Mad about Shakespeare: From Classroom to Theatre to Emergency Room

by Jonathan Bate

‘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.




‘The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.’



How does one survive the death of a loved one, the mess of war, the experience of being schooled, of falling in love, of growing old, of losing your mind?


Shakespeare’s world is never too far different from our own ‘permeated with the same tragedies, the same existential questions and domestic worries. In this extraordinary book, Jonathan Bate brings then and now together. He investigates moments of his own life – losses and challenges – and asks whether, if you persevere with Shakespeare, he can offer a word of wisdom or a human insight for any time or any crisis. Along the way we meet actors such as Judi Dench and Simon Callow, and writers such as Dr Johnson, John Keats, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, who turned to Shakespeare in their own dark times.


This is a personal story about loss, the black dog of depression, unexpected journeys and the very human things that echo through time, resonating with us all at one point or another.

Genres: Nonfiction, Shakespeare, Memoir, Literary Criticism

303 pages, Hardcover

First published April 14, 2022

About the author

Jonathan Bate CBE FBA FRSL is an English academic, biographer, critic, broadcaster, novelist and scholar of Shakespeare, Romanticism and Ecocriticism. He is also Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and Provost of Worcester College, Oxford. A Man Booker Prize judge in 2014.

He studied at the University of Cambridge and Harvard University. He has been King Alfred Professor of English Literature at Liverpool University, Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at the University of Warwick. He is married to author and biographer Paula Byrne. He has also written one novel, The Cure for Love.

Reviews

[Emma Hardy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A smart and engaging way for the author to share some deep personal stories and see them through a Shakespearian lens. Some great passages are chosen and have been carefully and thoughtfully picked for this read. The level of detail and how they parallel with the authors life is quite astonishing.

A great blend of genres through Shakespeare's work, but also lots of other established writers are referenced too including Woolf, Plath and Ben Jonson, amongst others.

Some quite significant moments in the authors life are well compared to Shakespeare and it'll definitely make me see things differently next time I re-read him.

Memoir-like with Shakespeare to accompany it.

Beautiful.

[feifei · Rating 5 out of 5]

this left me teary eyed in public 💔 what a wonderful work of writing — there are some writers who make you feel so inadequate yet so inspired at once because of the elegance and wit and rhythm and sincerity &etc of their prose. jonathan bate is unequivocally one of those. longer review to come when i reread this

[Davidcharlesbowmangmail.com · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was Jonathan Bate's "The Genius of Shakespeare" that maddened me in the way implied in the title of this, his latest book about England's greatest writer; then his "The Soul of the Age" went some way to confirm it. "Mad About Shakespeare" combines Bate's personal experiences of reading Shakespeare and how his poetry and plays got him through some very harrowing experiences, with more of the kind of expert academic treatment seen in his earlier works, although perhaps with more about the performances he's seen and how they have shaped him and his obsession. This makes it an enormously satisfying and engaging book.

At one point Bate claims that an evening watching a good production of "As You Like It" is about as life-affirming an experience as one can ever have: as it happens, the one I saw in Stratford in 2019 bore that out exactly.

Bate's curt rebuttal of the Anti-Stratfordian conspiracy theorists is especially pleasing. His reminiscences about his 'A'-level English teachers and his Cambridge supervisors add another layer of interest and not a little humour, as do his early loves, his family agonies and ecstasies and his professional challenges and success. But the core and the essence of the book is Shakespeare, and that Bate argues so compellingly for his continuing relevance and indispensable value 406 years after he died, is enough to rate his latest book very highly indeed.

[FERNANDA MURARI · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say about this book? Maybe, read it! A literary memory of the finest quality, it is informative and emotionally charged. It makes one realise one has not read anything yet.... (sight...)

[Tumblyhome (Caroline) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to this on Audible.. mainly to give me something to listen to on a journey.. It was beautifully read and a wonderful listen. I ordered so many books mentioned in this, so it all cost me a bit, but it was very much worth it.
The summary above tells what the book is about but I would say it is more than that.. it is a very deep heartfelt story of literature far more than the summary might lead you to believe. It is a book that I don’t think I will ever forget and it has enhanced my appreciation of many books, not just Shakespeare

[Paul Snelling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part memoir, part literary criticism, the book is wise and erudite and very emotional, especially in the final chapter which describes his daughter's serious illness.

