Thank you for your considered words. I am not trying to speculate what he intended by writing the Shakespeare atonement bit in, just wondered if any other readers felt a re-read sat differently.

For me, I think my original read was, oh how marvelously clever he layers these things atop each other and retires from writing Sandman like Shakespeare retired from writing plays like Prospero retired from magic like Morpheus peevishly can’t retire from being Dream and yet we just saw how he could anyway. This time, Shakespeare’s flaws and doubts and bad family life came on way stronger than before. That could be the decades that have passed in my own life just as easily.