Happy 451st Birthday, William Shakespeare!

Image from the Westerly (RI) Public Library 

For Shakespeare's 451st birthday (maybe), here's the author of Fahrenheit 451 on Shakespeare and Melville:

Think of Shakespeare and Melville and you think of thunder, lightning, wind. They all knew the joy of creating in large or small forms, on unlimited or restricted canvasses. These are the children of the gods. . . . No matter if creation came hard here and there along the way, or what illnesses and tragedies touched their most private lives. The important things are those passed down to us from their hands and minds and these are full to bursting with animal vigor and intellectual vitality. Their hatreds and despairs were reported with a kind of love. 

Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing