Daniel Swift

A man for all ages

Jonathan Bate gives us Shakespeare the pagan — a devotee of the classics, writing for a post-Reformation England planning its own ‘neo-Roman’ empire

issue 27 April 2019

  • How the Classics Made Shakespeare

    Jonathan Bate

    Princeton, pp. 224

  • This is Shakespeare

    Emma Smith

    Pelican, pp. 349

GIF Image

Disagree with half of it, enjoy reading all of it

TRY 3 MONTHS FOR $5
Our magazine articles are for subscribers only. Start your 3-month trial today for just $5 and subscribe to more than one view

Read next

Trending

Damian Thompson

The extraordinary scale of the crisis facing the next pope

From the magazine
At 9.47 a.m. on Easter Monday we heard the words ‘con profondo dolore’ from a cardinal standing in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta. Two hours earlier, Pope Francis ‘è tornato alla casa del Padre’ – ‘had returned to the house of the Father’. Most people won’t have noticed a curious detail: the cardinal

More on essays

Also by Daniel Swift

Latest

Comments

Join the debate for just £1 a month

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.

Already a subscriber? Log in