It doesnt mean you can make any racist deductions from that. The idea of racism is one race is superior to another. Rose we conclude with a look at the life and work of the Pulitzer Prizewinning film critic, roger ebert. Theres a new documentary called life itself. The director, stephen james, a. O. Scott, joins us to talk about his fellow critic, and also rogers widow, chaz ebert. He was a man who wanted to engender those feelings of empathy for other people. I mean, i think its wonderful for someone who has the curiosity to know to know get into your head and see what its like to be a person of a different race, of a different age, a different nationality, a different gender. Un, thats a person who has the kind of curiosity that makes this world a better place. He took movies to be an ethical and a democratic art form. That is, that they had a responsibility. If they have that power to take you into other peoples lives and to make you feel what other people are feeling and to make you care about what happens next, then they have a responsibility to do it honestly and to do it humanely. And i think that he held movies to that standard. Rose Stephen Greenblatt, Nicholas Wade, chaz ebert, steve james, and a. O. Scott. When we continue. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following theres a saying around here you stand behind what you say. Around here, we dont make excuses, we make commitments. And when you cant live up to them, you own up and make it right. Some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where its needed most. But i know youll still find it, when you know where to look. Rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg. A provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose Stephen Greenblatt is here. His biography of the bard, will and the world, topped the New York Times bestseller list for nine weeks. His latest public is shakespeares montaigne. I am pleased to have Stephen Greenblatt back at this table. Welcome. Nice to be here. Charlie. Rose why did you write this . This is an edition the central part of this book is an edition of a particular translation of montaigne that lets you look over shakespeares shoulder as he was reading montaigne. The greatest french writer and the greatest English Writer of the renaissance encountered each other. Shakespeare read montaigne in this translation. Rose but they never met. No, never met, and we can be absolutely sure montaigne never heard of shakespeare, but this is a magical its a wonderful translation, and its a magical opportunity that a colleague of mine, peter platt, and i sought to put together once again these ezas, these translations of montaigne. Jon florio was an interesting character. He was the son of a protestant actually, began his life as a franciscan, italian franciscan. But he abandoned the church, became a protestant, fled to england, and had a son, john florio, in england, and after a series of complicated moves in his life, the son went to oxford, and became a major figure in translation and not only for montaigne but also for italian texts, and italian sources. So shakespeare probably knew this man. May not have liked him. Its hard to say, florio, but it was through florio that not only shakespeare but virtually everyone in shakespeares time in england read montaigne. Rose nice said shake spefers montaignes best reader. Well, extravagant thing to say, but he was certainly a passionate reader of montaigne. And a there was some connection between them, a surprising connection, because, after all, theyre also profoundly different, not only france and england, but an aristocrat, french aristocrat, and middleclass english playwright arent automatically soul mates. Rose one is a more commercial sense than the other. Much more commercial. Had to make a living montaigne didnt have to make a living. He was a very wealthy man. He was active in politics until he retired at 38 to write his essays. But they did meet shakespeare met montaigne at a deep level, and nice to that extent is right. They shared skepticism. They shared a wariness about religious orthodoxy, about hypocrisy. They shared a deep sense of what the human predicament was, what it meant to face the serious issues of life and death. Rose tell us more about montaigne. Montaigne was a remarkable man. The son of a man who was already wealthy. His greatgrandfather had made the family money in the wine trade. Befit someone from bordeaux. Montaigne was the third son. So wasnt in line to inherit either the title or the wealth, but his older two brothers died young, and montaigne found himself in this peculiar position of inheriting the toys inherit the family title, aristocratic title, and estate, chateau. He himself was involved intensely in an incredibly difficult time in france. France absolutely falling apart. It was in its how shall woe say iraq moment of bitter, murderous hatred between the prot stance and the catholics. Montaigne was a catholic, but wanted to mediate, wanted to keep the peace, was a friend of very important people in power on both catholic and protestant sides and tried his best to do something to quiet the bitterness in the country. Rose and you first started to read montaigne when . I came across montaigne when i was 20. In the fact of this translation. In england. I saw the translation because it was bound in a very Beautiful College a college i was in had it had a very beautiful binding that caught my attention, and i got hooked. I got hooked because as anyone who loves montaigne knows, he speaks directly to you and shows you everything about himself. He doesnt hold anything back. Rose someone said he teaches you how to live. He does teach you how to live. Or he teaches you how in any case how to live. He doesnt preach to you but he shows what you he dwhat he grappled with. He feels like hes in the room with you. Rose how pervasive is his influence . His influence is is intermittent in england, but very powerfully influenced francis bacon, thomas brown, other people in the 17th century, all through the 18th century. But in effect, montaignes influence extends beyond anything literary. Montaigne invented for the modern world what its to be ought on biographically frank, what it is rose it has everything, inconsistencies what he