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| A flash essay by Charles Bane Jr. |
I once sat beside a dinner guest, an attorney, who, hearing that I was a poet, spent the evening explaining carefully why Shakespeare was a lawyer, who happened to write plays and sonnets.
This is a tribute to Shakespeare, who inhabited every soul's shoes, but it also underlines the profound difference between our times and the Bard's, when everyone had a general knowledge of law — for their safety's sake — and it further adds to our understanding that Shakespeare — very unlike most his fellow actors — and unlike poets even today, was a businessman determined to prosper, even while giving reign to his genius.
