First, James Shapiro gave us Shakespeare in 1599.  That’s  when the Bard opened the Globe, wrote Henry V, Julius Caesar, and As You Like It, and started in on Hamlet.  Then Shapiro gave us Shakespeare in 1606, when he wrote Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra.  And now Paul Strohm treats us to Chaucer in 1386, when he hit upon the idea and plan of the Canterbury Tales.An evidence-based study of one artist’s creative circumstance at one key creative moment.  It’s a brilliant approach to a practical problem.