Shakespeare : Sonnets In XML

A long long time ago I found Shakespeare in XML, by Jon Bosak, and I’ve quite literally carried it around with me ever since.  If you’re not a programming geek you may not know the value of XML, so let me try to explain.  XML is like a database inside a file – it is self describing of what’s in it.  So instead of this:

Act 1, Scene 1

SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.
    FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO
BERNARDO
    Who's there?

You get something more like this:

<Act>

<Title>Act 1</Title>

<Scene>

<Title>Scene 1</Title>

<Stagedir>Elsinore.  A platform before the castle … </Stagedir>

<Speech>

<Speaker>

<Name>Bernardo</Name>

</Speaker>

<Line>Who’s there?</Line>

</Speech>

…

Get the idea?  So if you’re a code geek you look at that and start seeing the logic you can apply, like “In Act #3 how many lines are there in all of the speeches spoken by Hamlet?” and it’s quite literally one or two lines of code.

Anyway, I never found the Sonnets in XML.  There’s one or two out there as examples of how to do XML, but I never found the whole set of 154, and I wanted it.

So I made it. 

It’s very basic, but it does what I need.  If others find it useful and make enhancements I’d appreciate hearing about it.

Enjoy!