Came across a comment in Kenneth McLeish and Stephen Unwin's Faber Pocket Guide to Shakespeare's Plays (which is just excellent, by the way) that describes one of the essential qualities of Shakespeare's writing in a way so concise and accurate that it's worthy of its subject: "hardly a word is lazily used". Yup. That's exactly it. This thought comes the closest to describing one of the most enjoyable aspects of reading him - the fact that he can make even words or expressions with which we think we are familiar seem fresh and thought-provoking. It's that quality of poetry and/or art in general that Ezra Pound once described as "the combination of the obvious and the unexpected".

Anyway, I like not only the above comment but its context as well, so here's the whole passage: "His plays live not merely for the dazzle of the language - hardly a word is lazily used - or the dynamism and fascination of the story-telling, but for the way he roots profound moral, ethical and spiritual matters in every-day reality. Even in his most fantastical plays, real people, with all their contradictions, are placed in specific and meticulously-realized social worlds. Although some of the detail is now dead, the authenticity of those characters and those worlds remain: the plays provide images of truth. By constantly developing dramatic and dialectical opposites, Shakespeare creates the illusion of life stretching out in every direction".

Well said, chaps.