f the stage, William Henry was forced to confess to the forgeries of Shakespeare in 1796 (Kahan 204). He published manyconfessions. He also went on to write other books under a pseudonym, but was never able to achieve the fame that he wanted.What is it about Shakespeare that makes people cling to the thought of his greatness? Even Hollywood seems to hold him up as an amazing person. The movie Shakespeare in Love shows him as a romantic struggling with writer’s block until a beautiful girl of noble blood comes into his life. It shows him as being Romeo while Viola is his Juliet and all the while he is writing the play. It does show his flaws but only to add to the drama of the plot of this movie. When I graduated from high school, I received a book called Lessons on Living From Shakespeare edited by Michael Macrone. It is filled with lines from the plays and sonnets that are supposed to help people cope witheveryday life and the difficulties they face. They have turned Shakespeare into a psychiatrist. The love affair with Shakespeare, or the myth of Shakespeare, has to be that people want to believe that someone who came for so little could actually achieve such great success.Shakespeare’s life, work and controversies cometogether to form our beliefs of who this great writerreally was. It does not seem to matter when thecontroversies are brought up or the fact that we know so little about him. People still love the man who canentertain them almost four thousand years after his death. And he will always remain on that pedestal that he was placed on all of those years ago....
