Episode 43: Jonathan Bate & The Genius of Shakespeare

02/11/19 • 27 min

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 Andrew Jonathan Bate. Knighted in 2015 for services to literary scholarship and higher education, Jonathan Bate 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.

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Episode 42: The Daily Diet of Shakespeare with Brigitte Webster

Even Shakespeare had to eat. We laud Shakespeare as a man who helped reinvent the theater industry, and someone who would pen some of the greatest lines in all of antiquity, and establish a reputation that lasted at the top of his game for over 400 years. But what did someone like that eat for breakfast? It certainly wasn’t Wheaties powering that legacy, so what kind of foods did Shakespeare enjoy? Here to help us explore the daily eating habits of the Tudor period, including people like William Shakespeare, is a guest who knows more than most about the daily lives of Tudors since she leads an exploratory experience at her beautiful Tudor home. Brigitte Webster is the owner and founder at Tudor and 17th Century Experience, a unique living history centre with authentic accommodations that let visitors step back in history to experience life in England’s 17th century. Offering designated open days, “taster days “, weekends and custom-made holidays, Brigitte’s unique home lets guests travel back in time to fall in love with 17th century English history.

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Episode 44: Paul Edmondson Talks Heminges and Condell

If the saying is true that you are the sum of your five closest friends, then one great way to get to know William Shakespeare is to take a look at the lives of his closest friends. John Heminges and Henry Condell helped form the foundation of the shareholder agreement Shakespeare made at The Globe and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. They would remain loyal to Shakespeare from Elizabethan England into Jacobean England as the company became the King’s Men under James I. Acting in plays together, writing plays, surviving the Globe’s famous fire, and watching each other get married, have children, and grow old together is a stronger definition of friendship than many people ever get to experience, and by all historical accounts, Heminges and Condell were just such strong friends for William Shakespeare not just until his death in 1616, but through the publication of the 1623 First Folio, and continuing ever after.

As our guest this week, we are delighted to have Paul Edmondson, the Head of Research at Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and the author of one chapter about Heminges and Condell that appeared in the recent book he edited called The Shakespeare Circle. We welcome Paul today to discuss his chapter on Heminges and Condell and help us get to know Shakespeare’s extraordinary friends.