Jonathan Bate on the genius of Shakespeare

Roundtable — our destination for online learning — is celebrating its third anniversary on Wednesday, June 25 with a special daylong event: A Day of Icons, which gathers five renowned experts as they explore the concept of genius and the makings of five cultural, intellectual, artistic icons — from Shakespeare to Gene Kelly.

Ahead of A Day of Icons, one of these experts — celebrated literary scholar Jonathan Bate — sat down with us to talk about his lecture on the genius of Shakespeare, the mysterious allure of poetic language, what drew him to a life devoted to studying literature, and more.

You’ll be joining us as part of Roundtable’s Day of Icons, a daylong gathering exploring the concept of genius. But what do we mean by genius? And how does it apply to Shakespeare?

That’s such a great question. It’s been a huge part of my work on Shakespeare. Thirty years ago, I was asked to write a book about Shakespeare — rather than just write another biography of him, I wanted to explore why exactly we think of Shakespeare as a genius. I ended up calling this book The Genius of Shakespeare. The fascinating thing that I discovered in my research for the book was that our modern understanding of the concept of genius really only emerged in the 1700s, primarily in reference to Shakespeare.

Let me explain. The original idea of genius comes from Latin, in reference to the spirit of something, or someone — a particular aura or characteristic of an ordinary person. Over the course of the 1700s, people began to be interested in extraordinary figures who represent greatness, and the word “genius” changed, referring more to an intellectual or spiritual characteristic of an extraordinary person. The person who was used as an example of that, again and again, was Shakespeare. Today, when we think of genius, we think of someone who is uniquely amazing at the thing they do — Mozart in music, Einstein in science, and Shakespeare in the literary arts. We imagine it as an almost divine force — one that comes not just from learning, but that is magically born with this special person, a person who is uniquely in tune with the nature of humanity and the world.

John Keats famously coined the phrase “Negative Capability” to describe Shakespeare’s particular gifts. What did he mean by that?

After this idea of genius emerged in the 1700s, it flourished in the Romantic era of the arts — the late 1700s and early 1800s — across Europe and into America. People started thinking of art in this era as a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” as the poet William Wordsworth described poetry. Shakespeare’s writing was regarded as a prime example of this. Keats, like all the Romantic poets, revered Shakespeare — he regarded him as the greatest of all. What Keats meant by Negative Capability was the ability to hold every possible position in mind without forcing the reader into one point of view. He contrasted Shakespeare with other authors who tried to impose a viewpoint upon you — Negative Capability, he says, is the ability to remain in doubt and uncertainty. That is one of the characteristics of great art — it opens possibilities for you without telling you what to think. Keats was very influenced by a very fine critic of his era named William Hazlitt. He attended Hazlitt’s lectures on Shakespeare, and there Hazlitt said that Shakespeare is the least of an egotist that it was possible to be — Shakespeare, Hazlitt said, was a chameleon. He took as much delight in conceiving a character like Imogen, one of his beautiful and virtuous heroines, as an evil villain like Iago. Shakespeare throws himself into all his characters equally. The genius is in allowing the audience to decide.

Many Shakespeare lovers remember the moment they were first marked by him. What initially drew you to his work? Which play, sonnet, or lines first pulled you in?

The first Shakespeare I remember seeing was on a school trip. It was Julius Caeser — I was bored out of my mind! I was probably a little too young. I tell kids now to start with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A bit later, when I was about 15, I was very interested in acting, and we did a stripped-down version of Macbeth. The language absolutely hooked me. To this day, I have speeches from that play that run through my mind. Of all of his tragedies, it’s the fastest and the darkest, with this incredible poetry to it.

You’ve devoted your career to elucidating the mysteries of great poets for other readers — not only Shakespeare, but also Wordsworth, John Clare, and Ted Hughes. Why did you choose to spend your life thinking about poetry and sharing it with others?

From high school on, the language of poetry got under my skin. I love language, and poetry is language at its best. And I’ve always liked being a teacher — it means conveying to other people the visceral joy that you can get from the language of poetry. Another of my favorite poets, A.E. Housman, says in an essay that you can identify great poetry not intellectually, but physically — the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. That’s the effect that poets like Wordsworth, Clare, Ted Hughes, and Shakespeare have on me.

What do you hope those who attend your lecture will take with them?

An openness to language that can seem challenging at first glance — but if you take the time to listen and absorb yourself in that language, it can bring you a real sense of joy. It provides not only an escape from our difficult, divided, contentious world, but a sense of going back through history to understand that some of the core things about being human are best expressed through the language of poetry.

Join Jonathan Bate at Roundtable’s Day of Icons live, online, on Wed, Jun 25. Sign up today.