A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare Plot Summary

Introduction

In the frigid winter of 1598, a dozen men gathered in Shoreditch, London, with an audacious plan. Under cover of darkness, they began dismantling the Theatre, London's oldest playhouse, to transport its wooden beams across the frozen Thames. This daring act would give birth to the Globe Theatre and mark the beginning of the most extraordinary year in William Shakespeare's creative life. In 1599, at age 35, Shakespeare would write four masterpieces – Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and the first draft of Hamlet – that would revolutionize Western literature and forever change how human experience is portrayed on stage. This pivotal year unfolded against a backdrop of profound uncertainty in England. Queen Elizabeth, now in her sixties, refused to name a successor, creating political anxiety throughout the realm. The Earl of Essex led a controversial military campaign in Ireland that would end in disgrace. Rumors of Spanish invasion sparked panic in London streets. Through it all, Shakespeare and his company built their revolutionary theater and created works that responded to these crises with unprecedented psychological depth and artistic innovation. For anyone interested in how great art emerges from historical turning points, how literature shapes our understanding of ourselves, or how a single year can transform a writer and a nation, this account offers a compelling journey into a moment when everything changed.

Chapter 1: Building the Globe: A Revolutionary Theater Enterprise

The Globe Theatre's creation began with an act of architectural rebellion. In December 1598, Shakespeare and his fellow shareholders in the Chamberlain's Men faced a crisis when their lease expired on the land where their playhouse, the Theatre, stood in Shoreditch. The landlord, Giles Allen, intended to claim ownership of the building itself. In response, the company executed a bold plan: they dismantled the entire wooden structure during the Christmas holidays when Allen was away, transported the timber across London, and stored it on the south bank of the Thames where they would rebuild it as the Globe. This audacious move represented more than a simple change of address. For the first time in English theatrical history, a company of actors would own their playhouse rather than merely performing in venues controlled by others. Shakespeare, along with four fellow actors – Richard Burbage, John Heminges, Augustine Phillips, and Thomas Pope – each invested substantial sums to become part-owners of both the company and the theater building. This revolutionary business arrangement gave Shakespeare unprecedented artistic freedom at precisely the moment when his creative powers were reaching their peak. The construction of the Globe coincided with a significant artistic transition for Shakespeare. At the Curtain theatre, where the company temporarily performed while the Globe was being built, Shakespeare had been constrained by audience expectations and the influence of Will Kemp, the company's famous clown who specialized in improvisation and physical comedy. Kemp's departure from the company in early 1599 allowed Shakespeare to move toward more complex and naturalistic drama. The Globe's design, with its thrust stage projecting into a yard surrounded by three tiers of galleries, created new possibilities for intimate connection with audiences while accommodating the larger crowds needed to make the venture profitable. By late July 1599, the Globe was ready for its first performances, likely opening with Julius Caesar. The theater's name reflected its ambitious scope – a wooden O that could contain the entire world. Its motto, "Totus mundus agit histrionem" (The whole world is a playhouse), captured Shakespeare's growing vision of theater as a place where the most profound questions of human existence could be explored. The physical structure itself embodied the social hierarchy of Elizabethan London, with penny-paying "groundlings" standing in the yard while wealthier patrons sat in the covered galleries, yet all experiencing the same plays that spoke to universal human concerns. The Globe quickly became the center of London's theatrical world, despite ongoing legal battles with Allen, competition from new theaters, and the challenge of establishing a fresh identity in London's crowded entertainment market. For Shakespeare, the playhouse represented both financial security and creative liberation – a space where he could develop the revolutionary dramatic techniques that would define the remainder of his career. The unprecedented arrangement whereby actors became theater owners transformed the economics of English drama, creating a model that would sustain Shakespeare's company through the remainder of Elizabeth's reign and beyond, ensuring that his greatest works would be preserved for future generations.