[James Tollefson · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up.

Fascinating to read, and I'm a sucker for a book that turns into another dozen books to read immediately after.

Very well written, and very easy to read. If you have even a passing curiosity in history, literature, writing, or Shakespeare, this should be on your shelf.

[Graham Bear · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anecdotes in abundance

This book is a biographical work that weaves Shakespeare through personal anecdotes concerning life and growing up in England. I really enjoyed it.

[Duncan Swann · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone who loves literature, not just Shakespeare. I cried at the last chapter (audiobook while driving, whoops!)

[Upstart English Tuition · Rating 4 out of 5]

Professor Jonathan Bate’s book reminds me of an episode which happened to the writer and journalist HV Morton when he went In Search of Scotland, almost a hundred years ago. Whilst being given a tour of the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Morton is struck by the change in his guide’s demeanour after a brief interruption; discomfited by the man’s emotion in declaiming ‘To Mary in Heaven.’

It emerges that the guide had learned of his wife’s death during that brief pause in the tour. His passionate poetry reading was a tribute to her, and Moreton hurriedly makes his excuses, leaving the man to his private grief with these words ringing in his ears:

“There is something in Burns for every moment of a man’s life, good days and bad. I shall find his sympathy here. Burns would have known what I know now …” [1]

For Burns, substitute Shakespeare. Not only for Professor Bate (or me for that matter), but in his typically gentle, refined style, he explores how Shakespeare’s words have seeped into the minds and words of other giants of English Literature. The book shouldn’t be mistaken for a dry academic piece, though - it is essentially a memoir in which the connections are never far from Professor Bate’s life and career. Occasionally (such as when discussing his young daughter Ellie’s horrific brush with death) the detail feels close to the bone, intimate, as uncomfortable as Morton must have felt with that poor bereaved man in Ayrshire.

In this, and in connecting with the book, it probably helps that Professor Bate isn’t a complete stranger. The biographical detail is more engaging because the author’s words, voice, and face, are familiar to me. It also allowed me to fill in any blanks and make connections about his achievements which might otherwise be missed, because the work is typically modest and in no way swaggering. I would probably begin with The Genius of Shakespeare, or for real Shakespeare aficionados, his energetic, enthusiastic Introduction to the Arden third edition of Titus Andronicus. [2] [3]

A second strand of the book thoughtfully explores the links between creativity and mental health, specifically depression. We spend time with John Clare, Virginia Woolf, and several others, and Professor Bate ends a chapter pondering:

“As human beings, we would not wish for poets - for a John Clare, an Emily Dickinson, a Robert Lowell - to suffer mentally, but as lovers of literature we would not wish to be without the poems that enable us better to enjoy life and better endure it. Is the true role of poets to be […] scapegoats who take upon themselves the mental fight of their readers?” [4]

Can we stay in Ursula K Le Guin’s ‘Omelas’ if our content comes at the price of another’s suffering? [5] In this case, what would be the alternative? Could we endure without art (in its wider sense); without the reassurance it suggests that someone else understands us?

It was here that the interchange between the academic and the memoir helped the book most. The book is more than a biography of Professor Bate, less of a typical Shakespeare biography, and gives us room to pause and think about the wider world, human experience, and the way that literature really can help us endure ‘the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to’. [6]

A really good read.

REFERENCES

[1] HV Morton, In Search of Scotland, Methuen & Co (1929)
[2] Jonathan Bate, The Genius of Shakespeare, Picador (1997)
[3] William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus (ed. Jonathan Bate), The Arden Shakespeare (third edition. 2003)
[4] Jonathan Bate, Mad About Shakespeare, William Collins (2022)
[5] Ursula K Le Guin, ‘The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas’, in New Dimensions 3 (ed. Robert Silverberg), Nelson Doubleday/SFBC, (1973)
[6] William Shakespeare, Hamlet (ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor), The Arden Shakespeare (third edition. 2006)

