Introduction

Shakespeare’s grasp of human nature, of greed, ambition, lust, the human psyche, power, and politics are unsurpassed. We see ourselves in his plays. He can be brutally honest in ways we find unnerving. He knows what drives us, what we fear, yearn for, how far we will go, how easily we delude ourselves. He is always modern, his insights always fresh. There is in his works a universal appeal as he speaks to what is noble and base in us all. He, more than any other, saw deep into our psyches to what moved and motivated us. He knew us-knows us-as few others have.