Chapter 2: Political Turmoil: Essex's Irish Campaign and Court Factions

The spring of 1599 saw London in a state of patriotic fervor as the Earl of Essex departed for Ireland at the head of the largest English army assembled in decades. Essex, the queen's favorite and a charismatic military leader, rode through London streets to thunderous applause on March 27. His mission was to crush the Irish rebellion led by Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, who had delivered a crushing defeat to English forces at the Battle of Yellow Ford the previous year. For Queen Elizabeth, now in her sixties, the Irish campaign represented an enormous financial gamble and a test of her authority in the twilight of her reign. Essex embodied the martial values of England's aristocratic tradition, but his relationship with the aging queen had grown increasingly strained. In June 1598, during an argument over Irish appointments, Essex had turned his back on Elizabeth – an unforgivable breach of court etiquette. The queen struck him, and Essex reportedly reached for his sword before being restrained. This dramatic confrontation revealed the dangerous instability at the heart of English politics, as court factions aligned themselves with either Essex or his rival, the queen's principal secretary Robert Cecil, son of the recently deceased Lord Burghley who had been Elizabeth's most trusted advisor for decades. The Irish campaign quickly unraveled as Essex found Ireland's terrain unsuitable for traditional warfare while his troops suffered from disease and desertion. Rather than marching north to confront Tyrone directly, Essex spent months on inconclusive operations before making the fateful decision to negotiate a truce with the Irish leader – exceeding his authority and enraging the queen. When news reached London that Essex had abandoned his post to return to England without permission, the political earthquake was felt throughout the kingdom. On September 28, Essex burst unannounced into the queen's private chambers at Nonsuch Palace, finding her with her hair undone and without her royal attire – a shocking breach of protocol that sealed his political downfall. The summer of 1599 brought another crisis when rumors spread of an imminent Spanish invasion. This "Invisible Armada," as Francis Bacon later called it, never materialized, but its psychological impact was profound. The Privy Council ordered general musters throughout southern England, chains were stretched across the Thames to prevent enemy ships from approaching, and London transformed into an armed camp. Some suspected that Robert Cecil had manipulated intelligence reports to justify recalling troops from Ireland, undermining Essex's campaign. Whether real or manufactured, the invasion scare revealed deep anxieties about England's security and the fragility of royal authority as Elizabeth's reign entered its final phase. These political crises profoundly influenced Shakespeare's work during this period. Henry V, likely performed just before Essex's departure, resonated powerfully with audiences experiencing their own national emergency. The play's famous speeches about English unity against a foreign enemy took on immediate relevance, yet Shakespeare's treatment of nationalism is more complex than simple patriotic cheerleading. The play also exposes the brutality of warfare, the cynical politics behind military campaigns, and the diverse composition of the "English" army. Julius Caesar, another play first performed at the Globe during this anxious summer, explores the consequences of political assassination and civil war – concerns that resonated in a nation uncertain about the aging queen's succession. The political turmoil of 1599 accelerated a transformation in English national identity and political culture. The failure of Essex's chivalric leadership in Ireland, followed by his execution in February 1601 after a failed coup attempt, marked the death of an older aristocratic tradition. Power was shifting toward bureaucrats like Cecil and merchant-investors who would soon establish the East India Company. Shakespeare's genius lay in his ability to capture this transition, creating works that both commemorated traditional values and anticipated the complex moral and political questions of a new era.

