Bard Chart of the Day

Shakespeare took his last breath 396 years ago today -- but did we ever really lose him? Esquire columnist Stephen Marche, author of How Shakespeare Changed Everything, gives us a little perspective:

"Shakespeare is the foremost poet in the world. All of the scriptwriting books cite him as the dominant influence on Hollywood. He has had more influence on the novel than any novelist. The greater the artist, the more he or she was influenced by Shakespeare. Dickens and Keats were more inspired by Shakespeare than anybody, and their familiarity with Shakespeare seems to have made them more original, not less."

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