likes, dislikes, whether he likes cantaloupe or not what, sex feels like for him. What he thinks about death, what he worries about, doesnt worry about. Hes completely, as far as he could he said hed like to go all the way. Hed like to portray himself naked but hes not allowed. He goes as far as he can. Rose why was he that way . Its hard to say, charlie. It certainly helps rose remind me of some journalist i know. Well, the funny thing about if is for a man who is in some sense willing to show everything, he also i think he wanted to he had the incredible idea, which gradually ghepped him, that he could reproduce himself, as it were, cloneally reproduce himself, make himself into a book, that he would survive death by being completely here in these words and these pages. I think that he dreamt that he would actually survive his disappearance. Rose through his words. Through these words. And he came as close as i think any human being has ever come to being actually, physically, in these little marks on the page. Rose you feel like hes there. Hes there. Rose hes there. And thats the opposite of shakespeare, actually, in a curious way. The opposite strategy. Shakespeare was also worried about survival and was interested in survival through words. But shakespeare is the opposite type. Shakespeare we know almost nothing about shakespeare, despite the fact i wrote a biography about him. Hes very hidden. He conceals himself. Hes not out there. And yet he did in a different way find a way of transforming self into his characters, other people rose montaigne helped him bring his characters alive. Montaigne enabled shakespeare to figure out what it would sound ke to be authentically who you are, but it is a completely different strategy. I think montaigne i think shakespeare used montaigne, for example, in trying to create hamlet, the character who is the most out there of all of shakespeares characters, the most present. But its, of course, not shake peer poopts a character called hamlet, a danish prince, but i think shakespeare used montaigne to do it. Rose and how do you prove that . Well, its hard tore prove it in the case of hamlet. I mean, there are hints, things you could take to be finger prints, but people shake spernz are always trying to prove things that are a little implausible. In the case of montaigne, there are at least two moments in which the finger prints are very clear. Rose king lear is one. King lear is one. In which shakespeare was clearly reading two essays by montaigne. An essay about old age and the relationship of parents with their children. In the essay, a remarkable essay both startling essays by montaigne a remarkable essay on the relationship of parents to children. Montaigne said if a parent is young and vigorous, its okay to hold on. But when a parent grows old, when a father begins to decline, and the son has come of age, the father should give basically everything to the son, and reserve for himself just a little bit, enough to go on, but should not hold on and hold on and hold on, because holding on will will spoil the chances of the young to have a career. Parents should give it away to their children. This was, of course, before universities invented tuition. But in the concern in montaignes world is what it means to hold on. And you should give it up. And shakespeare quotes those words, but he gives the quotation, in effect, to the villain of the play, and a villain who says, i hope this is not just an essay, he says. Rose alugd to the title of montaignes words. So one of the things thats fascinating there about that particular moment is that i think that shakespeare must have regarded montaigne as exceptionally naive about parents chance of getting it back if things go wrong. But maybe its the result of being middle class and not an aristocrat. Rose and you can also prove that montaigne influenced shakespeare in the tempest. Thats another place where theres very clearly a clear fingerprint, unmistakable pinge fingerprint. He gives the quotation to a very charming, sweet, lovable, but actually quite naive aristocrat who doesnt really understand anything about the natives. He gives from montaignes great essay on the cannibals, great essay of the encounter of the old world and the new. He gives basically lines describe, ecstatically how wonderful america was, how wonderful the new world is, and what shakespeare does is to give those lines to a character and play that has the character who is in effect an anagram for cannibal caliban, who was anything but wonderful, who was the botched, drunken, murderous again, you can watch shakespeare take someone he loved, someone he was influenced by but actually turn it in a peculiar direction. Rose shakespeares bowoing of is an act, not of homage, but aggression. If youre going to swallow something, charlie, even something you love uhave to chew it up and break it down before you can swallow it. And i think that the aggression is a peculiar form. Its real aggression wurkt its also oddly loving. It is even babies bite the nip theyll they suck on. And i think shakespeare loved montaigne, and i think he also wanted to tear montaigne in pieces. And i think thats true rose was it simply a mindtomind thing, or was there some jealousy on shakespeares part . Jealousy, perhaps not, but a very strong sense of here i am, a middle class fellow from stratford, from a provincial town, who is trying to make his way in london, and i have to stain myself by performing in public in the way that i do. Here is this aristocrat in a chateau, in a tower, who is communing with the ancients, and who is brilliant, and who is deep, but this is not me. This is not who i am. So i think its the meeting of two very different sensibilities. Rose there are some fundamental similarities. Deep similarities, deep ways in which they saw eye to eye. I think especially in a way the belief in the power of the everyday, the importance of living in the everyday, of understanding that, thats what you have, not dreams rose how is that present in shakespeare . Its present in thousands of rose of characters . Of tiny touches in shakespeare as well as some grand touches, but its present in the sense that in the grandest sense, in a play like romeo and juliette that you dont have another world to look forward to. You have