A C Grayling
Passion & Possibility
Shakespeare the Thinker
By A D Nuttall
Yale University Press 428pp £19.99 order from our bookshop
Shakespeare Revealed: A Biography
By René Weis
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.
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