Author and critic Margaret Drabble explores how our concepts of love and humanity have been deepened by Shakespeare's poetry and how this continues to shape our imaginations. Show more

Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells argues that the Bard's varying portrayals of love and romance reflect the constant changes in his own emotional experiences. Show more

Actor and director Samuel West shares his own passion for Shakespeare and for his portrayal of love as neither good nor bad but strange and many-sided. Show more

Professor Helen Hackett argues Shakespeare's mastery of the sonnet takes us beyond poetic convention and beyond realism towards a higher truth about love. Show more

Writer and journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown reflects on Shakespeare's transgressive love - of rebellious couples reaching out to each other across ethnic and racial barriers. Show more