Author, Patrick Stewart and Claude Reach 77 Sonnets in 5-Month Shakespeare Project
Updated
Updated · NBC News · May 21
Author, Patrick Stewart and Claude Reach 77 Sonnets in 5-Month Shakespeare Project
2 articles · Updated · NBC News · May 21
Halfway through a 154-sonnet, five-month experiment, the author now reads one Shakespeare poem daily, listens to Patrick Stewart’s audiobook version and then discusses it with Anthropic’s Claude.
The routine began as a commuting meditation and a test of AI as a literary tutor, with Claude pushing the author to recite lines aloud and helping unpack Elizabethan vocabulary, themes and progress.
Stewart, 85, said the sonnets can provoke listeners to be more present, and argued Shakespeare might have judged time less harshly had he lived long enough to experience love’s “compound interest.”
The project frames AI less as a replacement for human interpretation than as a study aid alongside a veteran Shakespeare actor, with the author concluding that imperfect performance keeps the poems alive.
As AI deciphers Shakespeare's genius, are we enhancing our creativity or simply outsourcing human reflection?
Can AI tutors teach literary depth, or do they risk creating a generation of shallow thinkers?