In Conversation with Sir Jonathan Bate

Shakespeare scholar and author of Mad About Shakespeare, Bate takes us from classroom, to theatre, to emergency room. Whether you're falling in love, growing old, or losing your mind, if you are patient enough, Shakespeare will give you the words.

Jonathan Bate is a Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University, where he was formerly Provost of Worcester College, and Regents Professor of Literature at Arizona State University. He is well known as a biographer, critic, creative writer and broadcaster, and has authored award-winning biographies of William Wordsworth, John Clare and Ted Hughes, as well as many works on Shakespeare. He has a CBE for services to higher education and was knighted for services to literary scholarship.

Shakespeare’s world is never too different from our own – permeated with the same moments of tragedy or comedy, the same existential questions and ways of encountering each other. As he says, ‘the web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together’. So, whether dealing with the death of a loved one, the mess of war, the experience of being schooled, or falling in love, of growing old, of losing your mind, if you are patient enough, Shakespeare will give you the words.