Three texts by the great Shakespearean Stephen Greenblatt on the significance and reception of Shakespeare today. In these short essays, Greenblatt reflects on the timeless relevance of Shakespeare's work and its ability to serve as a bridge between different cultures.

“We talk about Shakespeare's works,” says Greenblatt, “as if they steadfastly embody his original intentions; however, they continue to circulate precisely because they are subject to so many transformations. They left his world, passed into ours, and became part of us. And when we are gone, they will continue to exist, perhaps with some subtle touches from our own lives and our own destinies, and will become part of other people whom he could not have predicted and we can hardly imagine.”

The impetus for the first two texts was the organization of a conference on Shakespeare in Tehran in 2014 and the staging of the Shakespearean comedy Love's Labour's Lost in Kabul in 2005. In his third text, Greenblatt returns to The Merchant of Venice to reflect on the themes of xenophobia and anti-Semitism, longstanding negative legacies of Western culture, concluding with the observation that “the legacy left to us by Shakespeare offers us the opportunity to escape from the intellectual ghettos in which most of us live.”