skye xoxo

“We are consistently encouraged to believe Shakespeare the supreme example of what Keats called “negative capability,” that is, a man who appeared to hold no firm opinions or set beliefs, who lived in doubt and in a hundred personas, whose empathy for others was limitless, who is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere in his famous plays, like a gnomic god. Now, another way to think about this is that Shakespeare’s ego was so very insatiable he thought he could speak for everybody: a black duke, a transvestite girl, a carefree prince, a mad king. But we tend not to think of it that way, instead we consider Shakespeare’s breed of impersonality among the highest literary virtues.”