OVERVIEW
Sylvia Eckersley, through decades of research of Shakespeare’s First Folio texts, became aware that the printed plays in the original 1623 edition contain a definite number structure. From these beginnings, she later went on to show that the number structure of a given play could also be rendered into a geometrical form, something like a geometric blueprint of the play. She called this geometrical form the play’s ‘Figure.’
“The figure is not just a pretty pattern: it is the beginning of another journey of exploration. By creating new relationships between moments in the time-stream, it confirms ideas that the numbered text - in which rhythms and symmetries are so clear - has already awakened.”
- Sylvia Eckersley, “The Shakespeare Figure”
This site is dedicated to archiving Eckersley’s writings, notes, and meticulously drawn figures to explore the hidden narrative that numbers and geometry reveal in Shakespeare’s work.