This British author explores the profound connection between humanity and the natural world. His work, deeply influenced by Romanticism and with a keen focus on Shakespeare, offers insightful explorations of the human spirit and its place within the wider ecosystem. Through his critical and academic writings, he provides unique interpretations of classic texts while engaging with pressing ecological concerns. His prose is both scholarly and accessible, inviting readers to delve into complex themes with fresh understanding.
A clear, easy-to-read, students edition of Shakespeare's plays and poetry with a glossary of obsolete words. Large format, smooth paper, printed in Italy to overcome earlier reported printing problems. Bestselling edition from Geddes and Grosset. Ideal for students.
Presents a fresh view of the early modern world through the eyes of Shakespeare, his players and audiences. This book illustrates the Catholic counterculture that is revealed through the failed Gunpowder Plot, which was later to prove the inspiration for Macbeth.
Myth and fact are not always easy to separate in Worcester's history; provoking a range of interesting, often quirky questions with even quirkier answers.Was there really a time when the College became a training-ground for Greek Orthodox clergy from Constantinople and Antioch? True, albeit only briefly.Was Lewis Carroll inspired to create the rabbit-hole in Alice, by seeing the tunnel into the gardens at the end of the main quad? Almost certainly false.Did wallabies once roam the College grounds? Yes. Did Rupert Murdoch put them there? No.This book is for anyone who wants to know why Worcester seems to create a special magic, for readers intrigued by a very unusual Oxford College, and for anyone interested in Worcester's people - from the architect and collector George Clarke, to the opium-eater Thomas de Quincey, to spymaster Masterman to the dons, the staff and the students who have enlivened the College in more recent times.It is a rich and colorful 'portrait' of the not an academic history, but an impression of the place, its people and its customs.
A dazzling new biography of Wordsworth's radical life as a thinker and poetical innovator, published to mark the 250th anniversary of his birth.
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? This book helps you to understand what being Shakespeare was actually like.
'Enlightening, moving' SIR IAN MCKELLEN From the acclaimed and bestselling biographer Jonathan Bate, a luminous new exploration of Shakespeare and how his themes can untangle comedy and tragedy, learning and loving in our modern lives.
Renowned for his deep connection to nature and mythology, Ted Hughes's poetry explores themes of conservation, ecology, and the primal forces of the natural world. His evocative imagery often features fishing and wildlife set against moody landscapes, reflecting his profound understanding of the environment. As a significant figure in twentieth-century literature, Hughes's work resonates with readers who appreciate the interplay between humanity and the wild.
"This book grew from the inaugural E. H. Gombrich Lectures in the Classical Tradition that I delivered in the autumn of 2013 at the Warburg Institute of the University of London, under the title, "Ancient Strength: Shakespeare and the Classical Tradition"--Preface, page ix.
Bate presents an exhilarating, witty and original account of how Shakespeare has come to be accepted as the world genius of literature. He includes an attack on the nationalistic interpretation of Shakespeare
This new edition is based on the quarto, the version closest to the original manuscript. The introduction illminates the plays' origins and practicalities of composition, its reception and influence. Detailed notes pay especial attention to language and staging, and the volume includes King Lear's first derivative, a contemporary ballad, and guides to appreciation of the play and its multiple offshoots.
A dazzling biography of two interwoven, tragic lives: John Keats and F. Scott Fitzgerald. 'Highly engaging ... Go now, read this book' THE TIMES
This edition of Much Ado About Nothing, one of Shakespeare's most delightful and theatrically successful comedies, offers, along with a freshly edited text, an exceptionally helpful and critically aware Introduction and commentary. Paying particular attention in his Introduction to analysis of the play's minor characters, Sheldon P. Zitner discusses Shakespeare's social transformation of his source material, rethinking the attitudes to gender relations that underlie the comedy and determine its ruefully optimistic view of marriage. Interpretations are advanced less because they are arguable than because they are actable. Allowing for the play's openness to re-interpretation by successive generations of readers and performers, the editor provides a socially analytic stage history. Full notes and commentary continue previous editors' work of clarifying textual and performance problems of interest to both readers and actors.
From the common playgoers to the royal patrons, this book explores Britain from the perspective of Shakespeares audience revealing how the significant issues of the day were explored at the playhouse through objects and quotations from Shakespeares plays
A renowned critic, biographer, and Shakespeare scholar, Jonathan Bate provides in this Very Short Introduction a lively and engaging overview of the literature that Jorge Luis Borges called "the richest in the world." From the medieval "Hymn of Caedmon" to George Orwell's "Why I Write," from Jane Austen to Ian McEwan, and from Winnie the Pooh to Dr. Johnson, this brilliant, compact survey stretches across the centuries, exploring the major literary forms (poetry, novel, drama, essay and more), the many histories and theories of the very idea of literature, and the role of writers in shaping English, British, and post-imperial identities. Bate illuminates the work of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Dickens, and many other major figures of English literature. He looks at the Renaissance, Romanticism, and Modernism, at the birth of the novel and the Elizabethan invention of the idea of a national literature, and at the nature of writing itself. Ranging from children's literature to biography, this is an indispensable guide and an inspiration for anyone interested in England's magnificent literary heritage.
