Shakespeare's career-long fascination with the Mediterranean made the association a natural one for this first World Shakespeare Congress of the Third Millennium. The plenary lectures and selected papers in this volume represent some of the best contemporary thought and writing on Shakespeare, in the ranging plenary lectures Jonathan Bate on Shakespeare's islands and the Muslim connection, Michael Coveney's on the late Sir John Gielgud, Robert Ellrodt's on Shakespeare's sonnets and Montaigne's essays, Stephen Orgel's on Shakespeare's own Shylock, and Marina Warner's on Shakespeare's fairy-tale uses of magic. Also included in the volume's several sections are original papers selected from special sessions and seminars by other distinguished writers, including Jean E. Howard, Gary Taylor, and Richard Wilson.