allan bloom, 1964: "shakespeare devotes great care to establishing the political setting in almost all his plays, and his greatest heroes are rulers who exercise capacities which can only be exercised within civil society. to neglect this is simply to be blinded by the brilliance of one's own prejudices. as soon as one sees this, one cannot help asking what shakespeare thought about a good regime and a good ruler." on his "shakespeare's politics" (with harry v. jaffa).