- Hardcover: 512 pages
- Publisher: Viking; First Edition First Printing edition (30 Oct 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0670914827
- ISBN-13: 978-0670914821
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.2 x 4.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
406,616 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #55 in Books > Biography > Novelists, Poets & Playwrights > Shakespeare, William
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Review
A stunning tour de force. If you want to get as close as it is possible to get to Shakespeare the man, through his work, then read this book. Completely fresh and full of surprises. (David Crystal )
Bate's terrific introduction, simply and effectively summarising everything about Shakespeare, man and work, is alone worth buying the edition for (On The Rsc Shakespeare: Complete Works Daily Express )
Vivid and gripping ... A marvelous achievement (John Carey, On John Clare Sunday Times )
Deserves to become the most influential work of literary criticism of our time (On Song Of The Earth Sunday Times )
Bate's terrific introduction, simply and effectively summarising everything about Shakespeare, man and work, is alone worth buying the edition for (On The Rsc Shakespeare: Complete Works Daily Express )
Vivid and gripping ... A marvelous achievement (John Carey, On John Clare Sunday Times )
Deserves to become the most influential work of literary criticism of our time (On Song Of The Earth Sunday Times )
Product Description
In this stunning new biography, Jonathan Bate weaves an exhilarating tapestry of the Elizabethan beliefs and obsessions, private passions and political intrigues that shaped and informed Shakespeare's mind. In the midst of this extraordinary, colourful and often violent world, he traces Shakespeare's various incarnations: precocious grammar-school boy, thoughtful young lover, canny businessman, social climber, caring father. Gradually, Shakespeare emerges in a portrait that is vivid, nuanced and completely fresh: a man who was both timelessly talented and, in the words of his friend and rival Ben Jonson, the very soul of the Elizabethan age.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
less than genius of shakespeare but still fascinating,
By A. Craig "Amanda Craig" (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Soul of the Age: The Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare (Hardcover)
This book isn't for the kind of reader who merely wants to find out the bare bones of what we know - which, as Bate points out is a good deal more than we know of many Elizabethans if nothing like what we long for. A forensic biography, it jumps about using details from the plays to speculate about Shakespeare's life, what he can only have known about from experience (the nature of two rivers, for instance). The result is a kind of collage of a portrait, made up from tiny snippets of information, which comes to some interesting conclusions about how he wrote and why. If you are a Bard nut, it's a lovely book, but more of a cornucopia than a carefully reasoned biography like Bate's last. I recommend reading it with The Lodger (Charles Nicholls).
5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
The Soul of Literary Criticism in Our Age,
By Hepatica (England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Soul of the Age: The Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare (Hardcover)
A disappointing book, mainly because the structure is irritating, resulting in a work that skips about from subject to subject until the impression is - how to demonstrate what the author has studied. Such an expansive subject demands a more natural, less self-centered way to lead the reader.
This would be a good introductory book for an English undergraduate with a general interest in the time, provided they were content to go where ever they were taken and didn't read too critically. The author's most counter-intuitive assertion was that Shakespeare didn't value books and probably only owned about twenty. I doubt that there is any evidence for this and I wonder what this implies about the writer's feelings towards his subject. For most readers, Bill Bryson's much briefer book will be more satisfying.
1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shakespeare - Soul of the Age,
By
This review is from: Soul of the Age: The Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare (Hardcover)
Excellent, but some passages were exact copies from analyses of plays published in the RSC's The Complete Works. Bate writes well and holds your attention.
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