Soul of the Age: A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare
by Jonathan Bate
© Random House
Random House, 2009
When I first began studying and reading Shakespeare, there was just a handful of indisputable facts about William Shakespeare. These facts and reasonable suppositions have grown exponentially in the last half century, fueled by a corresponding rise in literary research, sleuthing, and sometimes luck. Consider, for example, the recent revelation of what is very likely a portrait of Shakespeare that was simply hanging in a private home.
Subtitled "A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare," Soul of the Age "is intended as an intellectual biography of the man in the context of the mind-set into which he was born and out of which his works were created." While Bate has drawn from the plays and poems, along with contemporary Elizabethan history and treatises, he minded Barbara Everett's admonition that such a task is "never literally and never provably" true. Perhaps the preeminent Shakespeare scholar writing and teaching today, Bate is a professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance literature at the University of Warwick. Living near Stratford-upon-Avon with his wife and children provides ample opportunity to soak up the mystique of Shakespeare and to research his life.
When I first began studying and reading Shakespeare, there was just a handful of indisputable facts about William Shakespeare. These facts and reasonable suppositions have grown exponentially in the last half century, fueled by a corresponding rise in literary research, sleuthing, and sometimes luck. Consider, for example, the recent revelation of what is very likely a portrait of Shakespeare that was simply hanging in a private home.
Subtitled "A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare," Soul of the Age "is intended as an intellectual biography of the man in the context of the mind-set into which he was born and out of which his works were created." While Bate has drawn from the plays and poems, along with contemporary Elizabethan history and treatises, he minded Barbara Everett's admonition that such a task is "never literally and never provably" true. Perhaps the preeminent Shakespeare scholar writing and teaching today, Bate is a professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance literature at the University of Warwick. Living near Stratford-upon-Avon with his wife and children provides ample opportunity to soak up the mystique of Shakespeare and to research his life.
Jacques' famous speech delineating the seven ages of man in As You Like It frames the chronology of the Bard's life, from the "infant mewling and puking" to that ultimate moment that comes to us all: "sans teeth, sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything." Trying to resuscitate someone born 445 years ago requires dogged detective work coupled with literary analysis within the historical framework of Shakespeare's life. The facts around him are easy to come by; the facts about him are more problematic. Bate's masterful work presents a solid case for new facts and speculations.
This is not a biography to be read straight through; rather one should take time to ingest and savor the delectable banquet that Bates sets. Or, as Shakespeare's contemporary Bacon would have it, this is a book to be devoured. The writing is clear and unencumbered, the arguments presciently presented. In fact, Bate tells us in the introduction that this is "not an exact mapping," but that we can "follow the tracks" of Shakespeare from Stratford to London and back again. In writing this life of Shakespeare's mind, Bate sought to avoid the "deadening march of chronological sequence that is biography's besetting vice..." Each section draws from the span of Shakespeare's life to demonstrate how, for example, the lessons learned as a child informed his work throughout his life. Bate has succeeded in spades.
This is not a biography to be read straight through; rather one should take time to ingest and savor the delectable banquet that Bates sets. Or, as Shakespeare's contemporary Bacon would have it, this is a book to be devoured. The writing is clear and unencumbered, the arguments presciently presented. In fact, Bate tells us in the introduction that this is "not an exact mapping," but that we can "follow the tracks" of Shakespeare from Stratford to London and back again. In writing this life of Shakespeare's mind, Bate sought to avoid the "deadening march of chronological sequence that is biography's besetting vice..." Each section draws from the span of Shakespeare's life to demonstrate how, for example, the lessons learned as a child informed his work throughout his life. Bate has succeeded in spades.
There is something to learn on every page, although there is much here that the "ever reader" (i.e., serious reader) will already know. So much of this information is put into a different context as to make it new and fresh again, giving new interpretation to the most mundane of previously known information. Bate writes about the so-called "lost period," a seven-year stretch beginning in February 1585. It begins with the christening of his twins Hamnet and Judith, and ends with Robert Greene's "Shake-scene" reference in 1592. Speculation has had Shakespeare fighting in the Dutch wars, studying to be a lawyer, teaching school, or traveling to Italy. Bate indicates that Shakespeare was mentioned twice in connection with a legal case filed in 1588 and heard a year later in 1589 before the Queen's Bench in London. He believes that Shakespeare was in London during this period, "reading the law" as it were, because he was actively involved in trying to recover money in this particular property case.
Shakespeare's birth was literally and figuratively in the "deep heart" of England, geographically and culturally. It was to this birthright that he returned repeatedly with actual visits home and literary returns in his references to the flora and fauna of Warwickshire, the people, their daily lives, and their folkways. Bate builds a cogent argument to explain how Shakespeare came to write as he did with the classical allusions and storytelling expertise. A teacher's handbook of that time, for example, indicated that students were to "keep in fresh memory the argument, matter and drift of the place which they are to construe." For Shakespeare, this meant paying attention to the "speaker, the context, the motivation for the speech." Paying attention to the fiction of the story meant that it would be consistent in the telling of its "facts."
Through each of the seven stages (Infant, Schoolboy, Lover, Soldier, Justice, Pantaloon, Oblivion) Bate builds his case for Shakespeare and the milieu that informed his writing. There can be no de Vere, Bacon, or Marlowe writing under the guise of Shakespeare. There is only one, and his life created a mind so encompassing that it is incomprehensible to imagine that anyone could have written in his stead. If you are going to read one book about William Shakespeare this year, this is the one. The scholarship is impeccable, the writing felicitous, the knowledge to be gained immeasurable.
Through each of the seven stages (Infant, Schoolboy, Lover, Soldier, Justice, Pantaloon, Oblivion) Bate builds his case for Shakespeare and the milieu that informed his writing. There can be no de Vere, Bacon, or Marlowe writing under the guise of Shakespeare. There is only one, and his life created a mind so encompassing that it is incomprehensible to imagine that anyone could have written in his stead. If you are going to read one book about William Shakespeare this year, this is the one. The scholarship is impeccable, the writing felicitous, the knowledge to be gained immeasurable.
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