His plays, like Verdi's profoundest operas, blend history and national myth, statecraft and love.

ECONOMIST: Summer festivals

But perhaps the profoundest difficulty is that he nowhere considers history as a branch of literature: it must be a science or nothing.

ECONOMIST: Writing history

One of the group, a man with a silver ponytail trailing down his back, points out the sites of famous scenes from the programme in hushed tones of profoundest reverence.

BBC: The road to Hollywood, California