Imagine if the majority of
Shakespeare’s plays and poetry had disappeared long ago. It’s not a far-fetched proposition, when you
think about it; all of Shakespeare’s personal writing and manuscripts are
missing, and several of the plays are missing (Cardenio, Love’s
Labors Found, etc). However, a few
scraps would inevitably survive as references in noblemen’s letters, maybe a
page or two of Hamlet on a quarto used for wrapping paper, or the odd
actor’s prompt. Imagine that all we had
of the famous Sonnet 18 were the following lines:
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
Thou art more lovely
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
too short a date:
every fair from fair
summer shall not fade
fair thou ow'st;
or eyes can see,
So long lives this
every fair from fair
summer shall not fade
fair thou ow'st;
or eyes can see,
So long lives this
