A C Grayling

Passion & Possibility

Shakespeare the Thinker

By

Yale University Press 428pp £19.99 order from our bookshop

Shakespeare Revealed: A Biography

By

John Murray 444pp £25 order from our bookshop

It is often enough observed how mysterious is the phenomenon of genius, even if we no longer think the word denotes a creature who sits on poets’ shoulders and whispers messages from the Muses into their ears. It is one thing to accept that some people can be stunningly inventive and clever, another to fathom the nature of the gifts that make them so. But in the case of Shakespeare, familiarly, all resources fail: here was an individual whose capacities and achievement literally transcend explanation. 

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'Half-way through The Conquest of Water I felt as if I had been subjected to the literary equivalent of excessive c… ,
    • 'Volume five, then, but still no end in sight. Sandbrook is clearly enjoying himself so much he can’t bear the seri… ,
    • 'By the end of the book something so weighty, stylish and impressive has been built up that one feels far nearer to… ,
    • 'Her ensuing psychotic episode is described so convincingly ... that the reader will wonder if Dobrakovová did not… ,
    • 'The perspectives complement and contest one another, amounting to a glorious, atmospheric set of ventriloquisms.'… ,
    • RT : I reviewed The Testaments for . I will not be taking any questions at this time. ,
    • 'The Testaments is, first and foremost, a manual of resistance ... a type of resistance that is organised, articula… ,
    Follow Us