Abraham Lincoln was not only

Abraham Lincoln was not only a reader of Shakespeare’s plays, he was an avid fan and student of them. In an unjustly ridiculed letter to a Shakespearean actor Lincoln stated that his favorite of the plays was Macbeth. Knowing that it was his favorite play is reason enough to reread it, but Theodore Dalrymple’s account of the play conveys a sense of why it might have been his favorite. Dalrymple is a British physician and brilliant essayist; his essay appears in the new issue of City Journal, the quarterly publication of the Manhattan Institute. The essay is worthy of being printed out and read at your leisure: “Why Shakespeare is for all time.”