N., I remember you saying that if you couldn’t rival Shakespeare, you should give up writing. If all writers felt that way, English literature would have ended with Shakespeare—or Chaucer—or the Beowulf poet. Virgil would have put his stylus away after reading Homer.
In the Middle Ages, some thought of it this way:
“Who sees further a dwarf or a giant? Surely a giant for his eyes are situated at a higher level than those of the dwarf. But if the dwarf is placed on the shoulders of the giant who sees further? ... So too we are dwarfs astride the shoulders of giants. We master their wisdom and move beyond it.”
To Nemo’s advice, let me add that most people born 400 years ago had very limited horizons. Judging from my family tree, I probably would have been an illiterate farmer with no room in my head for anything poetic. Be glad that you live in a time when you can grow in so many directions—including back to Elizabethan poetry.
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