***
The four hundredth anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death is coming up in a few years. Four hundred years, and for most of that time his writings have been understood as one of the great treasures of the English language. How would you cope with such a broad and well-covered topic in a week (all the time I have)? I plan to approach the bard from two related directions. First I will discuss the technology that gave us Shakespeare. As a manufacture of the handpress period, his work is inherently troublesome and open to interpretation (if not outright change). Second, I will suggest that Shakespeare has achieved unparalleled status as a social construct that is both passed down and remade by every generation. How we refashion the bard says much about who we are.