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WELLESLEY,
Mass. -- They had the stamina - the passion - and the "Will"
to succeed. Wellesley College will go down in history as
having read the entire works of William Shakespeare - unabridged
- in less than 24 hours.
"We
read all 39 plays and all 154 sonnets and all five narrative
poems, and we did so in 22 hours and 5 minutes, finishing
at 3:21 pm, having started at sundown the day before, which
was 5:16," said organizer Maggie O'Grady of Yonkers, N.Y.,
a Wellesley senior and member of the college's Shakespeare
Society.
At
the conclusion of the marathon, O'Grady, who had not slept
since the contest began, proclaimed, "I am thus quite delirious."
But for the Bard-loving Shakespeare Society, it was all
worth it.
"We're
excited and very tired," she said. The event ended with
the reading of "Hamlet," an intense conclusion to the 24
hours of non-stop Shakespeare. "It was really magnificent
and very, very dramatic," O'Grady said.
Knowing
the job was bigger than the 31-member society itself, the
Shakespeare aficionados are asked for help to achieve their
goal, and more than 150 people from the college and community
helped to read aloud the plays, poetry and sonnets that
comprise Shakespeare's canon. The event took place from
Sunday, Feb. 15, from 5 pm through Monday, Feb. 16, ending
just before 3:30 pm.
The
marathon took place in several rooms of the Shakespeare
House, which houses the members of the society, a mainstay
among student groups at Wellesley since 1878.
Since
1875, Wellesley College has been a leader in providing an
excellent liberal-arts education for women who will make
a difference in the world. Its 500-acre campus near Boston
is home to 2,300 undergraduate students from all 50 states
and 68 countries.
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