following the advice given in Kiss Me Kate --<br >brushing up on their Shakespeare -- for quite<br >some time.<br > But Shakespeare s presence is also reflected ir<br >a number of other ways. Consider， for example，<br >the more than 800 operatic and symphonic com-<br >positions deriving from such plays as The Mer~<br >Wives of Windsor， The Taming of the Shrew， ar<br >OthJlo. Or Broadway musicals， such as The Bo:<br > ~ Syracuse (a take-off on The Comedy of<br > :) avd West Side Story {Leonard Bernstein<br > ~:ork gang-war updating of Romeo and<br > .. Or literary works such as William<br > ， aer s The Sound and the Fury， a sustained<br > ，:)n to Macbeth s "tomorrow and tomorrow<br > ，morrow" speech. Here in the United<br > ， Sl~akespeare has been part of our lives<br > !he earliest days of the republic -- even or<br > )r~ti~r， where spinoffs and parodies of<br > speare helped while away many an hour ir<br > nete，mth century. We ve all delighted in tl<br > red Shakespeare offered up by the Duke<br > :)e Eiag in Mark Twain s Huckleberry Fin~<br > s， numerous -- but not always sweet --<br > .es ot Shakespeare.<br > is there any reason to think that<br > spe~e s influence will be any less vital in<br > ture than in the past. In most of the couv<br > .ff the world， Shakespeare continues to ma<br > i~is position as the most frequently<br >;， ， :，~med playwright. Every summer in the<br >U~5~:，:d States， for example， Shakespeare festiw<br >highlight the vacation map from Maine to Texa<br >from Alabama to Oregon.<br > Ben Jonson was right， then， when he p~efacec<br >the first collected edition of Shakespeare ~ play<br >with the words "he was not of an age， bt~t for ."<br >