(2 of 2)
Andrews calls Rowse's Shakespeare the "Caliban" edition, after the half-man, half-brute in The Tempest. Maynard Mack, professor emeritus of English at Yale, tends to agree. Rowse's curious hybrid, Mack says, results in a "language that was never spoken by anyone—not by Shakespeare, not by us. People want the real thing. They don't want deodorized versions of the original. They read Shakespeare precisely because they realize that he belongs to a different world and time, and they want to taste and sense that time." Since last week marked the 420th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, perhaps the final word (excerpted from King Lear) should go to the Bard himself: "Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.'' —By Gerald Clarke. Reported by Melissa August/Washington