Shakespeare and Myths About Genius

[Aristus]

11. Exactly. Shakespeare's true gift was his knack for beautiful prose and poetry.

Thank you for your superb analysis of Shakespeare. I enjoyed reading it, even though I half-expected before the end an anti-Shakespearean accusation that he didn’t write the plays.

My knuckles are bruised and bleeding from having to duke it out with smug, semi-literate conspiracy nutcakes who insist that he didn’t write the plays, which were instead written by some highly-implausible, and sometimes imaginary, alternative candidate.

Shakespeare’s knowledge was not unassailable, and he made mistakes in matters of geography (he located Milan on the coast of Italy, for example) and other subjects. But we remember him and still perform his plays because they are works of literary genius.

I disagree with the OP that Shakespeare was used to further English cultural imperialism. Use of vernacular English began to grow during the reigns of Henry VII, and his son Henry VIII, long before Shakespeare was even born.