History of the Shakespeare authorship question theatre audiences, and Shakespeare's status as a "great writer" shifted. Dryden's sentiments about Shakespeare's matchless genius were echoed without a break by unstinting praise from writers throughout the 18th century. Shakespeare was described as a genius who needed no learning, was deeply original, and unique in creating realistic and individual characters (see Timeline of Shakespeare criticism). The phenomenon continued during the Romantic era, when Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, William Hazlitt, and others all described Shakespeare as a transcendent genius. By the beginning of the 19th century Bardolatry was in full swing and Shakespeare was universally celebrated as an unschooled
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) (Reed Martin) reminding the audience not to record the show, the second (Austin Tichenor) giving a speech about how unappreciated William Shakespeare is and the third (Adam Long) giving a biography of Shakespeare mixed up with a biography of Adolf Hitler. They begin with a parody of "Romeo and Juliet". Next, they do a parody of "Titus Andronicus", portraying it as a cooking show. Following it is "Othello", which is done through a rap song. The rest of the first act demonstrates most of the other plays. All the comedies are combined into one convoluted reading (the justification being that