Chapter 3: Artistic Evolution: From History Plays to Psychological Depth

The year 1599 witnessed Shakespeare's dramatic artistic evolution from a master of historical narrative to the pioneer of modern psychological drama. He began the year completing Henry V, the culmination of his second historical tetralogy that had established his reputation as England's premier dramatist. This patriotic epic, with its stirring "band of brothers" speech, represented the pinnacle of Shakespeare's chronicle plays. Yet even as audiences cheered Henry's victory at Agincourt, Shakespeare was already moving beyond the constraints of the history play toward something more psychologically complex. Julius Caesar, likely the first play performed at the new Globe Theatre, marked this transition. While ostensibly a historical drama, it focused not on battles or royal succession but on the moral and philosophical dilemmas of political action. The play's famous speeches by Brutus and Mark Antony at Caesar's funeral demonstrated Shakespeare's growing interest in rhetoric and persuasion. More significantly, Brutus's soliloquy—"Between the acting of a dreadful thing and the first motion, all the interim is like a phantasma or a hideous dream"—revealed Shakespeare's new focus on the inner workings of the human mind. This shift coincided with broader literary developments in London. The Bishops' Ban of 1599 had censored satires and historical works deemed politically dangerous, including John Hayward's controversial history of Henry IV. Shakespeare, ever attuned to the literary marketplace, recognized that the old forms were becoming politically risky and aesthetically exhausted. His response was to reinvent his art, developing techniques to portray human interiority with unprecedented depth. This innovation was partly inspired by his engagement with Montaigne's Essays, which were being translated into English during this period. Like Montaigne, Shakespeare began creating characters who observe themselves thinking, who question their own assumptions, and who struggle with fundamental philosophical problems. As summer approached, Shakespeare turned to comedy with As You Like It, transforming a conventional pastoral romance into a sophisticated exploration of gender, identity, and the relationship between art and life. Rosalind, disguised as the young man Ganymede, became one of Shakespeare's most complex female characters. Her extended role-playing, where she teaches Orlando about love while pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman, creates layers of theatrical self-awareness unprecedented in earlier comedies. Through this device, Shakespeare explores how identity is performed rather than fixed, anticipating modern understandings of gender by four centuries. By autumn, Shakespeare had begun work on Hamlet, his most revolutionary play. Though based on an older revenge tragedy familiar to London audiences, Shakespeare's version transformed this stock plot into something entirely new. The key to this transformation lay in the soliloquies—extended speeches that reveal Hamlet's inner thoughts with unprecedented psychological depth. When Hamlet asks "To be or not to be," he initiates a mode of self-questioning that would become central to modern consciousness. Shakespeare employed unusual rhetorical devices and introduced approximately 600 words in Hamlet that he had never used before, two-thirds of which he would never use again. This linguistic experimentation reflects Shakespeare's search for new ways to express complex psychological states. Shakespeare's artistic evolution during 1599 permanently altered the trajectory of Western literature. His innovations in characterization, particularly the development of psychological depth through soliloquy, would influence the development of the novel in the eighteenth century. His exploration of political legitimacy and leadership would provide a vocabulary for political thought for centuries. His complex female characters would challenge conventional gender roles and inspire feminist reinterpretations. And his linguistic innovations—from coining new words to developing new rhetorical patterns—would permanently enrich the English language. By year's end, Shakespeare had created a new kind of dramatic protagonist—one whose mind we experience from within, whose thoughts unfold in real time, and whose psychological complexity remains unmatched in literature.

Chapter 4: Cultural Crossroads: Religion, Censorship and National Identity

The religious landscape of 1599 England was shaped by decades of upheaval. Since Henry VIII's break with Rome in the 1530s, the country had experienced dramatic shifts in official religion—from Catholic to Protestant under Edward VI, back to Catholic under Mary, then Protestant again under Elizabeth. These changes left deep cultural scars and created a society where religious identity was complex and often layered. While Elizabeth's "settlement" aimed for a middle path, tensions between radical Protestants (Puritans) and those with Catholic sympathies remained acute. Shakespeare himself grew up amid these transformations. As a seven-year-old in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1571, he likely witnessed a glazier removing the stained-glass windows from the Gild Chapel, replacing colored glass depicting Catholic saints with clear panes. This followed earlier "defacing of images" when workmen whitewashed the chapel's interior paintings. Such iconoclasm was repeated across England as reformers sought to purge "popish" elements from worship. For many ordinary people, including Shakespeare's parents' generation who had been raised Catholic, these changes represented a profound loss of sensory and communal religious experience. The calendar itself became a religious battleground. Traditional Catholic holidays were eliminated or transformed, creating confusion about which days were still observed. Pope Gregory XIII's calendar reform of 1582, which corrected the ten-day drift in the Julian calendar, was adopted by Catholic Europe but rejected by Protestant England—primarily because it came from Rome. As a result, Easter was celebrated five weeks apart in Catholic and Protestant lands. This practical confusion symbolized deeper religious and political divisions that Shakespeare explored in Julius Caesar, where Brutus, unsure of the date, asks his servant to "check the calendar." Censorship intensified during this period as authorities sought to control public discourse. In June 1599, Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Bancroft ordered the burning of satirical works and decreed that "no English histories be printed except they be allowed by some of her Majesty's Privy Council." John Hayward's popular history of Henry IV had already been suppressed for its perceived parallels to Elizabeth's reign. Shakespeare navigated these dangerous waters carefully, using classical settings to explore contemporary issues while maintaining plausible deniability. Julius Caesar, with its balanced presentation of arguments for and against tyrannicide, exemplifies this approach—so much so that critics still debate whether Shakespeare sides with Brutus or Caesar. The question of English national identity took on new urgency during this period. The Irish campaign and Spanish threat forced a reckoning with what it meant to be English in a world of competing religious and political loyalties. Shakespeare's Henry V explores this question through its diverse cast of characters—English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish soldiers fighting under one banner but maintaining distinct identities. Captain Macmorris's defensive question "What ish my nation?" captures the complex identity politics of Anglo-Irish relations. Shakespeare's plays from this period consistently explore the boundaries of national identity, suggesting that Englishness was not a fixed category but a constantly negotiated relationship. The theater that Shakespeare helped create became a space where religious and political questions could be explored at a safe distance. By setting Julius Caesar in ancient Rome or creating a fictional Forest of Arden, Shakespeare could examine assassination, succession, religious conflict, and political legitimacy without directly addressing the English situation. Yet the religious undertones and political resonances would have been clear to audiences living through the anxious final years of Elizabeth's reign. The public theater, which had evolved from medieval religious drama, absorbed energies once channeled through liturgical celebration, becoming a secular forum where a diverse public could gather to witness stories that reflected their changing understanding of themselves and their nation.

