5 Individuals Who Achieved Remarkable Productivity During Quarantine

The world changed dramatically after the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020. As the novel coronavirus spread throughout the U.S., businesses shut down, public spaces emptied, and people were urged to stay home. Many found themselves with more free time—if they weren't busy caring for children home from school. Quarantine presented an opportunity to focus on mental and physical health, but if you sought to be productive, history offers numerous examples. William Shakespeare wasn’t the only person who created incredible work during a pandemic—many other thinkers and creatives took advantage of social distancing to leave their mark.

1. William Shakespeare

While the tale that “William Shakespeare wrote King Lear in quarantine” might sound like an exaggeration, it’s actually based on fact. In the early 17th century, when the bubonic plague hit London, Shakespeare was an actor and shareholder in The King’s Men. The plague caused theaters to close once the death toll surpassed 30, and the entertainment industry ground to a halt. With no steady work and ample free time, Shakespeare turned to writing, producing works like King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra—all before the end of the year.

2. Isaac Newton

A few decades after Shakespeare created some of his most renowned works in isolation, Isaac Newton found himself avoiding disease in England. In 1665, during his early 20s, one of the final major outbreaks of the bubonic plague spread across the country. With classes at Cambridge University suspended, Newton retreated to his family estate, around 60 miles away, to continue his studies. Without the pressure of professors’ emails or virtual classes, he thrived in the freedom. This period of solitude proved incredibly productive, as he wrote the foundational papers that would lead to calculus and began exploring optics by experimenting with prisms in his bedroom. It was also during this time that Newton developed his theory of gravity. Although an apple might not have fallen directly on his head, the apple tree outside his window could have sparked his breakthrough.

3. Edvard Munch

The artist behind The Scream, Edvard Munch, didn’t merely observe the world-changing effects of the Spanish Flu—he himself was struck by the disease in early 1919 while living in Norway. Rather than becoming another victim, Munch survived and returned to his passion for creating art. Once he regained enough strength, he gathered his painting materials and began documenting his own condition. In his Self-Portrait with the Spanish Flu, he presents himself with a thin face and receding hair, seated near his sickbed.

4. Thomas Nashe

Thomas Nashe was an Elizabethan dramatist who rose to prominence around the same period as William Shakespeare. When the bubonic plague ravaged London in 1592, Nashe sought refuge in the English countryside to protect himself. During this time, he wrote Summers' Last Will and Testament, a play shaped by his experiences living through the pandemic. One of its most memorable passages reads as follows:

Adieu, farewell earths blisse, This world uncertaine is, Fond are lifes lustful joyes, Death proves them all but toyes, None from his darts can flye; I am sick, I must dye: Lord, have mercy on us.

5. Giovanni Boccaccio

Giovanni Boccaccio, a Florentine writer and poet, was deeply impacted by the bubonic plague. When it reached Florence in 1348, both his father and stepmother fell victim to the disease. To escape, Boccaccio fled the city and took refuge in the Tuscan countryside. During this time, he penned The Decameron [PDF], a series of novellas presented as tales shared among a group of friends quarantined together in a villa during the plague.