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Inheritors of the cult: Why we’re still obsessed with Shakespeare Time, it has been said, is the king of men: “He’s both their parent, and he is their grave, / And gives them what he will, not what they (1)______”. Those lines, culled ruthlessly from Pericles, show Shakespeare at his most epigrammatic; the neatness of the rhyme, the apparently selfcontained couplet’s-worth of wisdom, seem to encourage such ruthless culling. It’s also, at least in appearance, a moment of writerly (2)______ – that “will” serving as a reminder of the will of the writer, or of Will the writer. If time’s the ruler of men, then the playwright is no exception. But time’s not been too harsh on Shakespeare, who remains central to the English literary canon. For 400 years his influence has evolved, but never been threatened by disappearance, and his work remains a kind of proving (3)_____ for English literary criticism, exemplifying the patterns and problems that shape the discipline at large.
Fill in gap (2) with the appropriate word.