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

To misquote an old sign, you certainly don’t need to be mad about Shakespeare to enjoy this book, but it might help. Or as somebody said to me about reading a section, when the writing is that good, why do I bother? This book is subtitled “From the Classroom to Theatre to Emergency Room”, and in some respects is a story of the author’s life from childhood to his own parenthood, via theatre, literature, and the love of Shakespeare. It is far more than a literary book, however, as Bate, a well-known Shakespeare authority, introduces scenes from his life. This includes the death of his much loved father, inspired teaching from teachers at his school, various family members, his career, and the sudden onset of his child’s illness.
This is not a sad and tragic book; there are fond memories of productions he has seen, mainly Shakespeare and how different approaches have brought the plays to life, how other poetry and writings have helped him and entertained him. There is gentle humour, there are real insights in the importance of even centuries old writing to life, and there is an overwhelming sense of a life supported by a fierce love of Shakespeare’s huge literary output. I am not a huge marker of passages with bookmarks and notes in most books, but this one had me marking and noting passages that really struck home, and I felt so grateful that I had the opportunity to read and review this remarkable and inspiring book.
The book opens with comments on Bate’s childhood, how his family invited lonely and special people to meals and gatherings in his house. It goes on to describe how as a young adult he is running a theatre group near home when the news that his father has died, and how in the aftermath he found comfort in handling his father’s prized set of Shakespeare plays which recorded productions seen. It brings home how his father had experienced Shakespeare, how the seeing of plays had meant so much to him. This leads into recollections of how he had been introduced to Shakespeare at school, often through the eyes of other writers who had reviewed and commented on the plays. He is especially memorable at describing Shakespeare productions in which Judi Dench took the lead – her Lady Macbeth to Ian McKellen’s Macbeth in which she produces a sound of anguish which defies description, and her Cleopatra in which her looks were not the attraction but her projection of the language was a revelation. The experience of studying such productions and the texts made him the choice for the edition of the plays produced by the RSC among other works on Shakespeare and such writers as Ted Hughes and Wordsworth. The final section of the book relates his family’s experience of sudden serious illness; I was touched by the anecdote of parking outside a hospital when the world was collapsing.
This is at once and intensely personal and a revelation on the relevance of Shakespeare to life. I really enjoyed Bate’s style of writing which was not linear but always engaging. He writes movingly on his discovery of Shakespeare and other writers throughout his life, how it has affected his perception of life and others, his relationships. It is academically challenging and yet incredibly relatable. There are illustrations which add reality to the text, as well as an index. He also explains the background of a book he has produced with his wife called “Stressed Unstressed, a collection of classic poems designed to ease the mind in times of stress. Altogether a this is a book that I would recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in literature, or a fascination with life in all its changes.

[Eyejaybee · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the title could easily be applied to myself, the book actually demonstrates how the Bard’s works encompass the full gamut of human emotions, often as experienced in their extremity, and how the writer has also found them to be a source of solace.

Sir Jonathan Bate is one of the foremost Shakespearean academics and has devoted much of his life to advancing our understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare’s works. Indeed, he edited the plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and has written several other notable works of literary exegesis. This book takes the reader into a broader experience of the plays, and their impact upon the reader or audience.

Bate is just a few years older than me, and his introduction to the corpus was very similar to mine. Like him, I was fortunate enough to go to a very good school, and (for most of my time there) had some excellent, charismatic and gifted English teachers. My own first exposure to Shakespeare was in what we would now call Year 8, reading Julius Caesar under the occasional supervision of the Reverend Elliott, one of the school’s chaplain. He was very far from being either charismatic or gifted, and his total inability to exert any control over the class resulted in an initial alienation against The Bard that it took a lot of remedial work from far better teachers to overturn.

In this book, Bate considers how almost universally applicable Shakespeare’s works are, and how they have helped him cope with some of life’s more challenging moments. He also conveys the great joy of his discoveries in encountering new productions of Shakespeare’s plays.

I found this highly informative, while also easily accessible to the interested layman, such as myself.

[Andrew Deakin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Bate's 2022 Mad About Shakespeare is part memoir of his schoolboy exposure to Shakespeare & the development of his academic career, and part reflection on the impact of mental illness on major writers such as Virginia Woolf, Plath, Samuel Johnson, Ben Jonson, and the 19th century poet John Clare, among others.

As to be expected from one of the most accomplished and renowned modern scholars of Shakespeare, the book is replete with subtle and intelligent insights into the plays and sonnets, and is very instructive about the distressed writers, Woolf in particular.

Death shadows much of the book, especially as the literary becomes personal when one of Bate's young children endures a life threatening illness.

