The Genius of Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate

The Genius of Shakespeare Reviews

• 
  John Purcell

   This is a very readable, thought provoking book. It is certainly a book for lifelong lovers of Shakespeare and yet, is also, due to Jonathan Bate's enthusiasm and his light-hearted approach, a perfect introduction to the life and work of the Bard for those who have decided its time to know more.
• 
  Roman Clodia

  This isn’t a biography but is one of the best general introductions to Shakespeare and how we can think about his works that I have read. It would be perfect for both general popular readers and undergraduates, and takes an eminently – and refreshingly – sensible approach to issues such as the authorship controversy, canonicity, and ‘global Shakespeare’.
  
  The ‘genius’ of the title is itself a play on words since genius in Shakespeare’s time meant not the transcendence that we give it but more a sort of characteristic disposition or natural character as taken from the Latin ‘ingenium’.
  
  Bate, then, offers a diverse, expansive and shrewd look at what Shakespeare means in the world. He unpicks the variety of ways in which Shakespeare has been received and appropriated as both the upholder of establishment values (e.g. by successive Tory governments) and as a liberal, possibly rebellious or unorthodox voice.
  
  Engaging and intelligent, this is an excellent and accessible insight into some of the ways Shakespeare is currently thought about in academia.
• 
  Sandro

  Bate presents a book that contains multitudes: it is a history, a case study, a story, an experiment (arguably mostly so due to its first publication in 1997 and the subversion of autobiographical readings presented here). In 10 chapters which range from discussing Bate's interpretation of Shakespeare's sonnets and the historical identity of the Dark Lady to the onset of the Bard's growing popularity in eighteenth-century Britain and Germany, the book presents a well-argued case for why we still enjoy Shakespeare in the twenty-first century. This book presents an array of ways to read Shakespeare's oeuvre. The smooth integration of Bate's own interpretations and contextualising his readings in the wider debates of Shakespearean criticism (through the ages) was, in my opinion, what makes this book shine as it enables the reader to identify connections between (historical) events that they otherwise would have overlooked.
  
  Arguably, it has taken me long to read this book. At first, this made me feel bad about this book because of the looming feeling that being a scholar reading a book about my field which is intended for a wider audience, not just an academic or scholarly audience, should not take me this long. However, by the end of the book I had realised that this is one of the book's strengths: not only does it present in-depth analyses that require the reader to think themselves into the specific works discussed here but, the book itself rather allows for such a longterm reading experience. It gives you, as a (common) reader, the time and space to sulk in all those minute details that are usually reserved for the academe. (On that note, I don't enjoy using the term of a 'common reader' but how else to describe the purpose? wider audience? general public?.... so, please don't come for me, Goodreads). It is a slow-burner—no doubt. At the same time, I believe that Bate, as well-intentioned as this book is, misses to strike an approachable tone for wider audiences. I found myself disinterested with details of early-modern personae that may or may not have a played a part in creating 'the genius of Shakespeare', even as someone who professionally engages with Shakespeare. Nevertheless, I believe this to be an important book as it manages to emphasises the historical and methodological contingency of Shakespeare's life and works.
• 
  John

  An excellent and highly readable look at William Shakespeare. Jonathan Bate combines a scholarly background with an enjoyable prose style.
  
  This book is part biography, part history, part close reading, and part analysis of Shakespeare's art and times. The chapter on the authorship controversy is also well-done and painstakingly shreds the false notion that someone other than the man from Stratford wrote the plays. (In that particular "industry", we can soon expect a book stating that Kim Khardashian wrote the plays and poems).
  
  Other excellent books about Shakespeare include Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World, and Katherine Duncan-Jones' Ungentle Shakespeare. This book should be added to the shortlist of excellent Shakespeare studies.
• 
  Sara

  not really a scholarly monograph, but not pop history, either. If you've been away from Shakespeare as long as I have, this is a great way to situate him and his work. My favorite takeaways were 1. the discussion of the Romantic fallacy of reading Elizabethan sonnets as autobiographical, and 2. the work on ambiguity, or the simultaneous validity of contradictory readings. An enjoyable and educational read!
• 
  Bettie

