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May 11, 2004
All's Well . . .
For years scholars passionately debated the authorship of the works attributed to William Shakespeare. This preoccupation with identities was hard to fathom, and has now been largely laid to rest based on better scholarship and new evidence. Would the value of Shakespeare's works have been any the less if, instead of springing from Will's pen, they were written by an English nobleman, a renowned scientist, or by some jocular group of poets that gathered every night at the local ale house?

The only body of work more often quoted from than that of Shakespeare is the Bible in all its various names and forms. The salient feature of both of these literary treasures is that they continue to speak to us across the gulf of centuries because they illuminate the essence of human nature. Those who focus on their authorship simply miss the point.

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