Garden

Sir Jonathan Bate is the author of twenty books, including biographies, all of which won prizes, of English literature’s three great poets of nature: William Wordsworth, Ted Hughes and John Clare. Foundation Professor of Environmental Humanities at Arizona State University and a Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University, where he was formerly Provost of Worcester College, he is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading Shakespeare scholars as well as a pioneer of ecological approaches to literature and culture. The citation for his knighthood described him as ‘truly a Renaissance man'. He has a reading knowledge of ancient Greek, Latin, Italian, French and German, but will ensure that colleagues with relevant expertise check his treatment of Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese and Hispanic sources. He is a keen gardener himself.

PRAISE FOR BRIGHT STAR, GREEN LIGHT: ‘Keats is unmissably present throughout Fitzgerald’s work … [Bate] borrows a classic form to pay tribute to the broadest, extratemporal similarities between Keats and … Fitzgerald’ Sunday Times ‘Keats was Fitzgerald’s guiding star … An energetic and highly engaging game of literary ping-pong across the ages. Life, writing and inspiration are served and returned in a rapid rally of ideas … What an immensely charismatic pair they are … Powerful … Go now, read this book’ Laura Freeman, The Times ‘A daring, dizzying attempt to connect Keats and F Scott Fitzgerald has plenty to take pleasure in … Bate, whose recent biography of Wordsworth I admired, is at his best when he zeroes in on the work: his feeling for it, by being so exacting, is infectious, especially in the case of Keats … But in the end, the principal achievement of this pairing is to remind us of the way that literature connects us’ Rachel Cooke, Observer ‘Admirable … lively and well researched … Bate’s book is certainly an excellent introduction to each writer … satisfying, engaging and accessible … well designed to make us return tothe work of both Keats and his ‘Keatzian’ devotee’ New Statesman ‘Bate tells the tales of these accursed creatures frightfully well’ Daily Mail ‘With a fine-tuned ear for poetic language, a master-biographer’s eye for the revealing detail, and an astonishing mental filing system that recognizes countless meaningful matches among the works and lives of these two great, doomed writers, Jonathan Bate has written a wonderfully illuminating and moving book’ Robert Watson, Distinguished Professor of English, UCLA