Week 6 Response: Shakespeare through Text Messaging

In light of this week’s class trip to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library and viewing the exhibition of Shakespeare’s plays from its earliest printings to recently published material; had me thinking of other ways in which his life’s work has been reinterpreted and transformed, according to how we communicate as a society in the 21^st century. Brett Wright's book, YOLO Juliet – also available in eBook format – is an innovative and perhaps even radical example of experimenting with page design and in reading Shakespeare’s plays. Whether in print or eBook, the purpose and design of the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet in YOLO Juliet is meant to be read in text messaging format.

Screenshot of YOLO Juliet, from the Toronto Public Library.

Containing a combination of shorthand, emoticons, long sentences and more, Wright’s book is a modern day interpretation of Romeo and Juliet played out in text messages. The screenshot of the eBook from the Toronto Public Library, shows how Shakespeare’s work has been modernized to reach a younger demographic of readers. Viewing YOLO Juliet as an eBook, gives the feeling as though you are actually scrolling through text messages, thus breaking the barrier of the experience in “turning” the pages of a digital book.

Although it’s meant to be fun and interesting, people might raise questions on whether it depreciates the old text, while others might think it’s another way of paying homage to this classic star-crossed tale. But regardless, it cannot be denied that YOLO Juliet is a perfect example that takes today’s societal obsessions and usage of social media, and is embodied within a book; physically and digitally.

YOLO Juliet is part of the OMG Shakespeare Series under Penguin Random House, where it has also published the following plays as text messages: Macbeth #killingit, A Midsummer Night #nofilter and srsly Hamlet (Penguin Random House, 2016). 

(Also if interested, The Digital Reader had discussed about YOLO Juliet here.)

- Raquel

Sources & Image:

Hoffelder, N. (2015, June 14). YOLO Juliet Improves on Shakespeare By Adding TextSpeak [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/06/14/yolo-juliet-improves-on-shakespeare-by-adding-textspeak/

OverDrive. (2016). Sample. YOLO Juliet. Retrieved from 

https://sample-e57f458a250f293e85ebdf5e54406f9f.read.overdrive.com/?p=yolo-juliet 

Penguin Random House. (2016). OMG Shakespeare Series. Retrieved from http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/OGS/omg-shakespeare

Toronto Public Library. (2016). YOLO Juliet. Retrieved from http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM3318681&R=3318681