  The main educator on Shakespeare and his World, The University of Warwick
  
• 
  Rob

  There is a veritable industry of Shakespeare books, and has been for centuries, but interestingly it had settled into being rather an academic preserve prior to the arrival of this book in 1997. Then the success of this intelligent and detailed but clearly generalist and more-or-less introductory work was then magnified with the release of various Hollywood movies based on Shakespeare plays (Romeo + Juliet, Branagh's Hamlet and All's Well That Ends Well etc.) as well as the Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love. Jonathan Bate is a lively guide, setting out his universe early and skating proficiently over all the controversies and deeper issues, while celebrating the things that really make Shakespeare the shorthand for genius as we now define it in the modern world (Or, as Bate puts it: "Why is ‘Shakespeare was a genius’ as near as we are likely to get to a fact as opposed to an opinion in matters of aesthetic judgement? Because ‘genius’ was a category invented in order to account for what was peculiar about Shakespeare.")
  
  As well as being clear on the historical chronology, Bate is also properly focused on the dramatic genesis of these works and so perfectly-placed to skewer the bizarre and seemingly endless line of Anti-Stratfordians, or people who claim a third party wrote Shakespeare's works. (Some of them are even big names: Tolstoy, Freud, Mark Twain, Orson Welles…) The fundamental argument used is based on his supposed second-class education. It really is as vapid as that: it comes down to the fact that he was not one of the most-highly educated of his peers. But wait, right there's your proof: for Jonson to have written about Shakespeare as he did, warmly while chuckling at his "little Latin and less Greek" says everything. Jonson knew that Shakespeare was his main (and superior) rival, just as Shakespeare knew that Marlowe was his model to follow when starting to augment his acting activities with writing. Bate's section on the cues Shakespeare took from Marlowe, his contemporary with the university advantage, while shooting past him is breathtaking, truly worth reading. While Bate proposes that "Shakespeare was born as a dramatist by way of his strong (mis)reading of Marlowe, and that he matured as an author by grace of the (mis)fortune of his dramatic brother’s death", he also proposes that "the key gift which belonged to Shakespeare, but not to Christopher Marlowe, was experience as an actor."
  
  And, along those lines, his discussion of certain scenes from Shakespeare that show quite clearly that they could only have been written by an actor with a grammar school education - and not a peer of the realm or other academic figure without a theatre background - is well-nigh definitive. Put simply: "Many of the boldest of Shakespeare’s departures from his sources were injections of performance or self-conscious allusions to theatre." That was the part that could not be faked. It's fairly easy to fake courtly language or knowledge of kings, because many have access to those sources (doing something groundbreaking with them is something else). It was practically impossible in those days for a peer of the realm to fake knowledge of the theatre. Now, I would suggest, that part is a little easier, with our wall-to-wall coverage of actors and backstage plays/films, but still difficult when it comes to the telling details.
  
  There is also plenty of discussion of how Shakespeare may have been magnified by the paucity of works surviving from the time. Possibly there was more of a collaborative sense of putting on plays (rather like folksinging) that may have meant there were other great plays that could have tussled with the Shakespeare works. Still, the evidence of the references of the day that survive make it quite clear: people were astonished by the sheer quality and wide-ranging ambition of the Bard's plays. They were different, calling upon elements from many different works, dramatically innovative, full of crowd-pleasing and reader-pleasing moments alike.
  
  Indeed Bate is forthright on the overriding importance of the multiplicity of voices that Shakespeare used in his plays:
  
  "Since the eighteenth century, Shakespeare has been admired above all for two things: the range of his characters and the inventiveness of his language. The two go closely together, for it was by investing so many of his dramatic persons with memorable language that Shakespeare animated more voices than did any contemporaries. And because he animated so many opposing voices, he has been able to speak to many later dispositions."
  
  He also looks at the philosophical underpinnings to our readings of Shakespeare, from the Romantic visions to the changes wrought in schools of philosophy. In particular he looks at the rivalry between philosophy and the theatre, in the context of Wittgenstein suggesting that we have to take Shakespeare as he is, without recourse to aesthetic judgments, or - as he put it - to "give up literary criticism", much as he himself had decided to "give up philosophy":
  
  "Philosophy was born with Plato, who regarded his enterprise as a rival one to that of theatre. Though it grew from the profoundly dramatic method of the Socratic dialogue, the Platonic pursuit of wisdom and of essence could not abide theatre’s implicit claim that everything is performance. By returning thinking to the performative mode, Wittgenstein was bringing to an end the centuries-long battle between philosophy and theatre. Giving up philosophy means acknowledging the superiority of theatre’s way of doing things".
  
