No Coffee!

October 15, 2015 at 10:19 pm (Shakespeare's Life) (James Shapiro, Michael Dirda, Shakespeare, Washington Post)

I just read Michael Dirda’s rave review in the Washington Post and I’m excited about this new book by Columbia professor and Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro: The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606.

I also love this short video of Shapiro with five things you might not know about Shakespeare. Among other things, he talks about the exhausting schedule Shakespeare kept, rehearsing and performing different plays each day, and then when others went out drinking and carousing, he went back to work every night, reading books and writing new plays. An amazing achievement for anyone.

I like Shapiro’s comment: “When people ask me what was Shakespeare’s greatest accomplishment? He was able to do this without caffeine, because neither tea nor coffee had been introduced in his day.” Can you imagine?!