William Shakespeare started out the son of a glove maker in a small town in England, and went on to become the greatest playwright the world has ever seen. How does one person accomplish so much? What did it take, exactly, for Shakespeare to become a genius? Was he born with particular gifts and talents no one else has seen or heard of again in the last 400 years? Or has our love of Shakespeare inflated his reputation beyond what it deserves?
One man who has argued in the public arena specifically for Shakespeare, the man, is our guest this week, Sir Jonathan Bate.
Join the conversation below.
Subscribe
Itunes | Stitcher | TuneIn | GooglePlay
Jonathan Bate was knighted in 2015 for services to literary scholarship and higher education. He is also a British academic, biographer, critic, and scholar. He specialises in Shakespeare, Romanticism, and Ecocriticism as the Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford, Provost of Worcester College, Oxford, Gresham Professor of Rhetoric, and Honorary Fellow of Creativity at Warwick Business School. His most recent book is the subject of our interview today, and that is titled The Genius of Shakespeare. In his book, Sir Jonathan examines the life of William Shakespeare, the man from Stratford, to outline how one man becomes a genius. We are delighted to have Sir Jonathan here with us today to discuss some of the answers he discovered in writing his book.
In this episode, I’ll be asking Jonathan about :
- In the 16-17th century, would it have been normal for a playwright to collaborate with others on his work?
- Do you think the authorship question is a legitimate one to ask in terms of Shakespeare scholarship?
- Can we still consider Shakespeare a great playwright, the embodiment of what it means to be a genius, when we look at him as a man, and discover he was, indeed, human, after all?
…and more!
Books Jonathan Recommends:
The Genius of Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate
Jonathan recommends that you check out the Folger Shakespeare Library Shakespeare Documented Project, which you can browse online at this link. —->
Click to Tweet
To share That Shakespeare Life on Twitter quickly and easily, just click the box below. Your tweet will automatically be populated with this copy:
Comment and Share
Please consider rating the podcast with 5 stars and leaving a one- or two-sentence review in iTunes or on Stitcher. Rating the podcast helps tremendously with bringing the podcast to the attention of others.
We encourage you to join the That Shakespeare Girl community on Patreon. It’s a community of professional Shakespeareans and Shakespeare enthusiasts, as well as fans of That Shakespeare Life.
You can tell your friends on Twitter about your love of Shakespeare and our new podcast by simply clicking this link and sharing the tweet you’ll find at the other end.
