From one of our most eminent and accessible literary critics, a
groundbreaking account of how the Greek and Roman classics forged
Shakespeare's imagination
Ben Jonson famously accused Shakespeare of having "small Latin and less
Greek." But he was exaggerating. Shakespeare was steeped in the
classics. Shaped by his grammar school education in Roman literature,
history, and rhetoric, he moved to London, a city that modeled itself on
ancient Rome. He worked in a theatrical profession that had inherited
the conventions and forms of classical drama, and he read deeply in
Ovid, Virgil, and Seneca. In a book that combines stylistic brilliance,
accessibility, and extraordinary range, acclaimed literary critic and
biographer Jonathan Bate, one of the world's leading authorities on
Shakespeare, offers groundbreaking insights into how, perhaps more than
any other influence, the classics made Shakespeare the writer he became.