Shakespeare's Work | Thinking About Shakespeare's Thought
None of us has met William Shakespeare, but often we think we know him so well that personal acquaintance seems superfluous. We think we know, for instance, that Shakespeare believed that lilies festering smell far worse than weeds. And we feel that Polonius speaks for the author of Hamlet with his sage advice: "To thine own self be true." And we are inclined to believe that for Shakespeare, as well as for Hamlet, "to be, or not to be" was indeed the question.
These sentiments seem universal and true because they happen to be our own favorites—the thoughts from Shakespeare that...
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