  Another strong passage is Bate's discussion, focused on Measure for Measure, which looks at ambiguities of meaning and whether there can be either/or readings. One of the major figures in this debate in the 20th century was William Empson, still an undergraduate when he formulated his Seven Types of Ambiguity, who used his study in quantum theory to illuminate the truly human response to ambiguity, "Undecidability, as Empson perceived in that crucial passage of Seven Types, is a condition of nature, not a fallibility or predilection of the interpreting mind. In an aspectual world, Negative capability becomes comprehensible as a law rather than a mystery. The sonnets can be understood as both autobiographical and fictive, Hamlet can be seen as both iconic and elusive."
  
  Shakespeare's influence is such, and so varied in its manifestations, that there is plenty to feed upon in this introduction. That Bate is an arresting writer with a forthright and accessible voice is good news for both the casual and not-so-casual reader and a great recommendation for this book.
• 
  Boar's Head Eastcheap

  Professor Bate will probably be a familiar face, or voice, to anyone on the 'Shake-scene' in the UK.  You can hear him participating in Shakespeare-themed episodes of BBC Radio's 'In Our Time', he heads a University of Warwick MOOC on 'Shakespeare and his World', and amongst his many written accomplishments, he edited the Arden third edition of Titus Andronicus.
  
  This is such an engaging book. Because
  you don't read Shakespeare, he reads you'', we learn almost as much about Professor Bate as we do about Shakespeare.  If you want to know what a modern Shakespeare scholar is like, you could do worse than start here.
  
  Bate sets out on a quest: firstly to properly define that horribly over-used word, 'genius', and then to see how and why Shakespeare qualifies.  In this, given my teaching preferences, I was fascinated by his chapter on 'Marlowe's Ghost', which explains lucidly the competition Shakespeare felt, even after Marlowe died.  Here's an example of Bate's writing style, from that chapter:
  
  

  '... who would deny that Shakespeare is linguistically his most magnificent self in Falstaff? - I propose that in order to create a 'good overreacher' in the character of Henry V, and thus to kill off the legacy of Tamburlaine, Shakespeare also had to kill off part of himself.  The Falstaff part which he denied was precisely that part which was most himself, which had its origins in Cade, and which owed nothing to Marlowe.'

  
  
  In my readings of his works, Bate often 'proposes' things.  Not out of diffidence - it comes across as polite, almost gentlemanly.  So much better than the
  ponderous and condescending tones of MC Bradbrook or Frank Kermode ... in terms of what this tells us about Bate, I'd suggest that his mild-mannered speaking voice is matched by his general style.  Whilst the other two authors obviously knew just as much, it's always more enjoyable to be spoken to, not at.
  
  What else do we learn?  Plenty, in the same way that
  regular readers of my blog will have assimilated plenty about me from my ongoing intertextual and cultural references.  Bate speaks with real eloquence and enthusiasm about how artists like Fuseli, Berlioz and Verdi interpreted the plays.  I came away a little awestruck, to be honest, by the range of his knowledge.  Another highlight was the occasional cheeky modern politics.  And he's persuasive, encouraging me (quite kindly) to set aside my innate prejudice against Lurhman's Romeo + Juliet and give it a fair chance as an interpretation to be watched, not the bane of a teacher's life.
  
  Finally, I love the fact that he proposed another name for that coveted title of 'genius'.  If you want to know who that might be, you'll have to read the book.
  
  It feels slightly odd, lionizing the author of a book which itself lionizes another author, but this was an excellent read.
• 
  Mark Donnelly

  Jonathan Bate surprised and amazed me. His writing style drives the narrative, which in some cases is quite detailed, forward at a steady pace. I devoured this book in a few days. He had me at the first section all the way through to the last page.
  
  In the 1580s, and in the first couple of years of the 1590s, the university wits, namely: Greene, Marlowe, Nashe, and Pearle had the stage. Around that time Greene protested with this statement:
  
  "Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and, being an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene on a country."
  
  The stage is set, and the upstart Crow plans, learns, networks, and writes, and writes, and writes. In 1592-1594 the plague closed the theatre. This was quite beneficial because in this time, Shakespeare wrote his first two plays, and had a swashbuckling time. It was during this time, discussion turns to how in 1594 Shakespeare was able to buy in to the Chamberlain's men. This is all meticulously crafted in scholarly style by Bate, and when he delivers possible solutions to the mysteries: I knew he had a strong case.
  