In anyone else's hands, this book might just have been an upmarket self help collection drawing on lines from Shakespeare's 'inspirational' and 'consoling' works (think Constance in King John on 'Grief fills the room up of my absent child').

Bate produces instead a moving reflection on life and literature, sorrow, loss, and missed opportunities with family and friends, that builds to a novelistic climax as his child narrowly escapes death.

Virginia Woolf's observation that 'the whole world is a work of art' is given new and contemporary resonance, as Bate connects life and literature in new ways. The twinning theme and haunting sense of loss that pervades Twelfth Night play an especially evocative role towards the book's end.

Might be time to revisit Woolf's To the Lighthouse, to experience again her deeply moving insights into memory, family, meaning, and lost opportunity.

[Christopher Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book dealing with two linked but distinct themes. First is a memoir of Bate's life (and especially his early life) told through his relationship to Shakespeare. Second is a book about writing - or writers - and mental illness, with much reference to Shakespeare but with other figures taking centre stage, including Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf and TS Eliot.

While the book is good on both themes, it makes for a slightly disjointed read and not the book that we are promised by the title - only the first half fits that bill, and I found myself wishing for a memoir of Bate's post-university days told through his relationship with Shakespeare.

The first half is superb, however, with nuggets of wisdom peppered throughout, from both Bate and the cast of superb teachers that he was blessed with. There is also an emotional and heartfelt final chapter, which demonstrates why Bate is an enjoyable writer to spend time with - he is honest and self-aware.

One final gripe that isn't with the writing, but with the book as produced - why on earth is there no index? This is a book I will be diving back into when I read/watch the plays that Bate refers to, but I may end up having to purchase it on Kindle to make it easier to find the relevant sections. A simple index, with names and titles only, would add a great deal to the final product.

[MB Shakespeare · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this is an interesting memoir about the part and power of Shakespeare in Bate's life, the editors could have done a much better job with the book's flow. Other than that, Bate discusses how Shakespeare's works propel and support him through the myriad ups and downs of his life. Particularly interesting, was the chapter on mental illness. Although Bate says that, "Depression killed Sylvia Plat, not Ted Hughes," Hughes' inability to deal with Plath's illness and his infidelity were no help.

This was, for Shakespeare nerd, a wonderful read.

Favorite quotes:

"Therein t he patient Must minister to himself" (WS). "Easier said than done: the very thing about madness in all its forms is that you're not in control of the mind diseased."

"How we feel about a Shakespeare play when we encounter it will usually be affected by - and have an effect upon - the way we are feeling about life."

"Maybe it was because Shakespeare was a nobody that he could become everybody."

"The author of any book that has helped a reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it may be said to have added to the sum of human happiness."

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a Shakespeare nut like myself, this was a delight. Bate combines his knowledge of the Bard's plays [plus that of Johnson, Woolf, etc] with memoirs of his own life and family in a seamless tale that is thus both biographical and critical. From his schooldays in Kent [he spends a long time talking of his A Level work] to his studies at Cambridge and Harvard to his later family life, Bate gives accounts of the productions he saw, the actors he met and the work he undertook. But it is not at all academic, at least only occasionally. He attacks those who can not believe a grammar school boy from provincial town could have written such masterpieces; he powerfully links the lives of people like Mary Lamb, Sylvia Plath and John Clare with not only Shakespeare but his own family tragedies. Poignant anecdotes of his own father's death and, especially, his young daughter's near death all show how Shakespeare wrote of experiences we have in our own lives today.

I recommend this to lovers of Shakespeare and any who are interested in the authenticity of his work and relevance to us all.

[Mr James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some reviewers have noted that this is not a Shakespeare inspired work in the self-help mode - and that's right. It's more like two things: Bate's memoir on how Shakespeare has interwoven the path of his life; and his reflection on how mental disorder has influenced some writers Bate has loved, (Johnson, Woolf, Hughes, Plath) and how Shakespeare presents "madness". For me it was engaging as both, a revisiting of many of the plays, characters and themes in Shakespeare after a little time away, and as a really interesting biographical tale behind a writer and schollar of great renown, two of whose books I've long admired. Accessibly (for the most part) told, and offering a unique take on the allure of Will of Stratford. I really enjoyed it, and would recommend it.

