A BRAHAM LINCOLN spent no more than six months in school, but he knew Shakespeare's plays intimately and often recited favourite passages by heart. Befitting a president who waged a devastating war, Lincoln was drawn to the speeches of leaders under strain-particularly Macbeth-for the way they expressed nuanced feelings of guilt and grief. Yet the poet who was such a comfort to Lincoln may have also inspired his killer. John Wilkes Booth was an actor, and partial to Shakespeare's dark men of action, particularly those less inclined to introspection. In a letter defending his assassination of the president, Booth compared himself to Shakespeare's Brutus, who stabs the tyrannical Caesar out of "his love of Rome". For James Shapiro, a leading Shakespeare scholar and author of "Shakespeare in a Divided America", this story captures the profound role the Bard has long played in helping Americans grapple with their evolving republic. The Founding Fathers looked to him for insight into treachery, sedition and political rebellion. Alexis de Tocqueville noticed in the early 19th century that there was "hardly a pioneer's hut" without a few volumes of the plays. It may seem odd that a country founded by theatre-averse Puritans and anti-British revolutionaries would embrace an English playwright. Yet many of the issues that preoccupied Shakespeare in the late 16th century-"the dangers of autocratic rule; the imagined threat posed by those of different races, religions or nationalities; the slippery boundaries of gender"-haunted Americans centuries later, and do still.
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机译：布拉汉姆·林肯（BRAHAM LINCOLN）在学校的学习时间不超过六个月，但他知道莎士比亚的戏剧非常亲密，并且经常记着自己喜欢的段落。林肯正好适合发动一场毁灭性战争的总统，因此受到领导们（尤其是麦克白）在紧张气氛下的讲话的吸引，因为他们表达了细微的罪恶感和悲痛感。然而，对林肯如此宽慰的诗人也可能激发了他的杀手。约翰·威尔克斯·布斯（John Wilkes Booth）是一位演员，并且偏爱莎士比亚的黑暗行动人物，尤其是那些不愿自省的人。在为捍卫总统被暗杀辩护的一封信中，布斯将自己比作莎士比亚的布鲁图斯，后者将暴虐的es撒从“他对罗马的热爱”中tab了出来。对于詹姆斯·沙皮罗（James Shapiro）来说，这是莎士比亚的主要学者和《分裂的莎士比亚》的作者，这个故事抓住了巴德长期以来在帮助美国人努力应对不断发展的共和国中所发挥的深远作用。开国元勋们向他求助，以了解叛逆，煽动叛乱和政治叛乱。亚历克西斯·德·托克维尔（Alexis de Tocqueville）在19世纪初注意到，没有几本戏曲就“几乎没有开拓者的小屋”。由反对戏剧的清教徒和反英革命者建立的国家会接受英国剧作家，这似乎很奇怪。然而，许多问题早在16世纪末就成为莎士比亚所关注的话题：“专制统治的危险;不同种族，宗教或国籍的人所构想的威胁;性别界限的滑坡”困扰着数百年后的美国人，而且仍然存在。
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