Lipton’s Journal/February 22, 1955/677

Shakespeare is the decadent genius of the Elizabethan period. All geniuses anticipate the decadence to come, and yet retain the vigor of the Make-Give era, the expansive era in which they live and work—they cast forward into the decadence which will follow much to Enter and much to Take. It is therefore so fitting, since the decadent genius always casts a multiple set of interpretations that Shakespeare’s name has so many spellings and his identity, his legitimacy, are in question.