A MUSE OF FIRE
illiam Shakespeare (1564-1616) is universally acclaimed as the English language’s most famous writer and greatest dramatist, authoring 39 plays and 157 poems (overwhelmingly sonnets). England’s acknowledged national poet, even his plays are judged poetry—written in iambic pentameter, principally blank verse, sprinkled with block prose passages. An astute observer of the human condition, Shakespeare’s peerless
