Why Open Shakespeare?
If you type ‘Shakespeare’ into Google you find thousands of websites, so why do we need another? First off, unlike most other sites, everything you find here is open – that is you’re free to use, reuse, and redistribute it without any need to seek permission.
However, more importantly, this website is only a small part of what we’re about. It serves to demonstrate what you can do with the Open Shakespeare package – a set of material and tools for exploring Shakespeare’s life and work. The website demonstrates a few of the ways in which the Open Shakespeare package can be used. We actively encourage you to take and modify it to do things we haven’t yet done – or even thought of! Some suggestions:
- Line by line comparisons of different Shakespeare editions – scholars have spent years poring over the different Folios, now its your turn!
- Our statistics are crude and simple. Maybe you’d like to look at the average length of minor characters speeches in the comedies, or simply find the texts in which ‘love’ and ‘death’ are mentioned the most.
- Produce your own critical edition: annotate and edit a play as you see fit, not Arden!
- Search for secret messages that show that Shakespeare was really Ben Jonson (or even Walter Raleigh!) …
Who are we?
This project was created by the Open Knowledge Foundation with the help of some dedicated volunteers including:
- Rufus Pollock
- Iain Emsley
- Jonathan Gray
- Colette Sensier
- Nika Engberg
- Adam Green
- Lottie Fenby
- Your name here – see below…
Get Involved
Anyone can participate in the ${c.site_title} project – including you! For example you could:
- Publicise the project to other communities, such as scholars and educators, to whom it would be of benefit.
- Proof-edit and format texts.
- Find related open material related which we can use. For example, texts of alternative editions, images, etc.
- Develop your own web application or open knowledge package using the material and tools ${c.site_title} makes available.
Just get in touch and we’ll find you something to match your interests and availability.
Comments
If digging around in old texts isn’t for you (and we know it isn’t for everyone!) we’d still love to hear any comments you have. Just drop us a line at info [at] okfn [dot] org.
Donate
If you’re feeling generous, why not make a small donation to help us pay hosting costs (we’re a not-for-profit and everything we do is provided openly and for free).
License
All the material produced by the ${c.site_title} project including all the content on this site is available under open licenses. Specifically all code is licensed under the MIT License and all content and data is available under a CC Attribution License. More details, including some exceptions relating to public domain items, can be found in the COPYING and AUTHORS files.
An
