I've had a few more thoughts on Frank Kermode's The Age of Shakespeare (2004), which I mentioned again yesterday. What's been on my mind is the fact that Kermode wrote, both in this book and in Shakespeare's Language (2000), of how he is an admirer of Shakespeare, like Ben Jonson, "this side idolatry". First off, I'm pretty sure that it is this phrase which has led to the punning description of Shakespeare worshipers as "bardolaters", amongst which, you may have noticed, you'll find me.

In Kermode's case, it seems as if the phrase affects very strongly the tone of the entire book (which I would certainly continue to recommend, by the way) because he seems to be always looking for ways to keep Shakespeare on the earth, but without going so far as to diminish his achievements. It's an engaging perspective for the most part, level-headed and learned, but occasionally we read a statement such as the following one, in regard to George Chapman, a poet mostly remembered for his translation of Homer (largely because of Keats' poem): "Chapman was an intellectual in a sense that probably excludes Shakespeare; like the aristocratic poet Fulke Grenville, friend and biographer of Sidney, he had a deep interest in the revived philosophy of Stoicism". At which point, I have to put the book down and say: "Sorry. No way. I don't care if Chapman had a deep interest in everything. There is no sense of the word 'intellectual' that excludes Shakespeare." And so the question remains: What is the proper stance for a writer to take vis a vis Shakespeare?