A Google search on the opening line of Shakespeare's 18th sonnet brings up almost 6,200 hits. Not all of these contain the entire sonnet, and I'm certainly not going to go through all those pages to find out how many do, but it's a fair guess that this immortal sonnet has been posted at least a few hundred times to the web (it is, after all, in the public domain). Long ago I debated with myself about whether or not to post a copy in these columns or simply link to one of the many pages that had already posted it. In the end I decided that the interests of inclusion took precedence over the interests of the logic of hypertext - a decision that I was never fully comfortable with - and a copy of the sonnet can be found in the Boidem.

But though a good argument can be made toward one central copy of Shakespeare to which anyone and everyone can link whenever they so choose, the hypertextual logic of such an approach seems to go against the decentralized nature of the internet. So what if we've cluttered the web with copy after copy of that sonnet. It's not as though we're running out of space. And each person who chooses to use that sonnet should also be able to place it within the context of his or her choice.