I ended my December 24, 2010 post with the following: "And so the question remains: What is the proper stance for a writer to take vis a vis Shakespeare?" The subject of the post was Frank Kermode's The Age of Shakespeare (2004), and more specifically his statement that his admiration for the playwright, though great, was, like Ben Jonson's, "this side idolatry". A critic who is very much on the other side of the fence, a "proud bardolater", is Harold Bloom, the renowned Yale professor and literary critic. And recently, in having another look at his Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1998) I came across the following answer to the question above (and in my opinion, the definitive one):

"Literary transcendence is now out of fashion, but Shakespeare so transcends his fellow playwrights that critical absurdity hovers near when we seek to confine Shakespeare to his time, place, and profession. These days, critics do not like to begin by standing in awe of Shakespeare, but I know of no other way to begin with him. Wonder, gratitude, shock, amazement are the accurate responses out of which one has to work."