Shakespeare & The Dragon
Shakespeare Solved ® Series, Volume 1
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Shakespeare & The Dragon
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Narrated by:
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David Bradford Scheidig Schajer
The year is 1587.
A gathering storm looms on the horizon for England. The whole country will soon face one of its greatest trials in history.
Shakespeare is twenty-two years old. He is a married father of three young children, living with his family in Stratford-Upon-Avon.
He has dreams of doing something important, and going on a great adventure. He loves writing, and yet writing is a painful struggle.
He is a man of deeply held faith--but it is being tested. He is shocked at how England is torn apart due to the Reformation.
England wages war with Spain, with no end to the fighting in sight. England is a small and poor country. Spain is the only superpower in the world at the time.
Queen Elizabeth is brilliant, but capricious and often cruel. To maintain her power, she must rely on very powerful men in her court, who are often uncontrollable.
When Mary, Queen of Scots is executed the whole world seems to turn upside down.
For the next fifteen years, England will face wars, rebellion, acts of treason, mysterious deaths, civil turmoil, and a cultural revolution.
Queen Elizabeth loses her grip on her power, and on her own sanity.
She will have a terrible crisis of faith that could spell the end of England.
But one young man begins to rise in power and influence--the Earl of Essex.
He might become one of the most important men in the history of England. He might even become the King of England. But he must not be too ambitious, or let the weight of his destiny crush him.
The news of Mary's death reaches King Philip II of Spain--the single most powerful man in the world.
He must make the most fateful decision of his entire life: Will he send an Armada to conquer England?
Shakespeare will soon have to make his own fateful decision--to leave home.
Little does he know that by the end of the year he will become the most famous and the most mysterious man in England.
No matter what you think you know about these people and these events--this story will surprise you.
©2024 David Bradford Scheidig Schajer (P)2025 David Bradford Scheidig SchajerContinue the series
In his historical fiction Shakespeare & the Dragon series, author David B. Schajer makes his daring, grand case for people’s need for ecumenical unity in times of social, political, moral, spiritual turmoil, as much then as now. He makes his case by focusing extensively on interrogating the individual consciousness — and ultimately the soul — of William Shakespeare, the destined, great unifying pop artist at the centre of the turmoil, and a myriad of historical figures, all shaping the course of history. And its a successful and compelling start.
At the mark of little over 20 hours, the audiobook version is very long. Yet this book is such an easy listen. Everything is happening in the moment and carrying you forward. The key to the audiobooks’ immediacy and enjoyment is the narrator of the volume, author Schajer, and he narrates the story and performs every character with empathy and without condescension. You feel and hear the characters as Schajer feel and hear them, making THEIR thoughts and feelings become OUR thoughts and feelings.
The majority of Volume I is focused on introducing all the main characters and focusing on and building their individual personalities and quirks, as well as their psychological, spiritual and social struggles. There are two highlights which gives their struggles and pivotal roles weight and urgency throughout the volume, both which Schajer ingeniously introduces in the first few chapters:
- The motif of dreams and the use of ancient historical figures/archetypes giving manifestation — and a sense of startling inevitability — to their great ambitions and aspirations, and radical understanding of themselves and their society.
- The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots: the single most disturbing, consequential chapter in Volume I — and quite possibly the entire series. A haunting event, carrying the existential, societal dread of ”The bullet that sparked Word War I”, that comes full circle by end of the volume (and the beginning of Volume II) with an ominous reminder of the widespread consequences of regicide.
Finally, while i can’t speak for those familiar with Shakespeare and his work, or the period he lives, i think that for novices, like me, it is an absolute bliss and quite frankly no better way than to experience Shakespeare’s life, just like any work of art, purely and innocently. This is, in other words, a great — not least of all, fun and exciting — listening experience that anybody can and should try. But above all, Volume I leaves you wiser, more curious and, dare i say, edified about our history — and in turn, our society and culture today — and ultimately ourselves as human beings and souls.
The Case Study of William Shakespeare, the Ecunemical, Conscientious Pop Artist
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