A Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2020‘Radical Wordsworth deserves to take its place as the finest modern introduction to his work, life and impact’ Financial Times‘Richly repays reading … It is hard to think of another poet who has changed our world so much’ Sunday TimesA dazzling new biography of Wordsworth’s radical life as a thinker and poetical innovator, published to mark the 250th anniversary of h...

‘What distinguished Clare is an unspectacular joy and a love for the inexorable one-thing-after-anotherness of the world’ Seamus HeaneyJohn Clare (1793-1864) was a great Romantic poet, with a name to rival that of Blake, Byron, Wordsworth or Shelley – and a life to match. The ‘poet’s poet’, he has a place in the national pantheon and, more tangibly, a plaque in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner, unveiled in 1989.Here at last is Clare’s full story, from his ...

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2015 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZEA magisterial life of Ted Hughes – identified recently as the only English poet since the First World War with a claim to true greatness and one of Britain’s most important writers – to be published on National Poetry Day by prize-winning biographer Jonathan Bate.Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate, was one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. He is one of Britain’s most important poets, a poet of claws and cages: Jaguar, Hawk ...

'Fascinating in its literary focus and magisterial in its sweep, The Garden is a must-have book' SUE STUART SMITHFrom the Garden of Eden to Gethsemane, from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the pleasure gardens of Versailles, from the Zen gardens of Kyoto to the landscapes of Capability Brown and New York's High Line, the garden has always been far more than somewhere to grow things. It is where humanity has worked out its relationship with the na...

Sweeping across two millennia and every literary genre, acclaimed scholar and biographer Jonathan Bate provides a dazzling introduction to English Literature. The focus is wide, shifting from the birth of the novel and the brilliance of English comedy to the deep Englishness of landscape poetry and the ethnic diversity of Britain's Nobel literature laureates. It goes on to provide a more in-depth analysis, with close readings from an extraordinary scene in King Lear to a war poem by Carol ...

A Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2020‘Radical Wordsworth deserves to take its place as the finest modern introduction to his work, life and impact’ Financial Times‘Richly repays reading … It is hard to think of another poet who has changed our world so much’ Sunday TimesA dazzling new biography of Wordsworth’s radical life as a thinker and poetical innovator, published to mark the 250th anniversary of h...

'Fascinating in its literary focus and magisterial in its sweep, The Garden is a must-have book' SUE STUART SMITHFrom the Garden of Eden to Gethsemane, from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the pleasure gardens of Versailles, from the Zen gardens of Kyoto to the landscapes of Capability Brown and New York's High Line, the garden has always been far more than somewhere to grow things. It is where humanity has worked out its relationship with the na...

First published in 1991, Romantic Ecology reassesses the poetry of William Wordsworth in the context of the abiding pastoral tradition in English Literature. Jonathan Bate explores the politics of poetry and argues that contrary to critics who suggest that the Wordsworth was a reactionary who failed to represent the harsh economic reality of his native Lake District, the poet’s politics were fundamentally ‘green’. As our first truly ecological poet, Wordsworth articulated a powerf...

Sir Jonathan Bate examines eight iconic poems inspired by great historical events - and explores the Romantics, John Clare and William Wordsworth'Mingles history and poetry ... in an accessible, thought-provoking way' Irish TimesIn this BBC Radio 4 series, eminent biographer and broadcaster Sir Jonathan Bate looks at major historical events through the poems they inspired, exploring how history influences poetry, and how poetry sha...

Can you be re-lit by poetry? This little book offers everyone one of the oldest of all remedies for stress: the reading of poetry.Intended to help you endure some of your stressful moments and painful experiences, these poems tell us we are not alone. Returned again and again over the centuries by great imaginations are love and death and memory – remembrance of childhood joy, of happy days and beautiful places, of loved ones we have lost or feeling at peace and at...

"The text of any Shakespeare play is a living negotiable entity: scholarship and theatre practice work together to keep the plays alive and vividly present." – Greg Doran, RSC Artistic Director EmeritusDeveloped in partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company, this Complete Works of William Shakespeare combines exemplary textual scholarship with beautiful design. Curated by expert editors Sir Jonathan Bate and Professor Eric Rasmussen, the text in this collection...

113 brand new poems. Responding to 113 songs by Taylor Swift.Can you match every poem to the song that inspired it?✨☎️️'If you like Taylor Swift easter eggs, this is the book for you... so much fun!'⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'If you're a fan of Swift's music, you'll find yourself enchanted by this collection'⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'Poetry meets pop brilliance... a must-read for Swifties and poetry enthusiast...