How Shakespeare Changed Everything.(Brief article)(Book review)

How Shakespeare Changed Everything

Stephen Marche. Harper, $21.99 (192p) ISBN 978-0-06-196553-1

According to novelist and Esquire columnist Marche, Shakespeare was "the most influential person who ever lived," and his works frame how we understand the world. Obama, for instance, obliquely and redemptively replayed the story of Othello in the 2008 election, and for many Americans, he is the noble Moor, a courageous, charismatic outsider. Actor John Wilkes Booth apparently borrowed heavily from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar for his theatrical assassination of Lincoln. Shakespeare enriched the English language by coining hundreds of words, like "assassination," "bandit," …