Soul of the age

You can learn a lot about Shakespeare by studying the world he inhabitedIN HIS 1997 book, The Genius of Shakespeare, Jonathan Bate wrote about the man whom Ben Jonson, a rival playwright, poet and actor, described as not of the age, but for all time. In his new book, which is being published in America this month (it came out in Britain in October), Mr Bate explores a different Shakespeare, one Jonson described as Soul of the Age!, the man who stood for and expressed the essence of his generation. The effect, curiously, is not to distance the man, but to sharpen him. Approaching him locally, with connections to specific places and people, with certain books on his desk, and an eye out for particular political and diplomatic pitfallsall this brings Shakespeare into focus. Not that any biographer has much hard fact to work on. As Mr Bate says, Shakespeare is elusive in every way: in his politics, religion, sexuality and in everything else that matters. The trick, it seems, is to pay very close attention to what evidence there is, not to take anything for granted and, well, to know a great deal about his world. ...