The Premise
We’re going to be taking a totally
random line from Shakespeare on a daily basis and spend a little time with it; maybe
analyze it, maybe contextualize it, maybe relate it to the day we're in, maybe look at the language, or maybe a little of everything. One way or the other though, we’ll try to have a little fun
with it. After all, Will seems like he must've been a pretty fun guy.
Our source is a modern compilation, The Complete Works of
William Shakespeare. And it is complete, including Will’s poems and sonnets. I’ve worked
out a formula to reach a random page and line in the book. For the most part, when
picking out these lines I’ll try to take complete sentences or thoughts even if
it means spanning two or more lines.
Keeping in mind that this is completely random, I’m going to
be getting a lot of, well, random stuff here. And most of it will be as new to me as
it is to you. In fact, I’d be pretty surprised if we get any of the famous
lines at all (Brave new world, To be or not to be, Sound and the fury, Band of
brothers, One fell swoop, Pound of flesh, etc, etc, etc) and I’ll be pretty
excited if/when I get to something that I even actually know at all.
There are 1,252 pages in the compilation I’m using, with
over 100 lines per page, so that works out to about 342 years of material. I
guess we shouldn’t be running out any time soon. Finally, I should point out that I'm doing this totally for my own benefit, not yours. If someone out there gets something out of it, great. In the meantime, I'm hoping to have some fun.
Ready? Let’s begin.
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