Until the very day of his mental breakdown in Turin in 1889, Nietzsche saw himself as playing not only Shakespeare’s characters, but Shakespeare himself. Central Nietzschean concepts—perspectivism and the genealogy of morals among them—emerged from this sustained attempt to become Shakespeare. In turn, a major vein of moral relativism in modern literature and philosophy—a relativism that continues to shape contemporary secular culture—stems from Nietzsche’s reading of Shakespeare and the literary techniques he developed to mask himself as the Bard.

— Andrew Lanham