Chapter 5: Commercial Revolution: The Birth of Global English Capitalism

As autumn arrived in 1599, while Essex languished under house arrest and the threat of Spanish invasion receded, a group of London's leading merchants gathered at Founders' Hall to launch a venture that would transform England's place in the world. On September 24, over one hundred investors committed the enormous sum of thirty thousand pounds to establish the East India Company, seeking a royal charter for exclusive trading rights beyond the Cape of Good Hope. This moment marked the birth of British imperial expansion and a new model of global capitalism that would reshape the world economy. The merchants' timing was strategic. They had twice come to the Crown's rescue that year—first by providing loans for the Irish campaign, then by financing London's defense during the invasion scare. Now they sought something in return: a monopoly on Eastern trade that would allow them to compete with the Dutch, who had recently returned from Java with ships laden with pepper, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon, yielding a 400 percent return on investment. The English merchants made no secret that they were "stirred up with no less affection to advance the trade of their native country than the Dutch merchants." This commercial initiative represented a profound shift in England's global orientation. Until now, English overseas ventures had focused on privateering against Spanish shipping, failed attempts at American colonization, or limited trading through intermediaries. The East India Company proposed something radically different: direct, peaceful commercial engagement with distant civilizations, backed by unprecedented capital investment. Unlike earlier ventures led by aristocratic adventurers seeking personal glory, the Company operated through collective decision-making by merchant shareholders primarily concerned with sustainable profits. The contrast between the old and new models of English expansion was personified by the Earl of Essex and the East India Company's founders. Essex represented the chivalric ideal of the knight-adventurer, leading men into battle for honor and royal favor. His Irish campaign had ended in humiliation and near-bankruptcy. The merchants who gathered at Founders' Hall represented a different approach: patient capital investment, careful risk assessment, and commercial rather than military engagement with foreign lands. Their venture would ultimately succeed beyond their wildest expectations, laying the foundation for British imperial power. Shakespeare, though not among the Company's investors, was keenly aware of these changing currents. His plays from this period increasingly engage with questions of cross-cultural encounter, commercial exchange, and England's place in a widening world. The Merchant of Venice explores the ethics of international trade and finance. Even As You Like It, set in the familiar Forest of Arden, contains references to the "East Indies" and exotic commodities that were entering English consciousness. Shakespeare's personal connection to these changes was direct. Records show that in February 1598, during a period of food shortages, he was cited for hoarding malt in Stratford—suggesting he participated in the new market economy that was transforming traditional relationships. The autumn of 1599 witnessed the death of one vision of England's future and the birth of another. As Essex's chivalric ambitions collapsed, the merchant adventurers of the East India Company laid the groundwork for a commercial empire that would eventually span the globe. Shakespeare's genius lay in his ability to chronicle this transition, creating works that both commemorated traditional values and anticipated the complex moral and cultural questions that would arise in an increasingly interconnected world. The Globe Theatre itself, with its innovative joint-stock ownership structure, embodied this new commercial spirit, transforming art into a profitable enterprise while creating works of enduring cultural value.

