John Dryden achieved no small feat in having the politically tumultuous period of the mid- to late-17th century now referred to – not without disputation, and admittedly only in literary circles, and admittedly not a great deal more these days – as the Age of Dryden. This phrase

Sir John Vanbrugh approached everything he did with audacity. The fact that he shifted in midlife from literature to architecture is proof enough of this boldness. But the plays were in themselves daring and controversial, while the architecture challenged the norms of the day. Clearly, it was not

To speak of William Shakespeare is to speak of the infinite. Perhaps no other writer in history has mapped the human heart as thoroughly, as profoundly, as Shakespeare did. Even 400 years after his death, he lives on as we reinterpret his work, easily translating his words into contemporary contex