Of all the arguments against the teaching of Shakespeare in high schools, the one that is heard most frequently is probably its perceived lack of cultural relevancy. In other words, the belief goes, students of today will not be interested by characters and situations that took place 400 years ago. In my experience, the time gap is not a drawback - in fact, the opposite is true. Young people are aware of Shakespeare's place in literary history, and want to find out how he got there. Also, the characters don't see themselves as historical characters but as living beings - the same way that we do - and the astonishing amount of overlap that their experiences have with ours is a source of both learning and delight. "Poetry is the news that stays new," is how John Ciardi put it, and that won't change in the next 400 years either.