Chapter 6: Literary Legacy: How 1599 Reshaped Western Storytelling

The final months of 1599 saw Shakespeare complete his most revolutionary play, Hamlet, which both reflected and transcended the year's tumultuous events. Written as the Essex affair reached its tragic conclusion and the old century gave way to the new, Hamlet marks a profound shift in dramatic technique and philosophical depth. Through its exploration of interiority, moral ambiguity, and the limits of heroic action, the play serves as both elegy for a dying chivalric age and harbinger of a more complex modern consciousness. Shakespeare's innovation in Hamlet is most evident in the soliloquies, where the prince's tortured self-examination creates an unprecedented sense of psychological depth. "To be, or not to be" and other famous speeches reveal a mind struggling to reconcile contradictory impulses and philosophical problems that resist easy resolution. This technique represented a radical departure from earlier dramatic conventions, where characters typically explained their motivations directly and unambiguously. In Hamlet, Shakespeare created a protagonist whose thoughts we hear but whose true intentions remain elusive—mirroring the increasing complexity of political and social life in late Elizabethan England. The extraordinary sequence of plays Shakespeare produced in 1599—Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and the first draft of Hamlet—reveals a writer pushing beyond conventional boundaries and discovering new dramatic possibilities. This creative evolution was not merely a matter of personal growth but a response to the turbulent political and cultural landscape of late Elizabethan England. The departure of Will Kemp, the company's famous clown, freed Shakespeare from the constraints of writing for Kemp's improvisational style and allowed him to move toward more naturalistic drama. The construction of the Globe Theatre provided both financial incentive and artistic opportunity to experiment with new forms that would attract audiences to the company's new venue. Shakespeare's language also evolved dramatically during this period. While Henry V contains some of his most stirring rhetoric, Julius Caesar shows him moving toward a more compressed, spare style. As You Like It combines philosophical depth with poetic brilliance, particularly in Jacques' famous "All the world's a stage" speech. Shakespeare was coining new words at an astonishing rate—Henry V alone introduces "impawn," "womby vaultages," "portage," and many others—expanding English vocabulary to express previously inexpressible concepts. This linguistic innovation would permanently enrich the English language and provide models for future writers seeking to capture complex human experience. By the end of 1599, Shakespeare had fundamentally reimagined what drama could accomplish. He had created plays that demanded more from audiences than ever before, trusting them to follow complex arguments, appreciate psychological nuance, and engage with difficult moral questions. As he wrote in the prologue to Henry V, he now expected playgoers to use their "imaginary forces" to complete what the stage could only suggest. This new relationship between playwright and audience, based on mutual effort and trust, would define Shakespeare's mature work and transform English theater. Shakespeare's legacy extends far beyond the theater. His innovations in characterization, particularly the development of psychological depth through soliloquy, would influence the development of the novel in the eighteenth century. His exploration of political legitimacy and leadership would provide a vocabulary for political thought for centuries. His complex female characters would challenge conventional gender roles and inspire feminist reinterpretations. And his linguistic innovations would permanently enrich the English language. Perhaps most significantly, Shakespeare's plays began traveling the very trade routes the East India Company was establishing. In 1607, the Company ship Dragon staged a performance of Hamlet off the coast of Sierra Leone, the first recorded Shakespeare production outside Europe—beginning a global legacy that continues to this day.

Summary

The year 1599 represents a crucial inflection point in English history, when medieval traditions gave way to early modern realities. Throughout this transformative period, we witness the collapse of chivalric ideals embodied by Essex's failed Irish campaign alongside the rise of commercial capitalism represented by the East India Company. Shakespeare's genius lay in his ability to capture this pivotal moment through plays that both documented and transcended their historical context. In Henry V, he explored the complexities of national identity during an invasion scare. In Julius Caesar, he examined political assassination and its consequences when succession questions loomed. In As You Like It, he contrasted pastoral nostalgia with harsh economic realities. And in Hamlet, he created a protagonist whose philosophical depth and psychological complexity marked a revolutionary advance in dramatic characterization. The tensions that defined 1599 continue to resonate in our own time. The conflict between traditional values and economic transformation, between national identity and global engagement, between public performance and private conscience—these remain central to contemporary experience. Shakespeare's enduring relevance stems from his ability to dramatize these tensions without offering simplistic resolutions. His works remind us that periods of transition, though disorienting, can produce extraordinary cultural creativity. They suggest that understanding historical change requires attending to both grand political events and intimate personal experiences. Most importantly, they demonstrate that art can provide a forum where society's most pressing questions can be explored with nuance and humanity, helping us navigate our own moments of transformation with greater wisdom and compassion.

About Author

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James Shapiro

A specialist in Shakespeare and the Early Modern period, James S. Shapiro is Larry Miller Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he has taught since 1985. He has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Public Library Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and the American Academy in Berlin. In 2011, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He currently serves as a Shakespeare Scholar in Residence at the Public Theater in New York City.

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