The Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare

Soul of the Age

Jonathan Bate's Soul of the Age brings us closer than ever to understanding what being Shakespeare was actually like. 
 
How did plague turn Shakespeare from a jobbing hack into a courtly poet? How did Bottom's dream rewrite the Bible? How did Shakespeare's plays lead to the deaths of an earl and a king? And why was he the one dramatist of his generation never to be imprisoned? 
 
Weaving a dazzling tapestry of Elizabethan beliefs and obsessions, private passions and political intrigues, Soul of the Age leads us on an exhilarating tour of the extraordinary, colourful and often violent world that shaped and informed Shakespeare's thinking. Written by one of the world's leading experts, it combines almost everything there is to know about the man and his work in one sensational narrative. 
 
'Bate probably knows as much as any single person can know about Shakespeare ... Surprising, fresh, exhilarating, brilliant', Guardian 
 
'Intensely enjoyable ... you find yourself gasping with pleasure' John Carey, Sunday Times 
 
Jonathan Bate is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at the University of Warwick, chief editor of The RSC Shakespeare: Complete Works and the author of many books, including most recently John Clare: A Biography, which won the Hawthornden Prize for Literature and the James Tait Black Prize for Biography. A Fellow of the British Academy, he was awarded a CBE in 2006.

Jonathan Bate is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at the University of Warwick, chief editor of The RSC Shakespeare: Complete Works and the author of many books, including most recently John Clare: A Biography, which won the Hawthornden Prize for Literature and the James Tait Black Prize for Biography. A Fellow of the British Academy, he was awarded a CBE in 2006.

How did plague turn Shakespeare from a jobbing hack into a courtly poet? How did Bottom's dream rewrite the Bible? How did Shakespeare's plays lead to the deaths of an earl and a king? And why was he the one dramatist of his generation never to be imprisoned? 
 
Weaving a dazzling tapestry of Elizabethan beliefs and obsessions, private passions and political intrigues, Soul of the Age leads us on an exhilarating tour of the extraordinary, colourful and often violent world that shaped and informed Shakespeare's thinking. Written by one of the world's leading experts, it combines almost everything there is to know about the man and his work in one sensational narrative, and brings us closer than ever to understanding what being Shakespeare was actually like.

Jonathan Bate

Sir Jonathan Bate examines eight iconic poems inspired by great historical events - and explores the Romantics, John Clare and William Wordsworth 
 
'Mingles history and poetry ... in an accessible, thought-provoking way' Irish Times 
 
In this BBC Radio 4 series, eminent biographer and broadcaster Sir Jonathan Bate looks at major historical events through the poems they inspired, exploring how history influences poetry, and how poetry shapes the way we regard history. 
 
Bate interviews historians, scholars and writers to investigate the genesis of eight classic works. Beginning in Dublin, he looks at the history behind WB Yeats' Easter 1916, showing the impact of the Irish uprising on the poet. In Manchester, he discovers how the 1819 Peterloo Massacre sparked the creation of Shelley's The Mask of Anarchy, and in Westminster, he finds out what influence the English Civil War had on Marvell's An Horatian Ode. Visiting the village of Shamley Green and the roof of St Paul's Cathedral, he uncovers the links between TS Eliot's Four Quartets and the devastation of the Blitz. 
 
On the Essex coast, Bate delves into one of the classics of the Old English canon, The Battle of Maldon, written in the aftermath of the Anglo-Saxon army's failed attempt to prevent a Viking landing in 991. Coming right up to date, Bate talks to Linton Kwesi Johnson about his poem Di Great Insohreckshan, an account of the civil unrest that spilt on to the streets of Brixton in April 1981. Plague and fire ravaged England in 1666, yet for John Dryden, it was a 'year of wonders', as Bate explains in his analysis of Annus Mirabilis. Finally, he considers John Betjeman's Death of King George V, showing how it captures not only the passing of a monarch, but also a subtle shift in the Britain where Betjeman had grown up. 
 
Also included are two episodes of In Our Time, in which Jonathan Bate and Melvyn Bragg talk about the Romantics and John Clare respectively, and a 90-minute special, In Wordsworth's Footsteps, revealing the true story of the making of a creative and political radical who was so much more than the famous author of Daffodils. 
 
The Poetry of History 
Presented by Sir Jonathan Bate 
Produced by Julian May, Tom Alban and Martin Smith 
Readers: Jim Norton, Robert Glenister, Jim Durham, Dr Richard Dance, Julian Glover, Tom Durham, David Timson 
 
With guests including: Theo Dorgan, Anne Enright, Professor Diarmaid Ferriter, Tom Paulin, Clive Emsley, Professor Kelvin Everest, Professor Joad Raymond, Professor Kevin Sharpe, Professor José Harris, Ian Smith, Dr Katie Lowe, Dr Gareth Williams, Linton Kwesi Johnson, John Clare, Professor Justin Champion, Professor Valentine Cunningham, Candida Lycett Green, Hugo Vickers, AN Wilson 
 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 2-23 April 2006 (Series 1), 25 November-16 December 2007 (Series 2) 
 
In Our Time: The Romantics 
Presented by Melvyn Bragg 
Produced by Charles Taylor 
With Sir Jonathan Bate, Professor Rosemary Ashton and Professor Nicholas Roe 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 12 October 2000 
 
In Our Time: John Clare 
Presented by Melvyn Bragg 
Produced by Simon Tillotson 
With Sir Jonathan Bate, Dr Mina Gorji and Professor Simon Kövesi 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 9 February 2017 
 
In Wordsworth's Footsteps 
Presented by Sir Jonathan Bate 
Produced by Beaty Rubens 
Featuring Alice Oswald, James Rebanks, Melvyn Bragg, Professor Lynn Hunt, Emily Woof and Adam Nicolson 
With Simon Russell Beale as Wordsworth and Laura Christy as Dorothy Wordsworth 
Music specially composed by Emily Levy 
Viola playing by Aby Vulliamy 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 29 January-12 February 2020

Jonathan Bate

Books by Jonathan Bate

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