Shakespeare in 140 Characters

This year marks the 400 year celebration of one of Britain’s most famous playwrights, William Shakespeare. As part of paying homage, the Bodleian Libraries and TORCH have teamed up to run a ‘Shakespeare Play in a Tweet’ competition. The competition is open to all and those who enter are being invited to capture the spirit of their favourite Shakespeare play in a tweet.

Using the hashtag #OxBard on twitter, users are invited to convey the sentiment of a Shakespeare play in just one tweet. As English students will be familiar, one of Shakespeare’s most famous quotations is ‘brevity is the soul of wit’ – and this competition puts that to the test! Linguistics students should explore the link between humour and linguistics in Shakespeare’s plays – notably how his play on words frequently entailed an innuendo.

The competition will be judged by Elleke Boehmer (Professor of World Literature and Director of TORCH, University of Oxford), Richard Ovenden (Bodley’s Librarian, University of Oxford) and Emma Smith (Professor of Shakespeare Studies, University of Oxford). Submissions are being taken until Saturday 7^th May.

Full details about the competition can also be found on the University of Oxford’s website.