Sir Jonathan Bate

Twitter asks "What's happening?" I ask "What happened while the evil bot had control of my twitter?" Answer: my book came out in paperback with new cover and sub-title.

@TedIacobuzio Because people were slagging it off on this platform! To respond to that was the commission. I wrote about how V Woolf attacked it at the time.

@profbate Why on earth does it need a "defense"? Oh, I know plenty of people don't like it, from sci fi writers to romance addicts. But it's still there.

Enjoyed writing this. Paywall. Alas. newstatesman.com/culture/books/…

@stevenpoole Quite so. The alas was regret at it not being one of those free taster pieces that encourages people to subscribe - that’s a model I like.

ah yes, alas that they have a "paywall" that enables them in turn to pay normal writers

@EdwardQuine Byron loved a bit of vulgarity—comes of being a Lord!

@profbate The em-dash—the most vulgar of all punctuation marks.

Excellent post. Like Lord Byron, I’ve always had exceptional fondness for the em dash. Leave the em-dash alone - by Colin Gorrie deadlanguagesociety.com/p/em-dash-ai-w…

I like that 3 of the Italian rugby players appear to be called cannelloni, biscotti and limoncello.

I’ve written about young John Milton on my substack. open.substack.com/pub/jonathanba…

I’ve updated my old London Times essay about the poetry of @taylorswift13 & posted it on my substack- jonathanbate.substack.com

I’ve written on my Substack about @emeraldfennell #WutheringHeights. Loved it! Thoughts (and #Plath / #TedHughes connections) here: jonathanbate.substack.com/p/wuthering-he…

@wmarybeard @BBCr4today But to be fair the remit (at least so I was told) was “the book that ignited or reignited your love of reading” - & for most, that is fiction (I chose Sherlock Holmes because it kept me reading at age 13 when so many boys stop reading for pleasure).

Radio 4 PM suggesting that podcasts are connected to “decline” of non fiction sales. Maybe. But might also help if @BBCr4today ‘s series on “love of reading” wasn’t overwhelmingly (not entirely but mostly) focussed on fiction!

@DAMendelsohnNYC @the_book_land And Lope de Vega over 400!

@the_book_land Please. Sophocles wrote over 120 tragedies, Aeschylus at least 70, Euripides 92. Shakespeare’s output doesn’t reach their knees.

How can one man have written all of this?... The answer to that will forever be beyond my own attempts at human reason. And I don't say this as one subscribing to any silly 'collaborative authorship' theory - but as a reader in joyful wonder at such a marvellous achievement.

@JamesLear99 @ttroughton But not so much in the revised Folio text - a future Substack coming on that

@ttroughton @profbate To be fair, Hamlet was a bit of a ditherer...

I’m starting a Substack - on all matters literary, especially Shakespearean. First post debunks the idea of the Aristotelian “tragic flaw”. And there will in due course be something quite experimental there … please subscribe - totally free. Jonathanbate.substack.com

@nguyenhdi Maybe a few of Horace’s poems

@profbate Nice! Unrelated: I've been reading "Metamorphoses". I've also read Homer & the Greek playwrights & Seneca. What else do I need to read before reading your book on Shakespeare & the classics?

Golly. From the excellent substack of @j_amesmarriott

@JaneSaunte Statesman piece was on representations of WS, Times on historical accuracy

@profbate @profbate I read your article in the New Statesman. Does this say much the same? (paywall). Won't be going to see the film.I found the book "Hamnet" overhyped and boring. For a fictional W Sh, I enjoyed Jodi Picoult "By Any Other Name" and Jude Morgan "The Secret Life of Wm Sh."

How accurate is Hamnet? The Shakespeare scholar’s verdict. Paywall maybe. thetimes.com/article/2c988e…

@Damansara_Keith @ASU “Bit blind” - typo

@Damansara_Keith @ASU Good question, which a student asked. I’d say that’s no different from using Word spellcheck. But it’s tricky now Grammarly goes beyond spell/grammar into style/rewrite. We’re all flying a big blind these days!

Very impressed by ways in which my @ASU students are dealing with my new rubric regarding use of AI.

Especially the student who wrote “I am an artist and abhor AI. Even if I write terribly, I’d rather it be my own writing. Any research found was taken from JSTOR.”