In order to be considered "great," a person must make one or more significant contributions to society. Whether it be Jonas Salk's discovery of a vaccine to prevent polio or Michael Jordan's remarkable basketball career, each of these men could be considered to fit into this category. There is general consensus that William Shakespeare is the greatest playwright of all time ("William" 268). In The Complete Idiot's Guide to Shakespeare, Laurie Rozakis noted that "in Shakespeare's hands, words are the stuff of magic" (49). Shakespeare created language, both words and phrases, that were unique in their day and stood the test of time. The recognition of Shakespeare's worth has come from a variety of sources. In his Pulitzer Prize biography, John Adams, David McCullough relates President Adams' erudite nature and his love of reading philosophy in the original Greek and Latin, but he notes that "in his need to fathom...