  This develops through the politics, the work, the relationships, and most importantly, 'The Genius of Shakespeare'. We are then taken on the stage of Shakespeare, the international one, and how his ability to relate with all people propelled him to be loved like no other writer. It was his ability to love Nature and all life, which transcended him from a poet to an Icon. His legacy, unsurpassed, remains and remains the writer's / poet's standard of absolute artistic brilliance.
  
  This is a book that captured my heart, and will remain with me forever. There are so many books on Shakespeare, and I have no need to read another one.
  
  
  
• 
  Nicholas Whyte

  
  http://nhw.livejournal.com/1143903.html[return][return]A jolly good look at various aspects of Shakespeare, trying to identofy what, if anything. The first half includes a chapter on the documents we have relating to Shakespeare, another on the Sonnets (where, against his will, Bate identifies his own candidate for the Dark Lady), a brilliant one on the authorship question, an analysis of Marlowe's inflience on Shakespeare, and a look at the way Shakespeare uses his other sources. [return][return]His line on the authorship question is entertainingly solid. Myself I have tended to find the sheer irrationality of the supporters of alternative candidates (the Earl of Oxford, Bacon, etc) a fairly strong strike against them. Bate points out that the Oxfordians, for instance, tend to regard every line of the plays as a work of sheer unassailable genius; while we who believe that the man from Stratford wrote them are also able to accept that he occasionally had an off day.[return][return]The second half of the book broadens out to consider Shakespeare's impact on subsequent literarature. I wondered a bit about this - it seemed to me a bit of a stretch to credit Shakespeare posthumously for the Romantic movement in England, France, Germany and Scotland; perhaps if I knew more about literature of that period generally I could assess to what extent Shakespeare's works really were central. I found a couple of the other stories told here more compelling - the claiming of Caliban as a heroic anti-colonial figure by Aim
• 
  Caroline

  This isn't your standard biography of Shakespeare - point of fact, it isn't a biography at all. It's more of an attempt to explain: why Shakespeare? Why is he considered the ultimate literary genius? Why does he occupy an exalted position scarcely rivalled by anyone else in any other field, let alone literature? What is it about Shakespeare and his work that we esteem so highly? Why has Shakespeare survived and thrived? Why does Shakespeare continue to appeal not just to new generations but other countries and cultures as well?
  
  One of the most interesting arguments Bate makes is on the very definition of the word 'genius'. Prior to Shakespeare the concept of 'genius' was more about a spirit, a personal unique spirit, and had nothing to do with creative endeavour and output and achievement at all. The gradual turning of the meaning to 'unparalleled and utterly unique brilliance' came about largely as a result of the need for some way to describe Shakespeare above all others.
  
  Bate also argues that the primary reason for Shakespeare's enduring appeal is his ambiguity and adaptability. Shakespeare never constrains his plays and his characters to one motive, one reason, one catalyst - there are always multiple reasons, multiple ways of interpreting and analysing his works, and as a result they are capable of meaning different things, often diametrically-opposed, to different groups simultaneously. Everyone can read themselves in Shakespeare, and as a result Shakespeare has continued to have resonance even four hundred years after the plays were written.
• 
  Paul Frandano

  In 2003, at a peak in my ambitious, rapidly developing Bardolatry, having by then read all of the canonic plays, most of the poetry, several biographies and volumes of literary criticism, I purchased Jonathan Bate's The Genius of Shakespeare. For one reason or another, it sat on my shelves, in Virginia and in North Carolina, unread. At long last, compelled by COVID-19 to read from my own library rather than to check new books out of our local libraries, I finally got around to Bate's magnificent dissection of the greatness of a man and what he wrought for posterity. I'm too dazzled now to write more, but I expect I'll get to this in the morning, when I will write something along the lines of The Capacious Genius of Jonathan Bate. How I adore this book, and how I will never be able to read the plays with the same eyes I've been reading them since 5th grade, 62 years ago.
• 
  Liz Polding

  Clever, well researched and beautifully written, with one of the best refutations of the argument that Shakespeare did not, in fact, write Shakespeare. Interesting comparison with the prolific Lope de Vega, too. Excellent.
• 
  Vincent Coole

  An intelligent, and insightful study of Shakespeare and the concept of genius. I was surprised to read the 2008 afterward that Bate was commissioned to write a Shakespeare for the average reader as this feels very much a book targeted for the Shakespeare academic. So be warned: this is not a light read and at times it became a slog to get through.
  
