CARL WOODRING is George Edward Woodberry Professor of Literature Emeritus at Columbia University. He is the author of such works as Nature Into Artand Politics in English Romantic Poetry,which won the Gauss Award.JAMES SHAPIRO is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He is author of Rival Playwrights: Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeareand Shakespeare and the Jews(Columbia, 1995).