[EWGB]

There is definitely something rotten but it can hardly be Shakespeare. Literature cannot be serious or entertaining. It either is literature or it is not. To entertain is also to write serious literature and this demands no smaller measure of talent. How could we possibly say that the writings of Jerome K. Jerome are not serious or have no literary merit?. Serious literature reflects talent. At the same time, we have to admit the fact that the publishing industry, like every industry (business) is not interested in the artistic qualities of literature but in the bottom line. What happens, however, when profit is the only or the most important criterion? If Shakespeare were alive today, he may have changed the central theme of Hamlet from "To be or not to be," to "To be or to have."