The Age of Shakespeare

Praise

“Frank Kermode is one of the great critics of our time. All his books should be required reading. The Age of Shakespeare is everything one could hope for: scholarly, fascinating, accessible, and, above all, a complete education in itself.”
—Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire

“Drawing on his prevenient critical masterpiece (Shakespeare’s Language) for everything to do with poetry, Kermode efficiently articulates the intricacies of Life, the Age, and the Stage, distributing the plays according to the sequence of theaters the bard so successfully exploited, and disclosing how the poems had to rely on changing patronal conventions. All the essential elements—even a bibliography!—are here, organized with a rare and rewarding elegance.”
—Richard Howard, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

“During a lifetime of study, Frank Kermode has virtually internalized the body of Shakespeare’s work, and lucky for us, he seems fond of externalizing the results in writing whose clarity rivals the depth and breadth of his scholarship. The perfect companion to Shakespeare’s Language, in which the poetry itself came under his sensitive scrutiny, The Age of Shakespeare not only provides a wide-angle view of the social, political, and cultural conditions of the Elizabethan world but also pegs each play to its exact date of composition. Academics and common readers alike have much to learn from Kermode’s illuminating and delectable study.”
—Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate and author of Nine Horses and Sailing Alone Around the Room