[Alina]

This work was very well-written. I enjoyed hearing more about Sir Bate's life (and that of his family) and his great insights into Shakespeare. Some of the book detailed second-degree connections to Shakespeare (e.g., through Virgina Woolf and Vita Sackville-West), which I enjoyed less than the direct connections. The ending was very moving, although it could have been moving even in lesser hands. I recommend this if you'd like to hear about a well-known Shakespeare scholar and his connections to the Bard. I'd love to read more of his literary criticism.

[Karen Beard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little to esoteric and sophisticated for my novice interest in Shakespeare. However, there are some great nuggets, beautiful vignettes that illustrate the power of the bard to assuage " the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" in our more common lives. I will read again when I have finished my Shakespeare project (reading all of his works in one year!!!

[Neale Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure that this would be worthwhile. I suspected it would be rather self-indulgent, but in the end i really enjoyed it. The chapter on his daughter's illness was powerful, and on the whole this was very interesting and insightful.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not what I expected, but incredibly moving and insightful!
I love shakespeare, this is an absolute must read for any Shakespeare fan!

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a fan of Jonathan Bate's erudite and readable Shakespeare, Soul of the Age and How the Classics Made Shakespeare. Bate's memoir of life with Shakespeare (and a host of other writers) makes a memorable and moving account of what literature can contribute to a life thoughtfully lived.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I throughly enjoyed this book. I had expectations and they were dashed! LOL! But it is a wonderful read!

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love his musings about how he was introduced to Shakespeare and why he is mad about the Bard. An engaging writing style, lots of great information and a fun read.

[Emily Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

took me a while to get into this book but i’m glad i persevered

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed it, but not as much as I enjoyed similar books. I always enjoy books about the books people read and how that literature affects their lives.

[Kacie · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's only one thing I like more than an informative non-fiction and that's am informative non-fiction that's blended with aspects of autobiography. So I obviously ate this the fuck up.

It made me yearn for a good Globe performance or three, which is unfortunate as I am quite literally 1000 miles away from the nearest RSC play currently. Oh. Woe is me.

[Allison Tester · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful exploration of life and Shakespeare and what literature can be.

[Lena Lighthouse · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you only read one book about Shakespeare, let it be Jonathan Bate's "The Genius of Shakespeare", which tells you all about why we're still obsessed with him. So I picked up another of the author's books in Stratford. You can't go wrong with someone who grasps Shakespeare so well, can you? Well, the blurb made me expect a practical reading of Shakespeare, closely tied to the author's memoir. But it's more of a memoir of the author with some added life lessons from Shakespeare. And I'm sorry, I'm not really interested in Bate's school career, love life and personal losses. I did enjoy the inclusion of some other authors' Shakespeare readings (especially Virginia Woolf, of course), and I was very envious of all the great productions he got to see (especially "Macbeth" with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench, of course), but I left with zero new insights. Too bad.

[Vel Veeter]

Part memoir and part celebration of literature, this book is long love letter to not only Shakespeare in general, but the role and influence Shakespeare played in the life of the author, Jonathan Bate, a professor and editor of Shakespeare. Bate narrates the book, and that makes the exuberance all the more engaging, especially the line-readings and storytelling. Bate grew up with a father who was a teacher, and when he went off the school it seems like literature was going to be his direction, but he keeps taking different paths along the way. While this book is ostensibly about Shakespeare, it’s also about those also important books that Bate read or didn’t read which shaped him. It’s also a memoir of Shakespeare’s role in shaping so many other writers later. There’s long sections of Samuel Jonson, who published a supremely important prologue to an edition of Shakespeare. There’s a section of Plath, Ted Hughes, and Robert Lowell. One of the most tender moments comes when Jonathan Bate finds his father’s complete Shakespeare where his father not only annotated the plays, but also listed out all the different performances he’d seen over the years, and to Bate’ surprise this list included some near legendary productions, like one from the 1930s in which Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud traded off portrayals of Romeo and Mercutio.

And like good memoirs of fame, and this is a weird one because of the close-knit London theater world, Jonathan Bate’s connection to actors like Judi Dench, Brian Cox, Ian McKellan, and others means that he had tons of access to that world.

The memoir has the subtitle, “From the classroom to the emergency room” as Bate’s story takes us to a medical emergency in his family, in which Shakespeare’s own thoughts and words on loss matter greatly.