THE BOOK OF WILL

This was a race against time. It was 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death. The golden generation of English drama had nearly faded, with Ben Jonson standing as one of its last prominent figures, and in the King’s Men, just a handful of Shakespeare’s original companions endured -actor Henry, manager John, and the star Burbage, among a few others.

Meanwhile, other profit-driven theater companies and unscrupulous, publishers like Jaggard, unrestrained by copyright, flooded the stage with pirated versions of Shakespeare’s works. The audiences couldn’t distinguish real from fake, accepting whatever was presented. These old guards of a bygone era were unwilling to let their lives, filled with sound and fury, fall into silence.

Why not find a way to make those fleeting words on stage eternal? And so, they decided to attempt a grand feat: to publish Shakespeare’s collected plays, printed in folio. At that time, in a largely illiterate England, only the Bible held such an honor. This group of idealistic artists, in a society rife with mediocrity, self-interest, and chaos, pursued something profoundly opposed to the mainstream values of their time. They didn’t know if their actions were worthwhile or even meaningful. But today, we know what their sacrifice achieved, this is an ode to Shakespeare, spanning four hundred years.