BOC: "World Without End" and Shakespeare

[Warrick Bell]

Just some information I came across:

Watching the Kenneth Branagh version of Love's Labour's Lost a few days ago
mt ears perked up as someone uttered the phrase "world without end."  I had
forgotten that this line was in the play, though it appears as
"world-without-end" in the text as written.

Doing a quick web search reveals that Shakespeare used this same line on at
least one other occasion, in Sonnet 57.

Both texts are available online, at
http://absoluteshakespeare.com/plays/loves_labours_lost/a5s2_3.htm

and

http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/57comm.htm

The Sonnet page is an analysis of the poem and includes this breakdown:

        world without end hour = the everlasting, seemingly endless hours. There is an
        echo of the formulaic prayer:
                Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was
                in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Warrick Bell
<wjbell at mail2.gis.net>

"Census Makes Gains in Reducing Number of People Not Counted"
                                --New York Times, 14 February 2001