Two dramatists, one world apart

Despite the numerous parallels between William Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu, it's hard to mask their literary and cultural differences

Tang Xianzu and William Shakespeare were contemporaries and both masters of their craft, who coincidentally died in the same year.

Scholars who specialize either in Tang or Shakespeare are having a field day looking for similarities between the two as the anniversaries of their deaths are marked in the United Kingdom, China and around the globe.