Thinking Through Shakespeare

How Shakespeare’s exploration of central human questions—about identity, politics, religion and right and wrong—explains his lasting power, popularity and relevance

In the eighteenth century, Samuel Johnson famously argued that Shakespeare is enduringly popular because he “is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life.” Johnson’s view largely prevailed until the late twentieth centur...