Biography Essay

"He was not of an age, but for all time." So wrote Ben Jonson in his dedicatory verses to the memory of William Shakespeare in 1623, and so we continue to affirm today. No other writer, in English or in any other language, can rival the appeal that Shakespeare has long enjoyed. And no one else in any artistic endeavor has projected a cultural influence as broad or as deep.

Shakespeare's words and phrases have become so familiar to us that it is sometimes with a start that we realize we have been speaking Shakespeare when we utter a cliche such as "one fell swoop" or "not a mouse stirring." Never mind that many of the expressions we hear most often— "to the manner born" or (from the same speech in Hamlet) "more honored in the breach than the observance"—are misapplied at least as...