Bard Versus Bard

In the four centuries since its first appearance, the body of work called “the plays of Shakespeare” has been elevated to the status of a kind of secular scripture that has significantly influenced the way that English-speaking and, increasingly, worldwide culture understands what might be called, rather breathtakingly, “the meaning of life.” Taken together, the plays offer a panoramic portrayal of human nature, the sources and varieties of human impulse and action, the heights and depths of nobility and depravity, and the possibilities, in this life at least, of redemption and perdition.

This is not to claim for it the status of actual Scripture. Few people, as far as we know, rear their children as practising Shakespearians, allow themselves to kill or accept martyrdom in His name, or propose that civil law should be founded on a selection of His precepts—although one might do worse! Dr. Johnson complained that no coherent system of morality could be found in the...