In yesterday's post, I mentioned that a very important aspect of Shakespeare is the fact that the work has been both inspirational and educational to other writers. Not only the plays, but also the careers that allowed them to be written (by which I mean those of Shakespeare and his colleagues) are now touchstones for anyone involved with literature. Sometimes, it takes only a few well-chosen words to conjure up images of the Globe, the actors, the audience, which continue to symbolize human aspiration for truth, art and betterment of thinking. Here's an example from Auden's 1949 poem, "Memorial for the City":

Saints tamed, poets acclaimed the raging Herod of the will;

The groundlings wept as on a secular stage

The grand and the bad went to ruin in thundering verse;

Sundered by reason and treason the City

Found invisible ground for concord in measured sound,

While wood and stone learned the shameless

Games of man, to flatter, to show off, be pompous, to romp...

I wish I could find a link to the poem in its entirety; it's as powerful as this excerpt would suggest.