this world right now. This is it. Theres nothing beyond this world. But its also present in the innumerable ways in shakespeare nwhich characters are touched by the ordinariness of life, of what it means when hal takes stuff out of fallsafs pockets and finds candy and receipts and the triceus of the everyday, the idea that shakespeare had of what it means to live an ordinary life in the midstoof extraordinary events. Both were skilled at seizing anything that came their way in the course of wide ranging reading or observation. Both pried the illumination of perception or a systematic thought. Both were supremely adaptable and variable. Both perceived and embraced the oscillations and contradictions within individuals, equivocations, iron mes and discontinuities, even in those who claimed to be singleminded and single hearted. Well said, sir. Thank you. Theyre both spectacular mag pies, but theres a huge difference in one respect between them art least in these regards. Sharing these things, shakespeare believed in the power of stories. Montaigne believes in the experiment of just laying out, without story, without narrative, without just what is passing through him. Rose so basically, he said i dont need a play. I dont need a play. I dont need a story. Rose tell you what life means to me and, therefore, you will understand what i think about the world. And shakespeare says ill write a play and youll understand what i see about the world. I will create characters. I will make a story. I will craft rose all the contradictions of life through the conflicts between my characters. Exactly. Rose do you admire one more than the other . I admire montaigne perhaps more than any writer ive ever encountered. Rose thats hes an asoonishing human being. More than any other writer ive encountered. Hes an astonishing human being and a decent human being. But i think shakespeares sense that montaigne has an inadequately developed sense of evil puts the finger at something thats in shakespeare thats not very, at least visible, in montaigne. Montaigne knew that there was evil. He lived in evil times. But he didnt grapple in the way that shakespeare grappled with the most terrifying aspects of the human condition. Rose what do you want to know about shakespeare you dont know . One would like to know everything about shakespeare because in fact at this point, we know certainly as a person, we know very, very little rose was he a performer at the theater . He was, he was. But we dont know adequately what he performed in. There are certain tiny hints, but posthumous hints that he played adam, the old servant in as you like it. That he played the ghost in hamlet, but we dont know. It seems he pulled back from performing later in his life, probably to concentrate on his writing. We dont know in his room quietly what he thought about people in power. Or about the religious claims rose was he primarily interested in a literary reputation or filling the theater or making money . I think he didnt believe they were alternative visions. I think he thought making money which he was very interested in was bound up with what his longterm life afterlife would be. I think earlier this his life he thought that poetry probably lyric poetry would probably carry him forward, and he wasnt famous. He was quite famous in his own time as a great lyric poet. But i think as he developed as a playwright, he understood that his longterm prospects would be in the commercial theater, and that there was no gap, no division between doing well in the commercial theater and having the life thats led to this conversation 400 years later. Rose the book is called shakespeares montaigne the florio translations of the essays, a selection. Am thank you. Thank you for having me, charlie. Rose pleasure to see you. Nicholas wade is here. He was a science reporter and editor at the New York Times for more than two decades. His new book a troublesome inheritance rejects the consensus view that race is a cultural notion without biological merit. Charles merrick, coauthor of the bell curve, said the book will trigger an intellectual explosion the likes of which we havent seen for a few decades. I am pleased to have Nicholas Wade back at this table. Welcome. Thank you. Rose has it triggered an intellectual explosion . Well, things are certainly fermenting rather heavily. I knew it would be a controversial book. There have been some negative reviews but there have been more positive reviews than i expected. And so i think the book if its successful it will lead to a change in attitude on many major issues, whether theres any explanatory role for evolution in our presentday societies. Rose do you understand when some people believe its a racist argument . No, i adamantly reject the idea that this is a racist argument. I think race clearly does have a biological basis, but that doesnt mean that you can make an bracist deductions from that. I mean, the central idea of racism is that one race is spewer yore to another, and inherently superior, you cant draw that from the genome or the fact that theres a biological basis for race. Rose what is your argument in a troublesome inheritance . Im basically trying to interpret the major find being have from the human genome, which is we can see Human Evolution has been very recent, very extensive, and its been regional. So its been regional because the populations on each continent innocent have adapted to different local circumstances and this reflects the fact that we have not one evolutionary history but five, according to the five major races. Q. Is this some n some way athel inequality . I think to some extent it does explain why some societies are more successful than others. Though i should hasten to say that im not denying the vast importance of culture. Im just saying there is a genetic element in our social behavior, and this may underlie the fact that societies differ from each glrg so if you look at rose so if you look at south korea, to take one example, which has had a kind of more than economic miracle. Is that an argument to be made for something . Well, i think an actual experiment between north korea and south korea, so its both exactly the same people and yet one country is poor and the other is not. So, clearly, you cant it doesnt help you th