax." (Troilus and Cressida).

[Peter Ellis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an unpleasant, chip on the shoulder book that degenerates too often into sarcasm and personal comments. But it is pretty convincing on the substance. Some of the errors it identifies in Shapiro's work are problems only for pedants; but some seem pretty significant. After reading this book, I was left feeling cheated / fooled by Shapiro's original book for failing to reveal the very tentative nature of much of what he wrote about Shakespeare in 1606.

[Edy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was reading Shapiro's The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606. when I became aware of this book. I found a copy of this book and read it with the Shapiro book.

One of the complaints the editors of Contested constantly make is the lack of documentation in the Shapiro book. As I read their book, I questioned their own lack of documentation. They were faced with an interesting challenge: How do you document a lack of evidence? This seems to be a recurring theme with them.

The book is provocative and makes the reader think about the accuracy of Shapiro's book.

If anyone chooses to read the Shapiro book, I would suggest that Contested be read at the same time.

[Susan Liston · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are going to read "The Year of Lear", best get this one too.