[Shakespeare] was a fecund genius, full of vigor, ranging from simple naturalness to the sublime, without the least glimmer of taste or the slightest knowledge of the rules. I am going to tell you something rash, but true: the greatness of Shakespeare has been the ruin of the English stage. There are such beautiful scenes, such grand and terrible passages scattered throughout those monstrous farces of his called tragedies, that these plays have always been put on with great success. Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, in the end makes their faults respectable.

—Voltaire, Philosophical Letters