  However, despite it being a slow read, it was one I couldn’t help but admire. Many a conversation I have had over the years with people about how we define ‘genius’. Bate’s explanation is probably the best and most convincing I’ve read. The first half of the book is definitely the more engaging. By the time we get to comparing Shakespeare to atomic physics, and trying to understand seven levels of ambiguity, the reader is being asked to perform mental acrobatics. Overall though, this is surely the best study out there on what makes Shakespeare so beloved and influential. So a must read for anyone looking outside the more traditional biographical texts on Shakespeare.
• 
  Fhsanders54

  The genius of Jonathan Bate more like! The first half of the book spends time looking at all the influences upon Shakespeare from reading the classics at grammar school to the university writers and scholars such as Christopher Marlowe. He also shows how Shakespeare borrowed hugely from literature through a wide range of books and Chronicles. The second half of the book looks at his "afterlife", his adoption and adaptation by the Restoration, the Romantic movement, the German nation and ultimately the world. His work is shown to have inspired all other arts, whether it be poetry, music,novels or indeed art itself. A beautifully written book by a total devotee and expert
• 
  Tom

  If you read only one book on Shakespeare, let it be this one.
  Bate is a wonderful and enthusiastic writer, and he covers Shakespeare from many different angles.
  His account of the pseudo-debate about the authorship of the plays is informative, surprising, and a lot of fun. Bate is a recognized scholar, but he made me laugh out loud.
  Actually, the whole book is fun, though not at the expense of thoroughness and expertise.
  It makes you want to see (or be in) the plays.
  I will re-read this one.
  
• 
  MK

  This book blew my mind when I first read it and its still the book I recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about Shakespeare. The first 5 chapters look at Shakespeare in the context of his contemporaries, the rest of the book looks at how we look at him ever since. Heavily researched but extremely readable.
  
  I also have this book to thank for introducing me to Lope de Vega, another author who should be in the literature canon but because he wrote in Spanish, is not.
• 
  Jessica Farrugia

  I read this book for one of my study units at University. However, it has proven to be a really great read, not only for university purposes but even for myself as a Shakespeare lover to get more insight on his works as well as many debates that have risen on the 'genius' of Shakespeare.
• 
  Steve

  Takeaway: Aspectuality
  
  He could have gone further to Godel and Turing in the end.
  
  Lovely book in so many ways. I really like the tragedies and he discussed them in the second to last chapter. So many ideas in this book. Lovely.
• 
  Stephen Heiner

  An interesting, though at times, academic, introduction to Shakespeare's thought and works. Bate's contention is not just that Shakespeare was a genius, but that we came to know what "genius" means through him.
• 
  N

  Tough in places but entirely readable and informative making me want to take to the plays either for s first time or a return visit after the detailed consideration in his part two. Recommended.
• 
  Tony

  Brilliant, and it does what all good lit-crit should do: makes you want to go back and read the original. But with oh, so much greater understanding an enjoyment.
• 
  Vasilia

  Didn't really finish this book. Found myself sighing every time I picked it up. Is fantastic for an overview of Shakespeare studies, very thorough, but not always interesting ...
• 
  Hugh Coverly

  I have wanted to read this book since reading Bate’s earlier book Soul of the Age. I was surprised at how difficult it was to find a copy of this book. Thank goodness for the internet and online orders.
  
  The book is a breath of fresh air in Shakespeare studies. Bate gives short shrift to the authorial controversies, and presents sound arguments for there being a man from Stratford, who with grammar school education and experience as an actor, was able to write plays that people wanted to act and everyone else wanted to see.
  
  The surprise in the book comes in its second half, where Bate shows how Shakespeare becomes universally identified as a genius. Bate displays his wide array of study and reading in this section. As an expert on the Romantics, he shows how it was in the 18th and 19th centuries how Shakespeare becomes the quintessential English writer and moves toward the centre of the literary tradition. In the 20th century, Bate highlights literary critics such as William Empson and philosophers like Ludwig Wittgenstein showed how Shakespeare deserves to be understood not in terms of ‘either/or’ but in terms of ‘both/and’. And it is from these contemporary vantage points that Bate reveals how Shakespeare earned the right and deserves the title to be called a genius.